TUCKED away between the back doors of Cheap Street and King Street lies a very narrow and little-known passageway known as Apple Alley, part of the medieval street pattern of the town with buildings surviving from the 16th century.
Like many an old street the frontages are subject to alteration as they are adapted to a change of use or fashion but the backs are often left alone and ignored providing us with a better idea of a building’s history.
The footpath has had a number of names in its long history including, ‘Leg of Mutton Lane’ in the 1840s, a reference to the shape of a block of buildings at the King Street end, ‘Back Lane’ in the 1880s for reasons which will be obvious and ‘Apple Lane’ is shown clearly on the 1774 map of the town running from the Market Place to what is now King Street.
It is roughly paved with crazy paving style sandstone slabs, some with a wavy pattern indicating that they were once part of a sandy shore millions of years ago. It is possible that some of them may have come from floors of buildings demolished in around 1810 when Bath Street was cut, others match those quarried at Marston.
Road surface levels tend to rise at roughly a foot per century as they are resurfaced and repaired and in Apple Alley there is a good example of this were the old back door of 4 Cheap Street is at least two feet below the stone paving. This particular building has a very impressive double jetty, a building technique which allowed the upper stories to project out over the ground floor thus providing more surface area without taking up more space on the ground and in use from the 14th until the 17th centuries. A very useful system in a confined space or where land was expensive. Imagine what delights could be exposed were the render to be stripped away and its timber framing revealed; it is now a Grade II * listed building.
The rear of 6 Cheap Street has an original pigeon loft high up in the wall; these were used to provide meat for the table and have rarely survived in towns. They are now blocked off with netting to – keep the pigeons out, with limited success!
Moving on to No.8 there is a well-preserved turret type structure containing a late 17th century winding staircase. Nos 9,10 & 17 were the subject of a major fire in 1923 and partly rebuilt in an industrial red brick.
The historical importance of this ancient thoroughfare was recognised in the mid 1990s and a grant of £46,000 was obtained from the Heritage Lottery Fund, Frome Town Council, Somerset County Council and Mendip for repairs to paving and lighting. The work was carried out in 1998 and the situation much improved, but the pressures of modern living have not improved things with the area jammed with massive dustbins and pigeon netting and spikes over the windows. Banks of air conditioning units disfigure the walls along with the inevitable graffiti. The attractive carved sign at the entrance now has traces of woodworm. Nonetheless to is worth a small diversion from the Market Place to get something of the feel of an ancient street.
Mick Davis