Continuing our republished series, “A Question of Royston”, covering the little-known history of Royston, as written by the late Councillor F John Smith (1932-2021).
They go under different names in different parts of the country and the spelling is probably variable but what do you understand by “Twitchells”?
There are plenty of them in the older parts of the centre of Royston. They are the narrow spaces (I won’t call them passages) between adjacent buildings.
Nowadays new buildings usually are built with no spaces between them but that often did not happen in the past. I suppose the idea may have been to prevent fire spreading from one building to its neighbours. At any rate you can see examples in King Street, Kneesworth Street and even High Street, such as between the Old Bull and the Chequers. Often the roof of one of a pair of adjoining buildings may cover the twitchell – a boon to nesting pigeons!
Of course, there are plenty of properties that butt their next-door buildings. In fact, it was said that at one time it was possible to pass through the roof spaces from the top of the High Street (west side) down to the cross. Now of course that could not be done, since wider passages such as George Lane would have made it impossible, but no doubt there was a grain of truth in the claim, at least in the tudor-style houses at the very top of the street.
You can find out more about Royston’s history in the book “A Royston Miscellany” by F John Smith, available to borrow or reference in Royston Library
You can find out more about Royston’s history in the book “A Royston Miscellany” by F John Smith, available to borrow or reference in Royston Library
