Gloucester Abbey, Hare Lane suburb, Alvin Gate, gates, Twyver, Ladycroft
Hare Lane, tannery area, Alvin Gate
Development beyond the town's inner defences in late Anglo-Saxon times had apparently been confined to the north side. The Hare Lane suburb, on the route leading out to the royal palace at Kingsholm and to Tewkesbury, comprised three parallel lanes, Hare Lane, Back Hare Lane (later Park Street), and, some way to the west, the vanished Bride Lane. Part of that suburb lay in St. Oswald's (later St. Catherine's) parish and some of the 60 houses held c. 1100 by the archbishop of York in right of St. Oswald's minster were probably there. Most of the St. Oswald's property, however, lay along Watering (later St. Catherine) Street, which ran from the blind gate near the minster round to Alvin gate at the head of Hare Lane. Watering Street took its name from a place called the Wateringstead, which was situated on the Old Severn and was being used in the mid 14th century by townspeople for collecting water from the river. In 1536 the St. Oswald's property in the northern suburbs comprised 28 houses and 6 cottages in Watering Street, 8 houses or cottages in Hare Lane, 6 cottages or houses in the street (later Pitt Street) which ran along the north wall of the abbey precinct, and a number of gardens, probably once the site of dwellings, in Hare Lane, Bride Lane, and on the Tewkesbury road just beyond Alvin gate. On the London road another suburb, still described by that term in the 14th century, stretched out beyond the inner north gate to the outer gate on the Twyver; it, too, seems to have been a pre-Conquest development.
Gloucester: Street names
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/glos/vol4/pp364-368 .
