A Quest for Huntingdon’s Synagogue (Part 4) Has Mark Harris found the town’s medieval mikveh?
In the last article on my now 18-month “Quest” to discover the precise location of Huntingdon’s medieval synagogue, I referred to the content of certain excavation reports relating to, and my viewing of certain archaeological finds revealed during, a predevelopment monitoring dig to the rear of 151 High Street and a short distance to the east of St Clement’s Passage, formerly known as “Mutton Lane” or “Mutton Alley” (see Parts 1, 2 and 3 of my “Quest” saga, published in the 2012 Pesach, Rosh Hashanah and Chanukah issues of the CTJC Bulletin. They can also be read online at www.ctjc.org.uk). Most notable amongst the artefacts provided by the Cambridgeshire Historic Excavation Team for my inspection at Castle Court, in Cambridge’s Shire Hall complex, were: (1) a largish and quite heavy “brick” of medieval stone, which the excavation report indicated as deriving from the wall of a building that may have stood somewhere in close proximity to the find-site; and (2) a substantial, complete and attractively formed Lyvedon pottery jug. The ceramic was dated from mid-13th to mid-14th centuries, and was found resting horizontally in the nearest of three dig trenches to St Clement’s Passage. As I detected from previous researches into medieval English synagogues, stonework can be a useful pointer to the former existence of a sturdy edifice accommodating a Jewish place of worship. Stone town buildings, other than churches, were fairly uncommon in the early Middle-Ages. The material was extremely expensive and very difficult to shape. My recent research had focused initially on seeking to discover a plan of medieval Huntingdon, or, at least, a chart that critically pre-dated Speed’s map of 1610. As a lawyer, I considered that maps, plans, charts or drawings of a town could form part of the pleadings in property litigation. After some delving, I turned up an early 16th century suit by Huntingdon and Godmanchester against the Abbot of Ramsey Abbey for damaging the River Ouse to the complainants’ detriment. My information intimated that a map, prepared in 1514 for the court case, had become detached from the pleadings. So I sought the advice of Caroline Clifford, the very helpful Local Studies Librarian at Huntingdon Library and Archives. Although unlikely that an early 16th century map would assist materially with my hunt for the site of medieval Huntingdon’s synagogue (which was burned out by a mob in the late 1280s), I learned that a copy of the old map had been deposited in the Archives
10