Hole in the Wall Street and Pepper Lane, Caernarfon
Hole in the Wall Street runs inside the old town walls and continues as Pepper Lane on the other side of Porth Mawr, the central gatehouse. The 1610 map of Caernarfon by John Speed refers to both as Pepper Lane, which may have been named after someone called Pepper.
Caernarfon Castle and adjoining part of town walls, 1742
Courtesy British Library, shelfmark Maps K.Top.46.45.d
Hole in the Wall (‘Twll yn y Wal’ in Welsh) probably refers to a feature between the end of the street and the castle. Caernarfon’s defensive town walls originally joined on to the castle, as you can see on the right-hand side of the 1742 drawing from the British Library.
The 18th-century drawing below, courtesy of the National Library of Wales, shows how the wall was complete from the castle to Porth Mawr. The now missing section of wall may have featured a postern gate, a small subsidiary to the heavily defended main gates into the walled town (a town-wall postern gate survives near Conwy Castle). This might have been the original ‘hole in the wall’.
Demolition of the wall adjoining Caernarfon Castle opened a large ‘hole in the wall’. The breach is first shown on a 1770 map of the town and the name Hole in the Wall Street was adopted afterwards.
Stories from the street:
A Roman urn, containing ashes, was discovered by workmen in 1875 while extending one of the commercial buildings in Hole in the Wall Street.
In 1873 c.20 residents of Hole in the Wall Street asked magistrates to stop Elizabeth Edwards using her house in the street as a brothel. They were suffering frequent disturbance from her and the people who frequented her house, a stone’s throw from the police station. The deputy chief constable said the police continually received complaints about her. Elizabeth was deaf. Her sister, speaking in court on her behalf, claimed there was animosity against her because she was getting more customers than others, but the magistrates issued a warning and fined her 10s.
With thanks to Caernarfon Civic Society
Postcode: LL55 1RF