Visitors to the town seem to have a fascination with the alleyways that abound between the High Street, Middle Wall and Island Wall. This has been perpetuated by articles in newpapers such as the Guardian extolling the charms of the town. Who can resist the chance to walk through 'Squeeze Gut Alley' or puzzle at the naming of 'Collars Alley'?

To understand their existence you have to look back to the early days of the town's development. Picture four converging lines made up by, from the bottom, the High Street where people shopped. Next Middle Wall, then Island Wall. These were the residential areas built on the raised areas of the 'walls', the early sea defences. Finally the beach on which, and from where, the townspeople worked. It's then easy to imagine the level of pedestian traffic between these areas. As more houses were built, sometimes on land that the ownership was at the least questionable, it was a matter of duty to retain this access and so the gaps between the groups of houses became public rights of way.

In some cases this left pockets of undeveloped land in between the rear of houses in Middle Wall and Island Wall. These also were built upon with their access only possible along one of the alleys. Beach Alley is an existing example of this, built in the days when cars were unheard of, and 3 foot was wide enough to get anything you needed to your front door. In addition these clusters of houses were much more sheltered than those a few yards away overlooking the sea.

In this section we invite you to travel through these passageways into the past and reveal some of their secrets.

Map to come!

Collars Alley. Between Island Wall and the sea. Listen to the sound of shipwrights at work and the wind whistling through the riggings.

Beach Alley. Between Island Wall and Middle Wall. Find a row of terraced houses trying to stay away from the 21st century. This is the place we chose, by chance, to start our research on the 1881 census and the Oyster Gedcom project that followed it.