A little while — or, more precisely, about two years — ago, we visited Motherby Hill, a part of Lincoln we had not previously seen. Passing through the Spring Hill area of town, we noticed a strangely named road: Stanthaket Court, and decided to research the name when we got home. This week we finally solved the mystery. Two years to look something up? Now that’s what I call a leisurely pace, even by my standards!

At the time, I thought Stanthaket must be a contraction of St Anthaket, and assumed this to be some obscure Saxon monk. So obscure, in fact, that the blessed Anthaket is not listed in our Oxford Dictionary of Saints.

The answer to the puzzle is in the book Medieval Lincoln by Sir Francis Hill [Cambridge University Press]. As Hill explains:

The Old Scandinavian steinn, a stone, appears in a few names; the church of St Peter, which stood at the foot of the modern Michaelgate, was St Peter Stanthaket, the stone-thatched church.

Other books on local history point out that in the Middle Ages many churches had roofs of wood or straw, which were vulnerable to fire. A stone roof such as St Peter’s had, was unusual enough for it to be given the extra ’stone-thatched’ epithet in its name.

Confusingly, Hill mentions later in his book, in a list of churches inside the city walls, the church of St Peter at the skin market (Stanthaket). Personally, the stone roof explanation is far more convincing.