School Lane was previously Dag Lane, taking it’s name from the droppings that hang from a sheep’s underside (yeuch!). It was renamed School Lane in 1887, when Cottingham Infants’ School was built on the street.
The start of the road, where it runs along the side of the old Spread Eagle car park, lies on the route of the Via Devana Roman road that ran through the village in Roman times.
The first picture opposite shows members of the Jolley family doing the Monday wash in Dag Lane with buckets of water from the nearby well.
The next picture shows May David’s father in front of The White House on School Lane, which has always been regarded as one of the prestigious houses in Cottingham, having warranted a mention in the gentry list in the 1903 Kelly’s Directory, when it was home to Miss Alice Pery, daughter of the Hon. Mrs Elizabeth Pery of Bury House. Alice chose a deeply private life away from her family, their opulent lifestyle and her Catholic upbringing. She lived alone among working class villagers and kept her identity a secret. She was a spiritualtist and began creating ‘mediumistic’ art in the early 1870s. She continued until her death in 1906, all the time using a pseudonym, if she signed her work at all.
