Hotspot 31. Coffin Walk or Cattle Walk

Coffin Walk or Cattle Walk has been used by both. It was an obvious way to take livestock to drink in the river; its other use needs explanation. Iffley Mill levied tolls on people using the millrace bridge to reach the lock and/or cross the river. Millers (and their landlords, Lincoln College) were anxious that this route should not become a right of way; apparently, carrying a corpse across it would make it so, and they would not allow it. The dead were therefore ferried across the river and carried up the walk to the church.