The social history of a medieval fish weir, c. 600–2020

ABSTRACT This article presents the longue durée social history of a medieval fish weir. It reveals the significant role of fishing and fish weirs in the construction and reconstruction of social structures and cultural identities. It focuses on an enigmatic annual ceremony – the construction of the Horngarth or Penny Hedge at Whitby, North Yorkshire. The article begins by arguing that the ceremony descends from the construction of a medieval intertidal fish weir, before exploring the possible social and cultural contexts in which the fish weir originated and the social and cultural circumstances that perpetuated its construction to the sixteenth century. It proceeds to consider the social and cultural changes that undermined its original function and transformed its significance in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and how a tradition invented about it became important to the local identity and national reputation of the town.