Mews - top flight housing with a Medieval origin

Many of our words have shifted meaning over the years. For instance, it is well-known that mews houses were originally accommodation for horses and coachmen. But, in fact, the word has a slightly different original meaning.

Mews is the name for a row or courtyard of stables and carriage houses with living quarters above them, built behind large city houses before motor vehicles replaced horses in the early twentieth century.

Mews are usually located in desirable residential areas, having been built to cater for the horses, coachmen and stable-servants of prosperous residents. It is mildly amusing now to see that contemporary well-heeled residents have now moved into the former stable yards of the upper classes, and that these lowly quarters are considered status symbols and very "des res" these days.

However, "Mews" has an older origin. The original mews were for the hawks used in falconry. Mews derives from the French muer, "to moult", reflecting its original function to confine hawks while they moulted.

From 1377 onwards the king's falconry birds were kept in the King's Mews at Charing Cross. The first recorded use of mews to mean stables is dated 1548, after the royal stables were built at Charing Cross, on the site of the royal hawk mews. This was how the word was transferred to stabling.

The term mews is still used today in falconry circles in English-speaking countries to refer to the housing of the birds of prey used in falconry.

Several other words and phrases originate in the sport of falconry including "fed up", "hoodwinked", "under the thumb", "wrapped around your little finger", "haggard" (a falcon caught from the wild as an adult and therefore harder to train) and "codger" (usually older person carrying the birds. "On the cadge" is also related to this).

Mews - top flight housing with a Medieval origin

Further reading