Word mining

Manchegan

The idea is simple - start with a word and see where it leads.

To give an idea, take the word mews as an example:

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=mews
"stables grouped around an open yard," 1631, from Mewes, name of the royal stables at Charing Cross, built 1534 on the site of the former royal mews (attested from c.1394), where the king's hawks were kept. Extended by 1805 to "street of former stables converted to human habitations."

http://www.allwords.com/word-mews.html
from French muer - to moult (from Latin mutare - to change)

Oxford English Dictionary
A cage for hawks, esp. while ‘mewing’ or moulting. b. in mew (rarely in the mew): in process of moulting
Of a hawk: To moult, shed, or change (its feathers); Of a stag: To cast or shed (his horns).
To put a hawk in a ‘mew’, or cage, at moulting time; to keep up. to mew at large, at the stock or stone: 2. To coop or shut up (poultry, etc.) in a coop for fattening. Obs. 3. To shut up, confine, enclose; to hide, conceal. 4.To restrain (speech, the tongue). Obs.

http://www.findaproperty.com/story.aspx?storyid=0197
Mews were frequently crowded and unhealthy environments awash with manure and sewage; although they existed within a stones throw of wealth and luxury they were breeding grounds for sickness and disease.

In 1859 a Dr Hillier published an article 'On the Mortality in the Mews' which revealed that pulmonary ailments, measles and scarlatina were rife and the death rate was almost 4 per thousand higher than for the general population of the parish (St Pancras).

Twice as many infants died in mews, and the death rate for under fives was also well in excess of average levels. Small wonder, then, that in 1861 John Hollingshead described the mews of St. Marylebone as "hell holes …heaped with rubbish…with an unendurable stench".

Characteristics of a typical mews

Roofs & party-wall upstands
Chimney stacks & pots
Timber sash windows
Winch brackets
Winch doors
Unpainted brickwork, including arches & stone sills
Cast-iron vents, gutters, hopper-heads and downpipes
Timber bressumers
Coach doors
Coach doors' structural openings
Entrance doors and lights
Street paving, including drainage layout
Corbelling, brick details, decorative features
Cast-iron or stone bollard
Street paving, including drainage layout
Brick pointing

http://www.findaproperty.com/story.aspx?storyid=6339
Mews were concealed from view by being 3-9 feet lower than the surrounding properties. The residents were not allowed back windows overlooking the gardens of the big houses they served.

The arrival of trains and the car made mews houses redundant by the early twentieth century and many were converted into garages, studios, and storage areas. The first residential conversion is believed to have been in 1908, in Street Mews Mayfair. This was described in 1915 as "the best bijou house in London," and a trend was born.

The Royal Mews at Charing Cross
http://www.architecture.com/go/Architecture/Also/VandA_4183.html
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/about/history/building/1833_400.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mews
Royal Mews at Charing Cross, where the royal hawks were kept starting in 1377. The name remained when it became the royal stables starting in 1537. The old Royal Mews was demolished in the early 19th century and Trafalgar Square was built on the site.

http://www.places-to-go.org.uk/Palace_Mews.htm
The mews was moved to its present location in 1760, when George III moved his carriage collection and some of his horses from a site near Charing Cross to his newly acquired property now known as Buckingham Palace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mews
The term mews is not used for large individual non-royal British stable blocks. For example the grand stables block at Chatsworth House is referred to as the stables, not the mews. Instead the word was applied to service streets and the stables in them in cities, primarily London. In the 18th and nineteenth centuries London housing for wealthy people generally consisted of streets of large terraced houses with stables at the back, which opened onto a small service street. Generally this was mirrored by another rows of stables on the opposite side of the service street, backing onto another row of terraced houses. Sometimes there were variations such as small courtyards. Most mews streets are named after one of the principal streets which they back onto. Most but not all have the word mews in their name. This arrangement was different from most of the rest of continental Europe, where the stables in wealthy urban residences were usually off of a front or central courtyard. The British system hid the sounds and smells of the stables away from the family when they weren't using the horses.

http://www.matrix2000.co.uk/falconry.htm
Mews was a position created for the kings best falconer, who obtained, and groomed the king's falcons and hawks, and kept them in constant readiness for hunting.

Strictly speaking Falconry involves only the long-winged hawks, the Falcon family, and only a person who flies a falcon at wild quarry is entitled to call themselves a Falconer, where as the term Hawking should be used for anyone using a Broad or Short winged Hawk, namely the true Hawks, Buzzards and Eagles for the same purpose, and this person would be termed an Austringer. The term Hawk is broadly used to describe any trained bird of prey.

The man considered to be the greatest falconer of all time was Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Sicily and Jerusalem. His book, De Arte Venandi cum Avibus (The art of falconry) took over 30 years to complete, and his enthusiasm for Falconry once lost him an important military campaign because he decided to go hawking instead of continuing the siege of a fortress.

By ancient tradition Kings of England were presented with a Falcon at the time of their coronation by the Duke of Atholl and Lord Derby.

The golden age of Falconry ended with the invention of the shotgun, its popularity quickly waned and soon falcons and other birds of prey were persecuted to the point of virtual extinction of some species.

The word codger, used today to describe an elderly person, can be traced back to the falconry term cadger, or a person who carried a portable perch called a cadge for the falconer. Most cadgers were old falconers and in time a corruption of this came to be used as above.

When raptors drink it is called bowsing and a bird that drinks heavily is called a boozer, the term used to describe the same tendency in humans.

The term mantle piece comes from the action a raptor makes to cover and protect its food called mantling or to mantle.

Hoodwinked, was the action of placing the hood over the falcon's head to recover the captured prey from the falcon's talons, pretty much the same as now when you are cheated of something.

Social rank and appropriate bird.
King: Gyr Falcon (male & female)
Prince: Peregrine Falcon
Duke: Rock Falcon (subspecies of Peregrine)
Earl: Tiercel Peregrine
Baron: Bastarde Hawk
Knight: Saker
Squire: Lanner
Lady: Female Merlin
Yeoman: Goshawk or Hobby
Priest: Female Sparrowhawk
Holy water Clerk: Male Sparrowhawk
Knaves, servants, children: Kestrel