fleak

1) A hurdle, often made of wattles.

The OED headword is ‘flake’ but ‘fleke’ and its alternatives are the usual Yorkshire spellings: 1360 pro flekes emptis pro skaffald, York

1456-7 pro ij flekes emptis de Ric. Pott, xd, Fountains Abbey

1628 certeyne skeps and [sic] old fleake and a henkall, Pudsey. They were regularly used as temporary gates and fences: 1678 We lay in payne that James Greeneald sett two stoopes … at the top stile … and do keepe theire a yate or fleicke duringe the time that the corne is leading out of the upper field, Kirkheaton

1684 making of gates and fleakes, Tong. Such hurdles were evidently of a regular size, for the word was sometimes used as a measure: 1640 one halfe land, beinge more than halfe a fleake brode … in the Kyrkefeilde, Ouseburn. It is not uncommon therefore as an element in minor place-names: 1585 Leafleake, Idle

1623 Christopher Sike close called Fleikcliffe, Lepton. The same word was used of shelves and racks, and the inference may be that not all these had solid frames: 1570 One paire of wayne fleycks price xxd, Hutton Conyers

1656 for unjustly taking away a pair of wayne fleaks, Thornton Bridge

1689 2 Shelves and a bread fleake, Barnoldswick. Bread fleak remained in common use into the 1950s at least

it was the creel on which ‘havercakes’ were hung to dry.

spellings fleick
dates 1360 1456-1457 1570 1585 1623 1628 1640 1656 1678 1684 1689

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