pitch

1) An implement used to catch fish.

Canon Atkinson’s comment on the term ‘fishlock’ in a Thirsk case of 1661 includes a reference to a pyche or fyshe lepe, which suggests that the pitch was probably a kind of basket, ‘pitched’ or set in the stream, or in a dam or weir: 1372 injunctum est ... quod nullus de cetero prćsumat piscari cum rethibus aliquibus vel pyches ponere prope gurgites domini, Selby

1657 every person that shall take any fish ... by any netts, nighthookes, pyches, Angleroddes, ladeing or otherwise 3s 4d, Meltham

1667 that no person doe fish with pytches or spoile our water waires [weirs] with fishing, South Crosland. The Wakefield cloth frizzer John Brearley described its use: 1758 Gett one of them piches such has people catch minnows in only let itt bee twise has large ... gett some live fish ... aney small fish. Putt them in the piche and sinke your piche in a mill dam and tye itt to some willow. The advice was that eels could go into the pitch but would be unable to get back out.

dates 1372 1661 1667 1758

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2) In the few references noted this was a bee-hive.

1612 one old tub three hive pitches, Eccleshill

1729 Isaac Mawd Senior Stole from the said Thomas Sutcliffe One Hive of Bees ... Elizabeth Mawd strain’d the honey and Isaac ... carried the pitches back, Stainland. The hive may have been made of ‘basket’ material, similar in appearance therefore to pitch.

dates 1612 1729

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3) As a verb this could mean to pave with small irregular stones (EDD).

1736 leading earth and sand to rase the ground and piching the cobles, Hammerton.

places Hammerton
dates 1736

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Photo by Kreuzschnabel CC BY-SA 3.0