Hmm, I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to treat the sleeve notes of folk rock bands as gospel. We have, inter alia, Baring-Gould, Kidson, the Hammonds and Gardiner and, more recently, Roy Palmer and Roud and Bishop all including the song in their collections without the merest hint of the woman being a prostitute. That the song was written by a townie, rather than it springing up, fully-grown, from a field or a meadow in southern England, seems pretty well established. But a prostitute? I think most people with a serious interest in folksong would be more inclined to pay heed to those collectors I mentioned above, rather than Steeleye Span (not that I dislike their version, as it happens); I think their sleeve note was intended as a piece of humorous nonsense.