England Street Names - International Institute

Street Names
Streets have had names since very early times, but there are extremely few records of them before the Norman Conquest (1066). Many old names have been replaced by modern ones, particularly ‘upmarket’ names and, conversely, deliberately archaic ones. Many streets have been destroyed during modernization projects over the centuries, with new ones built. In Winchester, a 909 charter mentions three street names that are no longer in use:


 * Þa cëap stræt (‘market street’) flæscmangererestræt (‘street of the butchers’) scyldwyrtenastræt (‘street of the shield-makers’)

These changes may be tracked by using detailed town and countryside maps. It is essential to find maps concurrent with a family’s residence in the area in order to pinpoint exactly where ancestors lived, worked or worshipped. The local archives or nearby public library can usually assist as they will have a published listing of street name changes.

How Streets Are Named
Street names usually reveal something of the history of the place, and can therefore be of much interest to the genealogist. Reaney (1960) gives many wonderful examples of derivations that can be summarized here into the following categories:


 * Markets or parts of markets where specific products or foods were sold. The Old English word for market was cëap and this is to be found in streets such as Cheapside and Eastcheap, as well as in such place names as Chippingdale and Chipping Barnet. Specific goods can be found in Mealcheapen St. (‘meal-market’), Wincheap St. (‘waggon market’), Chipper Lane (‘place of the market men’). The present Market Place in Salisbury was Chepyngplace in 1357. Brook St. in Warwick used to be called Rother chepyng (‘cattle market’).


 * Place of residence of tradesmen and merchants, who typically congregated in one street devoted to a certain type of goods. These were workshops rather than retail outlets, the trading being carried on in the market place. Typical street names include Shoemaker Lane, Milk Street, Peasemarket Hyll now Peas Hill, Potteresrowe now Potters Row, Spicer Street from the grocers and spicers there, Pepper Lane from sellers of pepper, Fisher Gate revealing the Old Norse gata (‘street’), and The Shambles from shamels (‘benches or stalls’). Some of these trades are no longer extant, but their names remain in the likes of Waterbeer St., Exeter from Waterberestrete (‘the street of the water-carriers’), Lister Gate, Nottingham from the litsters or dyers, Tenters Close, Coventry where cloth was stretched, Gluman Gate, Chesterfield which was where the gleemen or minstrels lived.


 * Sports and games are recalled with The Bullring and Bearward Street, noting mediaeval sites of bull baiting and the place where the bear-ward (keeper) lived. Pall Mall is named from an ancient form of croquet called paille-maille.


 * Practice grounds for the military are found in various Butts that were the archery targets.


 * Foreign enclaves can still be deduced from places called French Street and Petty France, Scotch Gate, Irish Gate Brow, Fleming Row, Ing Lane (‘lane of the Angles’), Old Jewry and Staining Lane (‘town house of the people of Staines’).


 * Notable crossroads can be found in Carfax, ‘the place where four roads meet.’


 * City gates are commemorated in the streets leading to or going through them. Examples are Aldgate (‘the old gate’) and Bishopsgate, and the French barre is seen in Bootham Bar and Temple Bar.


 * Owner of a prominent house in the street, hence the origin of Goodramgate, York (Scandinavian ‘Guthrum’s street’), Davygate, York after David le lardiner, provisioner for the forest court house here in the 12th century, and Sermon Lane, London from Adam le Sarmoner (‘preacher of sermons’) who had a tenement here in 1228, and many others.


 * Condition or situation of the street. Stinking Lane and Fowle Lane were evil-smelling, whilst Addle St. contained adela (‘filth and liquid manure’), and Pudding Lane doesn’t reek of plum puddings but of the Middle English butchers’ refuse called pudding (‘bowels, entrails, guts’).


 * Nearby streams, often now channelled underground in cities, such as Holborn from Hole-bourne, the river that flowed into a creek, or fleet, called the Fleet River, giving rise to the name Fleet Street, before entering the Thames.


 * Defensive structures around a town ultimately gave rise to street names such as London Wall, Old Bailey and Barbican.


 * A church in the street such as St. Mary Road from the dedication of the church, Gracechurch Street which at its earliest was Gærsecherchestrate named forSt. Benet Gracechurch, originally a church which either stood in a grassy field, or was roofed with turves. Some of the names became corrupted over time, so that we now see Foster Lane that once referred to St. Vedast’s Church, and Miles Lane, formerly St. Michael’s Lane.


 * Religious foundations gave rise to many a street name, for example Mincing Lane (‘the nun’s lane’) from the Old English myncen (‘nun’), Crutched Friars from the Friars of the Holy Cross, and The Minories from an abbey of Minoresses or Poor Sisters of Clare.


 * Manor houses nearby gave names ending in -bury (‘manor house’ in Middle English’), such as Bloomsbury and Aldermanbury. More recent edifices have also given their names to the street leading past them, thus I grew up in Red House Lane, Bexleyheath, Kent opposite The Red House built in 1860 by William Morris, leader of the 19th century Arts and Crafts Movement. A much older group of cottages was at one end of the road, but the name Hogs Hole Lane for some reason did not recommend itself to the 1920s home developers!


 * Ancient farm buildings such as Aldwych ‘the old dairy farm’, and field names like Great Windmill Street the site of Windmill Field where once stood a windmill, and Long Acre formerly a pasture called Longeacre in 1585.


 * Names of noble landlords and their relatives, such as the group of streets in the manor of Marylebone owned by the Dukes of Newcastle—Cavendish Square, Devonshire Street, Henrietta Street, Harley Street, Bentinck Street and others.


 * Properties owned by notable landlords such as the Dukes’ of Bedford possessions recalled in Bedford Square and Woburn Square, Holborn, as well as Tavistock Square, Torrington Place and others in St. Pancras.


 * Contemporary national figures such as prime ministers, authors, and philanthropists.


 * National events. The coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953 seems to have caused an immediate proliferation of streets with royal names; there must be hundreds of Coronation Streets!


 * Battles such as those for which the following were named: Trafalgar Square for Nelson’s victory in 1805, Waterloo Bridge and its approach Wellington Street for Wellington’s victory over Napoleon in 1815, Maida Vale for the battle of Maida, Italy in 1806.


 * After a public house in it, accounting for such strange sounding streets as Adam and Eve Court, Bleeding Hart Yard, Elephant Lane, Half Moon Passage, Nags Head Court and Phoenix Street.

These trends continue today and there is still considerable interest in reviving old district names and commemorating ancient places, customs and local worthies. Large post WWII housing developments stretched the imagination of the local town councils, and one finds groups of streets named after British mountains or authors, for example. In Bexleyheath there is a group of Lakeland names for residential roads, including Ambleside, Keswick, Eskdale, Ennerdale, Rydal, Grasmere, Windermere, and Coniston. When my father worked for Crayford Council in Kent, the employees were asked for suggestions for naming some newly developed residential streets. One was opposite the site of a house he knew as a child and owned by the Misses Hayward, local leaders of relief work in WWII, and in which they were killed when it sustained a direct hit. My father’s suggestion to commemorate their selfless service and tragic deaths resulted in it receiving the appellation Hayward’s Close. This must be typical of countless other situations across the country. Developers sometimes had more creative ideas, such as the one who named Ethronvi Road, Bexleyheath after his three children,Ethel, Ronald and Violet.

Streets can even have nicknames, the most well-known being Petticoat Lane, London which won’t be found on a map. Its real name is Middlesex Street, and it acquired its nickname by being a clothes market.

Street Names Abolished and Altered
A common problem for family historians is that of changing street names. There are at least three facets to consider here:


 * Names change over time and can come to resemble other words which have nothing to do with the original meaning, for example Catherine St. in Salisbury was Katherine Street in 1623, and Carternestret in 1393 but the 1339 name was Carterestrete (‘carters’ street’). Saffron once grew at Saffron Hill but this degenerated with cockney pronunciation into Suffering Hill by 1750. Peerless Street in Finsbury took its name from ‘one cleare water called Perillous Pond because diverse youthes swimming therein have been drowned.’ The idyllic Blossomgate in York actually started its life as Ploxhsweingate—the street of the plough-swains, or ploughmen, which sounds somewhat rougher!


 * Re-development schemes, particularly after bombing and slum clearance. The researcher is wise to acquire a map, or sequence of maps, of the area dated close to time(s) of their family’s residence. Pre-WWII A-Z guides of streets can be very handy; search for them in 2nd hand bookshops.


 * Rationalization of street naming and numbering. Nowadays we take for granted that street names in a town are unique, and that house numbers will be even on one side of the road and odd on the other, in a single numerical sequence from one end to the other. It has not always been thus. For example, prior to the reorganization carried out by the new LCC (London County Council) in 1889, there were in their area:


 * - 31 George Streets - 36 Queen Streets - 40 William Streets - 58 Cross Streets - 73 John Streets

Numbering only became general in the late 1850s, and as an example, before it was given continuous numbering, Hackney Road contained over 38 terraces, places, gardens, rents, villas and crescents. Other roads had a variety of named cottages, buildings and groves. These duplicate names and numbers led to much confusion as London grew rapidly and the postal system was used more frequently, and thus a large amount of renaming and re-numbering was carried out. Don’t be surprised, therefore, if your family were at a different number in 1881 than in 1871 or 1891, even though they were living in the same house.

The first list of street names was published in 1868, but it wasn’t until the London County Council started publishing its different editions of its List of Streets and Places that order took shape out of confusion. These books list over 23,000 roads with 3,000 name alterations since 1856, and can be found in various editions—in 1901, 1912, 1929 and 1955. Ruston indicated that the most comprehensive is the 3rd edition (1929) of which the FS Library only seems to have an incomplete copy on item 6. They also have the 4th edition (1955) but only in book form so far. Similar volumes should exist for most cities, and the local public library or archives would be the researcher’s first places to ask about name and number changes.

No Roads in the City of London!
There are plenty of Alleys, Avenues, Courts, Lanes, Passages, Rows, Squares, Streets and Yards—but no Roads. The cognoscente will immediately quote Farringdon Road—but Farringdon Street only becomes Farringdon Road outside the city boundary!

The Old English word stræt (‘street’) originally meant a paved road, especially a Roman one, but was also used of a street in a town. A law of Henry I said that a town street had to be wide enough for two loaded carts to pass, or for 16 armed knights to ride abreast. A lane needed to be only wide enough for a cask of wine to be rolled along it with one man on each side (Reaney 1960). So now you know why streets are wider than lanes!

Those researchers facing the daunting task of London research can be encouraged by the five publications by Cliff Webb which correlate the parish and registration district boundaries and index the streets of Victorian and Edwardian London.

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Information in this Wiki page is excerpted from the online course English - Understanding Names in Genealogy offered by The National Institute for Genealogical Studies. To learn more about this course or other courses available from the Institute, see our website. We can be contacted at [mailto:wiki@genealogicalstudies.com wiki@genealogicalstudies.com]

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