London Street Names by Gillan Bebbington

This project has used the excellent 1972 book by Gillian Bebbington, “London Street Names”. At time of writing, this book is sadly out of print.

All of the streets linked to here are streets with a story behind them with many of the street descriptions deriving from the book.


  • Adrian Mews, SW10 Named after Adrian House which was built opposite the end of this mews
  • Affleck Street, N1 Built by a Mr A. Attneave in 1884 whose first name may have been Affleck
  • Agar Place, NW1 Agar Place is a survivor of Agar Town.
  • Agamemnon Road, NW6 Agamemnon was one of the four heroes of the Trojan War
  • Agincourt Road, NW3 was named by Thomas E. Gibb, an 1880s developer from Kentish Town
  • Ainger Road, NW3 commemorates Thomas Ainger, vicar of St John’s from 1841 until his death in 1863
  • Ainsworth Estate, NW8 Post-war housing estate named after novelist William Harrison Ainsworth
  • Air Street, W1 was the most westerly street in London when newly built in 1658
  • Airlie Gardens, W8 named after the 5th Earl of Airlie (1826-1881), who lived on nearby Campden Hill at Holly Lodge
  • Ajax Road, NW6 named after one of the four heroes of the Trojan War: Ajax the Great
  • Akenside Road, NW3 after Dr Mark Akenside, best known for his poem ‘The Pleasures of Imagination’
  • Alba Place, W11  was originally the stable house accommodation for houses on Lancaster Road
  • Albemarle Way, EC1  named after Elizabeth, Dowager Duchess of Albermarle
  • Albert Embankment, SE11 Named for the Prince Consort
  • Aldenham Street, NW1 Named after a famous Hertfordshire school
  • Alderman’s Walk, EC2 Once Dashwood’s Walk, the passage to Francis Dashwood’s house and garden
  • Aldermanbury, EC2 Takes its name from a fortified mansion, which occupied the site by the twelfth century
  • Alderney Street, SW1 Originally Stanley Street, after George Stanley, local landowner
  • Aldersgate Street, EC2 The name is Saxon : the gate of Aldred, who perhaps lived above the gate
  • Aldgate One of the massive gates which defended the City from Roman times until 1760
  • Aldgate High Street, EC3 Probably a Roman road leading to the gate
  • Aldridge Road Villas, W11 The Aldridge family held land beside the Harrow Road at Westbourne Park by 1743
  • Aldwych, WC2 A new street (built 1900-1905)
  • Alexander Place, SW7 After the family of W.H. Alexander, who gifted the London Portrait Gallery in 1896.
  • Alexander Square, SW3 After John Alexander, heir to the Thurloe estate
  • Alexander Street, W2 was built in 1853 by Alexander Hall of Watergate House, Sussex
  • Alexandra Road, NW8 was built the year Princess Alexandra of Denmark, came to marry the Prince of Wales
  • Alfred Place, WC1 was built by a Marylebone stonemason – John Waddilove – who named it after his son Alfred
  • Alfred Road, W2 Alfred Road is the last survivor of a set of Victorian streets
  • All Saints Road, W11 The nearby church of All-Saints-With-St Columb was built by the the Rev. Samuel Walker
  • AlI Souls’ Place, W1 adjoins the beautiful church of All Souls, built in 1822 from designs by John Nash
  • Allcroft Road, NW5 The church of St Martin’s was built in 1865 at the expense of John D. Alicroft
  • Allen Street, W8 was owned by Thomas Allen, one of the innovators of stucco
  • Allhallows Lane, EC4 took its name from a Wren church which stood on the corner with Upper Thames Street until 1894
  • Allington Street, SW1 is named for no apparent reason after a town in Lincolnshire
  • Allitsen Road, NW8 commemorates songwriter Frances Allitsen
  • Allsop Place, NW1 named for Thomas Allsop, a local farmer
  • Alma Square, NW8 commemorates the River Alma on whose banks the first Anglo-French victory of the Crimean War was won in 1854
  • Alpha Road, NW8 named after the Greek letter, was the first street to be developed on the Eyre estate
  • Alpha Place, SW3 early nineteenth-century street – the first turning built out of Flood Street
  • Alvanley Gardens, NW6 named for one of Hampstead’s distinguished residents, Lord Chief Justice Alvanley (1745-1804), who lived his last years at Frognal Hall
  • Amberley Road, W2 From the Lord Amberley pub here, opened in about 1861 when Lord John Russell, the statesman and was created Viscount Amberley
  • America Square, EC3 was begun in the 1760s. Ironically, it must have been finished just before the American War of Independence broke out in 1775
  • Anchor Yard, EC1 The Anchor tavern in Old Street was recommended in the early eighteenth-century Guide to Good Fellows, and is mentioned again in 1799, but thereafter it cannot be traced
  • Anderson Street, SW3 John Anderson was a trustee appointed to develop this estate
  • Andover Place, NW6 was given a Hampshire place name by analogy with the other Hampshire names hereabouts
  • Andrew Borde Street, WC2 Dr Andrew Borde owned the former Hospital Master’s House, which stood here
  • Andrews Crosse, EC4 Andrews Crosse stood on the site of the courtyard of the former Andrews Crosse Inn
  • Angel Arcade, EC1 The Angel was one of the commonest medieval inn-signs and gave its name to a multitude of little streets
  • Angel Mews, N1 An ancient side street in Islington
  • Anglers Lane, NW5 Anglers Lane once ran down to a small bridge across the River Fleet at a spot that was popular with fishermen
  • Ann Lane, SW10 may be named after Mary Ann Riley
  • Ann’s Close, SW1 Name first found in 1842. Origin unknown

Ansdell Street and Terrace commemorate Richard Ansdell RA, whose animal paintings were highly popular with the Victorian public. After some success in his native Liverpool, Ansdell moved to Kensington in 1847, and there he was to live (in Victoria Road and later St Albans Road) until shortly before his death in 1885.

Ansleigh Place (Treadgold Street, North Kensington) contains back entrances to buildings in St Antis Road and Stoneleigh Street.

Apollo Place (Chelsea 6) is first shown on a plan of ‘Mr Riley’s freehold’ dated 1829. Probably from an early tavern sign in Riley Street.

Apothecary Street (City 5) leads to Apothecaries’ Hall. James I founded the company of Apothecaries in 1617, in order to restrict medicine-making to qualified druggists, and it was his royal apothecary who established the Hall here.

Appled Tree Yard (St James’s 7) was once St James’s Field, described in 1650 as pasture ground planted with apple trees. Some of the trees were probably allowed to survive when this yard and the surrounding streets were built 25 years later. Samuel Pepys came to St James’s in 1688 : and there walk an hour of two; and in the King’s garden, and saw the Queen and ladies walk; and I did steal some apples off the trees.’

Aquila Street (St John’s Wood 3) was built in about 1840. Origin unknown.

Archer Street (Soho 7). Origin unknown. First found in 1675, when it was called Arch Street.

Archery Close (Bayswater 3) recalls a nearby Archery Ground used by the Royal Toxopholite Society from 1821 until the land was wanted for development in 1834. Bathurst Street and the Archery Tavern now cover its site.

Archibald Mews (Mayfair 7) used to be John Court, after John, 5th Lord Berkeley who owned and developed the land. When and why John became Archibald is not known.

Arctic Street (Kentish Town 8) was originally Franklin Street, probably named after its Victorian builder. This was changed in 1937 because there were other London Franklin Streets, and Arctic was chosen by association of ideas : Sir John Franklin was the British Arctic explorer who died in an attempt to discover the North-West Passage in 1847.

Ardwick Road (North Hampstead 1). After Major Ardwick Burgess: see Burgess Hill, North Hampstead.

Argyle Square, Street and Walk (King’s Cross 4) and neighbouring streets were built on Battle Bridge Field (see Battle Bridge Road) in 1824, a few years after the adjoining Tonbridge School Field was laid out with streets named after places near Tonbridge, Kent. As a contrast, the Battle Bridge names were chosen from the north of Britain: Argyle, or Argyll, in Scotland; Belgrove Street, formerly Belgrave Street (Warwickshire); Crestfield Street, formerly Chesterfield Street (Derbyshire); and Birkenhead Street (Cheshire). There were also once Manchester, Liverpool and Derby Streets here.

Argyll Road (Kensington 6). After the Duke of Argyll, of Bedford Lodge : see Duchess of Bedford’s Walk, Kensington.

Argyll Street (Oxford Street 7). The 2nd Duke of Argyll, soldier and statesman, a founder of the union of Scotland and England, owned a small field on the site of this street. He established his town house here, but it was demolished to make way for Little Argyll Street. After his death in 1743, his successor the 3rd Duke built a new mansion in Argyll Street, which remained the family home until 1808. The London Palladium now occupies its site. Ref: 208.

Ariel Road (Hampstead 1). Ariel was a Hebrew word signifying a water spirit. Milton featured Ariel as a fallen spirit in Paradise Lost, and Shakespeare and Pope used the name in The Tempest and The Rape of the Lock. Ariel is also one of the satellites of the planet Uranus, but the reason this street should be so named is not known.

Arlington. Sir Henry Bennet, one of the King’s supporters in the Civil War, who loyally followed the royal family into exile, was rewarded at the Restoration with the Earldom of Arlington, and became Charles II’s Secretary of State. In 1681 the king gave him the Six Acre Close, previously part of Green Park, on which Bennet Street and Arlington Street St James’s, are built. , Arlington also received from the king the Manor of Tottenham Court, which passed to his daughter Isabella, ‘a sweete child if ever there was any’ according to the diarist Evelyn. At 5-years-old she married the king’s little illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy. Their descendants built Arlington Road, Kentish Town (8) : see Fitzroy Square, Tottenham Court Road.

Arlington Way (Rosebery Avenue 5) was built in 1822 on the site of an old footpath from Islington village to Sadler’s medicinal wells. Origin of name unknown.

Arne Street (Long Acre, Covent Garden). Thomas Arne, the composer of Rule Britannia and Where the bee sucks was born near here in King Street, Covent Garden, in 1710. His father wanted him to become a lawyer, but Thomas smuggled a spinet into his bedroom and practised secretly at night, muffling the strings with a handkerchief. In a borrowed livery he studied opera from the servants’ gallery at Covent Garden Theatre where later he was to become official composer. He died in 1778 and is buried, appropriately, at St Paul’s, Covent Garden.

Arneway Street (Westminster 7). In honour of Thomas Arneway, who founded in 1603 a charity for ‘the pore of Saint Margarettes’ in Westminster.

Artesian Road (Westbourne Park 2) was built across a field containing an Artesian well, sunk in the early nineteenth century by boring through the clay surface to the water-bearing gravel below. It supplied the surrounding countryside with water until the 1850s, when it was filled in so that Talbot Road could cross the site.

Artillery. Artillery Row (Victoria Street 7) commemorates ‘the Shooteing house in Tuttle Fields’ which stood on the site of Artillery Mansions and contained the butts where the Westminster men held their artillery practice, ‘that is to witt for Long Bowes Crosbowes and Handgonnes’. The parish accounts mention payment ‘To Mr Fisher, for making the Butts at Tothill’ as early as 1517. These butts beside Artillery Row (an old path from the Shooting House onto Tothill Fields) were not removed until the beginning of the nineteenth century. On the other side of London is Artillery Lane (Bishopsgate 5), a track which led into another Artillery Yard, a walled field seized from the Priory of St Mary Spital by Henry VIII and given over to the Honourable Artillery Company for national defence work. Volunteers and regular soldiers practised there weekly as a precaution in case of invasion, gradually replacing bows and arrows with guns and cannon. After the Artillery Company moved to its present ground in City Road in 1641, Gun Street and Fort Street were built across the Artillery Yard.

Arundel Street (Strand 5) and its neighbourhood—Norfolk, Howard, Surrey and Maltravers Streets belong to the Howards, Dukes of Norfolk, and have been in the family since 1549. Here stood Arundel House, their town mansion, formerly Bath Inn, which Henry Fitzalan, ancestor of the Dukes of Norfolk, purchased after Henry VII seized it from the Bishop of Bath. The streets were built when the house was demolished in 1678. The powerful Howards, once close kin of the royal family and still the premier noble family of England, have held many titles which appear as street names in Inner London.

Ashbridge Street (Marylebone 3). Arthur Ashbridge was the District Surveyor of Marylebone from 1884 until 1918. The large collection of prints, maps and cuttings relating to the district that he made during that time was bequeathed to the borough at his death, and is kept at Marylebone Road Library. The street was named after him in 1938.

Ashburn Gardens and Place (South Kensington 6) were begun in 1873. Origin unknown.

Ashburnham Road (Chelsea 6) runs the length of what was once the great lawn of Ashburnham House, stretching from Lots Lane almost to the King’s Road. The old house and its grounds, the home of the 2nd Earl of Ashburnham in about 1780, were replaced by rows of dreary streets in 1878.

Ashdown Street (Kentish Town 8). Edwin Ashdown esquire bought up several scattered properties in the rapidly developing Kentish Town district in the 1860s, including a house in Malden Crescent backing on to the little field on which this street was built in 1865. Ashdown probably owned the field as well as the house.

Ashen Tree Court (Whitefriars Street, City). A relic of the White Friars’ shaded cloister walks.

Ashland Place (Marylebone 3). The Victorian fondness for euphemism seems to have been responsible for the change of this name from Burying Ground Passage in 1886. The burying ground, now the adjacent recreation ground, was the graveyard belonging to St Marylebone Church.

Ashley Place (Victoria). Probably after Anthony Ashley-Cooper, better known as the Earl of Shaftesbury . At the time this street was begun (about 1850) he was still known by his earlier title, Lord Ashley. He was already the leading philanthropist of his age, famed for his attempts to improve the lot of lunatics and chimney sweeps, to limit the factory workers’ day to 10 hours, to prevent women and children working underground in mines and to open Ragged Schools for working-class children.

Ashmill Street (Marylebone 3) was originally Devonshire Street—the Portman family (Portman Square), who owned this land, also had estates in Devonshire. Renamed in 1912 after a village in that county, because there is another Devonshire Street in Marylebone.

Ashworth Road (Paddington 3). Four parallel roads named Ashworth, Biddulph, Castellain and Delaware were all formed in 1875. It would seem that this is just an alphabetical series, with no intrinsic meaning.

Astell Street (Chelsea 6). Mary Astell, a remarkable femininist and a forerunner of the suffragettes, lived in Chelsea in Royal Hospital Road. She planned to set up a sort of monastery where women could withdraw from men and lead useful lives, but the idea was ridiculed by Swift and Addison. She was buried in Chelsea Old Church in 1731.

Atherstone Mews (South Kensington 6). The name of a Warwickshire town. Connection with Kensington unknown.

Athlone Street (Kentish Town 8), has replaced a notorious black spot of the Kentish Town slums. Its decrepit Victorian cottages and tenements were demolished by the St Pancras Housing Society and in 1933 the first block of ten large flats on the estate was opened by HRH Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, after whom the building was named Athlone House. More land was purchased on the other side of the street and three further blocks of flats were erected and named after Lady Pentland, Mrs J. B. Priestley and Leonard Day, all tireless members of the St Pancras Housing Society. The Society then obtained the London County Council’s permission to name the street Athlone Street.

Attneave Street (Farringdon Road 5). Named in 1895 after Mr A. Attneave of 192 Pentonville Road, a builder who had made some improvements in this area.

Aubrey Road and Walk (Kensington 6). Aubrey de Vaere was Lord of the Manor of Kensington, granted to him by William the Conqueror.

Austin Friars. The Dutch church here is all that remains of the important Augustinian (Austin) Friary, founded in 1253, which covered all the area between London Wall and Throgmorton Street and was the principal priory of the Order in England. After the dissolution of the monasteries, most of this property passed to the Marquis of Winchester, but its church was given to the Dutch colony in London.

Avenue Road and Close (St John’s Wood 1). An avenue is ‘a wide and handsome street, usually bordered by trees, a good description of this road, which was a broad tree-lined boulevard when first built in the 1830s. A turning out of it was named Avenue Close some years later.

Avery Row (Mayfair 71) and Avery Farm Row (Pimlico 71). Avery is a corruption of the old name Ebury (q. v.).

Avondale Park Gardens and Road (North Kensington 2). Avondale Park was opened in 1892, the year the death of the Duke of Avondale shocked and grieved the nation. The young Duke, who was the eldest son of the Prince of Wales and Princess Alexandra and therefore heir to the throne, was only 28-years-old and had just become engaged to Princess Mary of Teck when he suddenly died of pneumonia at Sandringham.

Aybrook Street (Marylebone) Aye brook was the alternative medieval name for the River Tyburn : probably provided the first syllable of the Westminster names Avery Row, Hay Hill and Ebury Street. The stream flowed across the south end of the street and the slope of the valley is still just perceptible.

Aylesbury Street (Clerkenwell). The south side of this street was once occupied by Aylesbury House, whose grounds stretched from here to Albemarle Way. The house was originally part of the priory of St John of Jerusalem, which passed to the Earls of Exeter after the dissolution of the monasteries, and then by marriage in 1646 to the 1st Earl of Aylesbury. It remained the town house of the Aylesbury’s until 1706.

Babmaes Street (St James’s 7) is a corruption of the name of Baptist May, who according to Pepys was Charles II’s ‘court pimp’. So lavishly and successfully did he entertain the king that he was granted ‘several parcels of ground in Pall Mall Fields for building thereon a square [St James’s Square] of thirteen or four­ teen great and good houses’ which he was to hold in trust for Henry Jermyn (see Jermyn Street). The grant included most of the site of Babmaes Street.

Back Hill (Mount Pleasant 5) and Back Lane (Hampstead 1). ‘Back’ was formerly a name frequently given to roads lying at the rear of a main thoroughfare. It dates from a period when an average village boasted only two streets: the High Road and the Back Road. When the high road became impassably rutted or muddy, the back road often tended to replace it; Back Road, Islington (now Liverpool Road), originally a track behind Upper Street, has become a major thoroughfare in its own right. As surfacing on highways improved, the mime ‘Back’ came to imply ‘inferior, obscure’, and almost died out as a street name, but has survived in the phrases ‘back street’ and ‘back slum’.

Bacon’s Lane (Highgate 8) adjoins Old Hall, on the site of Arundel House, where the great Sir Francis Bacon died in 1626. Sir Francis was conducting an experiment in refrigera­ tion-not to be developed for centuries after his death-by stuffing a dead fowl with snow, to see if it could be preserved. In the process he caught a cold, and being too ill to go home, was taken to Lord Arundel’s house at Highgate. The Earl was away from home and Bacon on his death-bed wrote to him apologetically:
‘… As for the experiment itself, it succeeded excellently well; but in the journey between London and High gate I was taken with such a fit of casting as I know not whether it were the Stone, or some surfeit or cold, or indeed a touch of them all three. But when I reached your Lordship’s house, I was not able to go back, and therefore was forced to take up my lodging here, where your house­ keeper is very careful and diligent about me .. .’
… but not diligent enough to air the damp bed, where Bacon con­ tracted pneumonia and died a few days later.

Baker Street (Marylebone 3). William Baker ‘of Saint Marylebone, Gentleman’ signed in 1755 an important business agreement with the Portman family of Portman Square. He had already controlled the farms on the Portmans’ Maryle­ bone estate fof many years, and now he was to lease out the fields for building. The venture evidently proved successful: when several streets, including Baker Street, had been built, William’s descendants were created baronets and moved to their present family home of Ranston, at Shroton, near Stalbridge in Dorset, where they are country neighbours of the Portmans. In 1821 Sir Edward Baker purchased Lisson village green adjoining the London Portman estate (see end-map) and left it to his brother, Sir Talbot Hastings Bendall Baker. On the green are built Ranston, Stroton and Stalbridge Streets and Bendall Mews.

Baldwin’s Gardens (Gray’s Inn Road 4) belonged to Richard Baldwyn (born c. 1561), who combined the function of Treasurer of the Middle Temple for 28 years with that of Keeper of Queen Elizabeth’s gardens. He built some houses here in 1589. Exactly a century later his descendant Baldwyn Higgens sold the property to the ancestor of the Barons Leigh, whose family retained it down to the twentieth century; hence Leigh Place, a small turning out of Baldwin’s Gardens.

Bales Court (Old Bailey, City) was named in memory of Peter Bales (1547-1610) who set up a leading school of penmanship near the top of Old Bailey, ‘that teacheth to write all manner of handes, after a more speedie way than hath heretofore been taught’.

Balfour Place (Mayfair 7) was rebuilt in 1891 and probably named after Arthur James Balfour, who became First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Commons in that year.

Balliol Road (North Kensington 2). One of the Oxford place names given to turnings out of Oxford Gardens.

Banbury Court (Long Acre). In 1647 Nicholas, Earl of Banbury bought a town house in Long Acre, then newly built up and fashionable, and named it Banbury House. It was demolished in 1699 so that this court could be cut through the site.

Bankside (Southwark 5). A very old road along the Thames bank, which was artificially raised to protect the fields behind. Southwark was a marshy, low-lying area and the water level beyond the bank was watched with anxious eyes when the tide was expected to be high:

It was the day, what time the powerful moon
Makes the poor Banksider creature wet its shoon
In its own Hall,
wrote Ben Jonson. An early fourteenth-century document records concern about the ‘Bank in theland of the Bishop of Winchester in South­ wark, which having been anciently made for the safeguard thereof, was then ruinous and broken’. The bank has been heightened and strengthened in recent years and many times in the past, to keep pace with the level of the Thames, which has gradually risen through the centuries owing to the tilting of the land-mass of England and the narrowing of the river bed when the Embankments were built. Refs: 115, 17, 202.

Banner Street (Finsbury 5). The Middlesex Land Registry records ‘ various members of the Banner family residing and owning property in and near Old Street round about 1789, the year this street was built.
There was Henry Banner, carpenter, and Mary his wife, their son Francis, described as an ‘upholsterer of Aldersgate Street’, and John Banner, plumber, who lived in Whitecross Street just round the corner from Banner Street.

Baptist Gardens (Kentish Town 8). The four mid-Victorian cui-de-sacs leading out of Queen’s Crescent were originally all named after saints : St James’s (now Modbury) Gardens, St Ann’s Gardens, St John’s Gardens and St Thomas’ Gardens. St John’s has since been changed to Baptist by association with St John the Baptist.

Barbican (Aldersgate Street, City). A barbican was an extra fortification outside a medieval wall. The name is first found in London in 1279, referring to the watchtower just north of the city wall which guarded the road to the Aldersgate. It was part of a ring of defences, natural and man­ made, supplementing London Wall itself: on the south flowed the Thames, the east was guarded by the Tower, the west by the Fleet River and the Bailey (see Old Bailey), while the barbican and the swampy Moor Fields protected against invasion from the north.

Barbon Close (Holborn 4). Nicholas Barbon (c. 1640-1698) was a doctor of medicine, speculator, founder of Fire Insurance, businessman, economist, jerry-builder, MP and confidence trickster. Through his varied career the common denominator was profit­ eering. He introduced Fire Insurance just after the panic of the Great Fire of 1666, and at the same time started to buy or lease ail the available building land near the City that he could lay hands on. Landowners who listened to his glib persuasions often lived to regret it: under him mass­ produced terraced houses, another innovation, soon sprang up-and sometimes fell down again as quickly. Wben he started to build Red Lion Square, the lawyers of Gray’s Inn were so angry that they marched in a body and assaulted the workmen. However, Barbon’s houses there and in Great Ormond Street near the entrance to Barbon Close are still standing.

Barge House Street (Southwark). An ancient lane, which led to the Royal Barge House, where the English sovereigns kept their Thames barges by Tudor times. The Barge House stood at the water’s edge above a creek at the end ofBroadwall and probably fell into disuse during the Commonwealth, since in 1676 it was described as ‘a certain ruinous house called the King’s Old Barge House’.

Barley Mow Passage (Long Lane, City). There has been a Barley Mow inn here for at least two centuries. Its sign is perhaps not so much a tribute to the brewers’ cereal as a corruption of St Bartholomew, in whose priory precinct it stands (see Bartholomew).

Barnard’s Inn (High Holborn, City) was originally a medieval mansion belonging to the Dean of Lincoln and occupied in 1450 by Lionel Barnard, who converted it into an Inn of Chancery. Sir Francis Bacon was one of its members. The Inn closed down when the Dean of Lincoln sold the site in 1888.

Barnby Street (Euston 4) was formerly Bedford Street, being part of the Duke of Bedford’s land, but there were so many Bedford Streets in the area that in 1896 the London County Cmmcil decided to change it. Renamed after Joseph Barnby, Victorian composer and conductor, who had recently died.

Barnsbury Road (Islington 5). Bamsbury Manor, stretching from Highgate Hill in the north to Pentonville in the south, took its name from the bury, or manor house, of the Berners family. By at least 1235, and probably earlier, William de Bemers held land here which stayed in the famlly until John, Chancellor of the Exchequer and last Lord Berners, died in 1532. After that the manor passed to Sir Thomas Fowler (Fowler Road) and then by marriages in the family to Sir William Halton (Halton Road) and to William Tufnell Jollife (Tufuell Park). Ref:70.

Bamsdale Road (Paddington 2) dates from 1868. Probably just a ruralistic ‘advertising’ name.

Baron Street (Pentonville 5) was originally Barron Street, from a field here called Barron’s Layers­ ‘layers’ being a local word for a meadow planted with clover belonging to Mr Joseph Barron. He acquired the field in 1753 and lived in a house beside it until the street was built in 1787.

Barrett Street (Marylebone 3) was intended as the continuation of Henrietta Place, and was originally named as such, but the building of Stratford Place (q.v.) prevented the two ends from meeting. It was eventually named more appropriately after Thomas Barrett, who died about 1760 and was the land-owner of this small plot at the time the street was begun.

Barrow Hill Road (St John’s Wood 8). Barrow Hill, the smaller eminence beside Primrose Hill, was so called as early as the year 986, and for generations was believed to be a prehistoric barrow, or burial site. But no evidence was found when the reservoir was dug on its summit in the early nineteenth century, and the name may come from Old English ‘baeruwe’, meaning grove or wood, having no connection with barrows. Barrow Hill Road, built on the Barrow Hill Fields, was planned to go all the way to the Hill, but only this short road materialised.

Barter Street (Bloomsbury 4) was formerly Bloomsbury Market. The first bartering here was probably done by servants from the houses of Bloomsbury Square; the Earl of Southampton (see Southampton Row) began the Square in 1661 and provided the market to serve it the following year. For some reason the market was never a great success­ probably because Southampton’s heirs were the Dukes of Bedford, who already owned Covent Garden Market and would not encourage competition with it. Bloomsbury Market was finally demolished with the building of New Oxford Street (1847).
Refs: 304, 330.

Bartholomew. Bartholomew Close (Smithfield 5) is a tortuous narrow lane, winding through the enclosed precinct or close of St Bartholomew’s Priory, ‘closed in with walls and gates and locked every night’ until the sixteenth century. The monastic buildings and the wall are pictured on Plate rr, the Agas map of c. 1560. The priory was founded in 1123 by Rahere, Henry I’s jester, who according to the legend ‘was rescued from the jaws of hell by Bartholomew himself, in return for a pledge to build a Priory and Hos­ pital’. All that remains of the priory is the Norman church ofSt Bartholo mew-the-Great, but the adjoining hospital survived the dissolution of the monasteries, and is now the oldest hospital in London.
Like many religious foundations, St Batholomew’s was richly endowed with graots of land. Bartholomew Square (Finsbury 5) was built in 1811 on a field held by the priory since 1328. Nearby Baldwin Street is named after Richard Baldwyn, Treas urer of the Hospital at the time of development. There were also properties in Kentish Town, first acquired by the hospital in the twelfth century, and added to by charitable citizens. One of the fields, developed in the 1860s, now contains Bartholomew Road and Villas (8).

Bartholomew Lane (City 5) contained the church of St Bartholomew­ by-the-Exchange. Its site is now taken over by the new enlarged Stock Exchange.

Bartlett Court (New Fetter Lane 5) belonged in about 1615 to Thomas Bartlett, said to be Court Printer to Edward VI.

Barton Street (Westminster 7) and Cowley Street were built in 1722 by Barton Booth (1681-1733), a famous actor of his day. He came from a well-to-do family which owned property in Westminster and also at Cowley, near Uxbridge.

Basil Street (Chelsea 7). Origin unknown.

Basing Street (Nolting Hill 2). In 1549 Edward VI granted the Manor of Notting Hill, which his father had claimed for the Crown, to Sir William Paulet, Lord StJohn of Basing, who became Lord High Treasurer and Marquis of Winchester soon afterwards. Lord St John sold the manor to pay off some debts in 1562.

Basinghall Avenue and Street (City 5) are part of the Ward of Bassishaw. Both names are derived from the Basings’ ‘baga’, or enclosed house. The Basings came from Basingstoke in Hampshire originally, but before 1200 they settled in the City and became one of its leading families. Solomon Basing was Lord Mayor in 1216, as was Adam Basing in 1251. It was the custom for powerful men to take over the guard, or •weard’, of a section of the city, and thus their name came to be applied to the ward, and so surv1ved for centuries.

Bassett Street (Kentish Town 8). George Bassett was Surveyor to the Fitzroys, Barons Southampton, who owned large estates in Kentish Town, Tottenham Court Road and High­ gate (see Fitzroy Square). Bassett and his family were responsible for developing much of Kentish Town from the 1840s onwards.

Bassishaw Highwalk (City) is part of the post-war re-development of Bassishaw Ward.

Bastwick Street (Goswell Road 5) was so named by the local Vestry in 1885. Bastwick is a village in Norfolk, but it has no obvious connection with this street.

Bateman’s Buildings (Soho Square) crosses the site of the mansion and grounds of Monmouth House in Soho Square, once the home of the Duke of Monmouth, Charles II’s ambitious illegitimate son. After Monmouth’s execution in 1685 the house fell into decay until finally it was sold to Sir James Bateman, Lord Mayor of London, in 1717. When his grandson, the 2nd Lord Bateman, inherited it in 1744 he found the mansion too large for his own needs and difficult to let as a whole, since by then Soho was no longer a fashionable residential area. So in 1773 he had Monmouth House demolished and Bateman’s Buildings, then a double row of smaller houses, erected to replace it. Bateman Street was named after Bateman’s Buildings in 1884.

Bath Street (City Road 5) Led to ‘The Pleasure Bath, Peerless Pool, City Road.

Battersea Bridge (6). ‘ea’ means ‘island’ or ‘marshy ground’, and it seems that low-lying Battersea beside the Thames was once encircled by a little back-water from the river.
‘Batters’ is probably a corruption of the name of its Anglo-Saxon chieftain. The first Battersea Bridge was erected in 1771 and made of wood. An iron bridge replaced it a century later.

Battle Bridge Lane (Bermondsey 5) skirted the east side of the medieval town house belonging to Battle Abbey, Hastings. A little stream ran alongside the lane on its way from the Maze Pond (q.v.) to the Thames, and the Abbot of Battle built a bridge over it to serve as his Thames-side landing­ stage.

Battle Bridge Road (King’s Cross 4). Battle Bridge was the ancient name for the hamlet around modern King’s Cross. The bridge crossed the River Fleet, which meandered through the village . but what was the battle? Legends tell of Boadicea defeated here by the Romans, or Alfred fighting the Danes, or the East Saxons clashing with William the Conqueror. More likely are batells (French ‘bateau’), flat­ bottomed boats plying in the shallow Fleet.

Bayley Street (Bedford Square 4): after Sir John Bayley, a celebrated Victorian Judge, who lived at 41 Bedford Square in the 1820s.

Baynes Court (Coldbath Square, Clerkenwell) : see Coldbath Square.

Baynes Mews (Hampstead 1). In memory of Thomas Spencer Baynes (1823-1887), one of the editors of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, who used to live in Hampstead.

Baynes Street (Camden Town 8). So named in 1937 after Sydney Baynes, who had been chief electrical engineer for the local Borough Council for many years, and lived nearby at 57 Pratt Street.

Bayswater (3) was the watering­ place belonging to an Anglo-Norman called Bayard or Baynard. It is situated at the point where the River Westbourne crosses the Roman Bayswater Road. In addition to this river, now flowing in a sewer-pipe under Brook Mews North (see end­ map), Bayswater’s gravelly soil held springs and wells which once supplied much of the City of London with water, and are remern bered in Spring Street, Conduit Place and Artesian Road nearby.

Beak Street (Soho 7) owes its name to Thomas Beake, one of Queen Anne’s Messengers, who acquired a plot of land on the north side of the street in about 1680. This was the period of the great building boom which followed the Fire of 1666, when speculative builders, who might be anybody from aristocrats to labourers, entered the development business with a fair hope of making a quick fortune. The bigger specu­ lators, often financiers or courtiers like Beake, purchased the land, divided it into building plots and leased them singly to the lesser speculators, masons and carpenters, who erected the houses.

Bear Alley (Farringdon Street 5). From a seventeenth century inn-sign. The Bear was a common sign, reflecting the popularity of the cruel sport of bear-baiting, which took place at inn yards all over the country.

Bear Gardens (Southwark 5). The gory sport of bear-baiting was popular in England by the early middle ages; the bear, tied to a stake, was set upon by three or four
dogs, while the audience placed bets on the result or simply enjoyed the fight. The first known mention of Bankside in Southwark as a baiting centre dates from 1546, when Hemy viii declared the abolition of the Bankside brothels and bull rings; however, the king was probably just trying to channel this considerable source ·or income into his own pocket, since a few months later the Yeoman of His Majesty’s Bears was permitted to ‘make pastime’ on Bankside. The Bear Baiting, which stood on the site of this alley, was a circular building like the early theatres, ‘wherein be kept bears, bulls and other beasts, to be baited; as also mastiffs in several kennels, nourished to bait them. These bears are there baited in plots of ground, scaffolded for the beholders to stand safe’. Sometimes this scaffolding collapsed with fatal results, and frequently maimed dogs were flung into the laps of the spectators.
Not everybody approved of the sport. ‘Of Bearbaytynge’, written in
1550, exclaims:
What follye is thys, to kepe wyth daunger,
A greate mastyfe dogge and a
foule ouglye beare;
And to thys onelye ende, to se
them two fyght,
Wyth terrible tearynge, a full
ouglye syght.
Samuel Pepys went to many bear fights on Bankside, but as he grew older found them ‘a very rude and nasty pleasure’. Evelyn the diarist thought them ‘butcherly sports, or rather barbarous cruelties’ and left ‘most heartily weary of the rude and dirty pastime’ after a visit to the Bear Garden in 1670. The Bankside Garden closed down not long after this; but bear baiting was not suppressed in other parts of England unti1 1835.

Bear Street (Leicester Square 7). From the heraldic device of the landowners, the Earls of Leicester.

Beatty Street (Camden Town 4), built soon after the Battle of Trafalgar, was originally one of London’s many Nelson Streets dating from that period. To end the confusion between them it was renamed in 1937 in memory of both Sir William Beatty, the surgeon who tended Nelson’s fatal wound on board the Victory at Trafalgar, and Admiral Lord Beatty, Commander-in-Chief of the British Fleet in the First World War, who died in 1936.

Beauchamp Place (South Kensington 7) was so named in 1885. Origin unknown.

Beaufort Street (Chelsea 6). The Dukes of Beaufort had a sumptuous mansion on the site of the southern end of this street. Beaufort House was originally built for Sir Thomas More, and its atmosphere is conveyed in his masterpiece Utopia, ‘the author’s home writ large’. The Beauforts sold the house in 1737 to Sir Hans Sloane, Lord of Chelsea Manor, who demolished it and formed the street.

Beaumont Place (Tottenham Court Road 4) stands on the site of a ‘cow tier’ attached to Tottenham Court, which the Fitzroy family, Lords of the Manor of Tottenham
Court, leased for development to a builder called Joseph Beaumont in 1791.

Beaumont Street (Marylebone 3) is on part of the site of Marylebone Gardens, ‘by much the pleasantest place about town’ according to the Daily Courant, ‘and thought by the nobility and gentry to be very commodious for breakfast’. And to add excitement to pleasure, ‘the proprietor offers a reward often guineas for the apprehension of any highwayman found on the road to the gardens’. But the proprietor’s lease expired in 1777, whereupon the gardens were divided into plots and leased out for building by Sir Beaumont Hotham. Sir Beaumont, the younger son of a baronet, was a friend of Viscount Weymouth, the brother-in-law of the ground landlord.

Bedale Street (Southwark 5) was originally known descriptively as Foul Lane (in contrast to adjacent Stoney Street). Then in about 1800 the old name was no longer considered suitable, and it was changed to York Street, in compliment to the Grand Old Dnke, the Prince Regent’s brother (see York). However, there were so many London York Streets dating from that period that in 1891 it was changed again to avoid confusion, and York was replaced by the Yorkshire town of Bedale.

Bedford Gardens (Kensington)
Built in the 1830s and probably named after the Duke and Duchess of Bedford, who lived close by: see Duchess of Bedford’s Walk.

Bedford Row (Holborn 4) has no connection with the Duke of Bedford’s lands nearby-it is part of Harpur’s Bedford Charity estate. Sir William Harpur, commemorated in Harpur Street, was born in Bedford in 1496. He arrived in London as a young apprentice, and rose in wealth and position to become Lord Mayor. By this time (1561) Bedford, like so many English towns, had been deprived of its local Church school at the dissolution of the monasteries, so Sir William refounded Bedford School and endowed it with thirteen acres of hunting land here at Holborn to ensure its financial viability. Green Street, now adapted to Emerald Street, on Harpur’s estate, may commemorate Edmond Greene, its first headmaster. The property still belongs to Bedford Corporation. Three other estates in this neighbourhood were bequeathed to provincial schools at the same period: see Rugby, Tonbridge and Aldenbam Streets.

Bedford Square, Avenue, Place and Way (Bloomsbury 4), Bedford Court, Street and Bedfordbury (Covent Garden 4) and Bedford Passage (off Charlotte Street) indicate the London possessions which the Russells of Bedford received in two stages, the first for merit in 1552 and the second by marriage in 1669. At the time the estates were unimportant orchard or pasture lands, yet they were to yield more profit to the later Dukes of Bedford than all the family’s numerous country properties.
The first London acquisition was the Covent Garden and Long Acre (the neighbourhood around present· day Covent Garden), which Edward VI gave the 1st Earl of Bedford for negotiating the surrender of Bou­ logne. The Garden was developed about 80 years later by Inigo Jones and Francis, 4th Earl of Bedford, who named the streets after himself his in-laws, and the Royal Family.
The other property came into the family when Francis’ grandson Wil· liam married Lady Rachel, daughter and heiress of the 4th Earl of Southampton, whose great-grandfather had been granted the Manor of Bloomsbury by Henry VIII. Bloomsbury extended from High Holbom to the Euston Road, between Tottenham Court Road and Southampton Row, with a few detached fields: one on the west side of Tottenham Court Road, and three adjoining Crowndale Road, Camden Town (see end-map), all now bearing street-names connected with the Bedford family. William started to build on the Holbom end of the property as soon as he acquired it, and his successors worked gradually north until finally houses covered the Crownda!e Road area in about 1850. Not all this property has remained
in the family; Covent Garden was sold by the 11th Duke before the First World War, the Crowndale Road land at the other extremity of the estates went in 1933 and the fringes of what was left have been nibbled by purchasers; but the family names on more than seventy London streets continue to bear witness to three centuries of Bedford ownership.

Beech Street (City 6A) was called le Bech lane as early as 1279, probably from a beech grove beside it.

Beehive Passage (Leadenhall Market, City) was built across the site of a Beehive Tavern situated rather inappropriately in the poultry section of Leadenhall Market until 1885, when the Market was rebuilt.
Beeston Place (Belgravia 7). Part of the Grosvenor family estate: see Grosvenor Square.

Belgrave. Belgrave is a hamlet in Cheshire which the first Earl Grosvenor purchased in 1758. In 1784 he was created Viscount Belgrave, a title which his descendants, the Dukes of Westminster, still hold. When his son, Robert Grosvenor, 1st Marquess of Westminster, decided to develop part of his Westminster lands in 1824, the names of Belgrave and other Cheshire and Flint properties were given to the streets and squares. Belgrave Square 7), happening to be the focal point of the area, gave the name Belgravia to thls select district. Belgrave Place and Upper and Lower Belgrave Street date from the same period. The Grosvenor estate in Pimlico was begun a few years later: Belgrave Road, Pimlico (7), was built in about 1830.

In consequence of Belgravia’s prosperity the name then became very fashionable, and propagated wildly in the outer suburbs until the London County Council intervened-a strange fate for a tiny village on the Welsh border. Belgrave Gardens, St John’s Wood (3), was apparently named simply for this cachet of respectability.

Bell Inn Yard (Gracechurch Street 5) commemorates a Bell Inn which stood here until the Great Fire of 1666. There is a plaque marking its site near the end of the Yard.

Bell Street (Edgware Road 3) was Bell Lane three hundred years ago, a little village street behind Lisson Green. It led to the Bell Field, which was probably attached to a Bell Inn in Edgware Road.

Bell Wharf Lane (Upper Thames Street 5). Probably named from an old tavern sign.

Bell Yard (Fleet Street 5). Le Belle, a ‘capital messuage’ large house­ stood here at the time of the dis­ solution of the monasteries and belonged to the Knights of St John. A plan dated 1592 in the British Museum indicates Bell Yard but does not mark the house, which had presumably been demolished by then. Later there was a Bell Tavern here, but now that too has gone.

Belmont Street (Chalk Farm 8). Belmont, ‘beautiful mountain’, was a common Victorian street name, especially in areas where it was most inappropriate. There are also Belmonts in Camberwell, Lewisham, Shoreditch, Woolwich and Wands­ worth. An ‘advertising’ name.

Belsize (Hampstead 1). Belassis, ‘beautifully situated’, was an aptly named manor house and park on the site of Belsize Square, halfway up the wooded slopes of Hampstead. Belsize Lane wound through the estate by an early date, and there was a grand tree-lined drive up to the house which is now Belsize Avenue. Belsize Park was once a footpath through the Park, and Belsize Park Gardens was Cut-Throat Lane, a lonely cart track to the nearest neighbour, Chalcots Farm in England’s Lane.

In 1316 Roger le Brabazon, Chief Justice to Edward II, bequeathed Bel-assis to the monks of Westminster Abbey, provided they said a daily mass for himself and for the Earl and Countess of Lancaster. Westminster Abbey remained Lord of Belsize Manor until 1887, and when the estate was developed Lancaster Drive and Grove were named after the old Earl and Buckland Crescent after the Dean of Westminster. Spencer Perceval, the Prime Minister who was assassinated in the House of Commons in 1812, was a resident of Belsize House; he is remembered in Perceval Avenue, Belsize.

Belvedere Road (Lambeth 4). The Belvidere (‘Fine View’) tavern and pleasure gardens opened here on the site of the Royal Festival Hall in 1718. It advertised ‘all sorts of wines of the prime growths’ and ‘eatables of every kind in season, after the best manner’. Guests could also enjoy ‘the choicest river fish, which they may have the diversion to see taken’.

Bendall Mews (Bell Street, Lisson Grove) belonged to Sir Talbot Hastings Bendall Baker.

Benjamin Street (Clerkenwell 5) dates from about 1740. Origin unknown; probably the name of the builder or landowner.

Bennet Street (StJames’s 7) belonged to Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington.

Bennet’s Hill (Queen Victoria Street, City). St Benet’s Church was first built in the early twelfth century and dedicated to Benedict, the sixth century founder of the Benedictine order.

Bennett’s Mews (Southwark 5). This name is found in the area by 1720, when Bennet Street (now Rennie Street) was a narrow lane across the lonely Southwark marshes from Marigold Stairs on the Thames to Christ Church. Bennet was probably the developer who first erected houses along the lane.
Ref: 303.

Bennett’s Yard (Westminster 7) first appears in the parish rate-books in the year 1647. Five householders were then rated in the yard, one of them being a Mr Thomas Bennett.

Bentinck Street (Marylebone 3). Hans Willem Bentinck was the Dutch envoy responsible for arranging the marriage of Prince Wiiiiam of Orange to the Princess Mary, future Queen of England. As a leading adviser to William in his new king­ dom he was showered with rewards, including vast estates in England and Ireland, and the English Earldom of Portland. His grandson, William Bentinck, married the daughter of Edward Harley, and thereby acquired the land on which this street is built: see Harley Street.

Berkeley Gardens (Kensington Church Street): see Sheffield Terrace, Kensington.

Berkeley Mews (Marlebone 3). A turning out of Upper Berkeley Street.

Berkeley Square and Street (Mayfair 7). John Berkeley was born about 1607, the youngest son of Sir Maurice Berkeley of Bruton in Somerset. He was a royalist commander during the Civil War, and after a victory at Stratton in Cornwall was created Baron Berkeley of Stratton. By a judicious marriage he added wealth to the title, and in 1664 bought a field fronting Piccadilly, as a site for a town mansion befitting his status.

A few years later Berkeley House was completed in spacious grounds on the site of the present Devonshire House, Piccadilly. John Evelyn the diarist described it as a ‘sweete place’, with
‘by far the most noble gardens, courts, and accommodations, stately porticos, &c. anywhere about the towne’. But by the time Lord Berkeley died in 1678, land along Piccadilly was so valuable that his widow could not resist sacrificing two strips of garden on either side of Berkeley House to the builders; Berkeley Street and Stratton Street were the result. Lord Berkeley’s son John sold the house to the Duke of Devonshire in 1696.

Meanwhile in about 1675 the family had bought Hay Hill Farm, a 28-acre farm adjoining Berkeley House gardens. This stayed in the family after Berkeley House had been sold, and the 1st Lord’s grandson John, 5th Baron Berkeley built Berkeley Square, Bruton Lane, Place and Street and Charles Street (after his uncle or brother) on it in the 1740s. The farm belonged to the Berkeleys until the line finally expired in 1942.

Berkley Road (Chalk Farm 8) is probably one of the hundreds of English suburban Berkeleys and Berkleys named in emulation of the select elegance that was once a part of Berkeley Square, Mayfair.

Bermondsey is recorded as Vermun desei in AD 708, the ‘ei’ or ‘marshy land’ of Beornmund. The low-lying village was intersected by numerous little streams. Bermondsey Street (5 so called by 1379, led from Tooley Street to Bermondsey Abbey, whose main cloister is now Bermondsey Square.

Bernard Street (Russell Square 4). Once part of the grounds of Captain Coram’s Foundling Hospital.

Berners Place and Street (Oxford Street 4). In 1654 ‘Josias Bemers of the parish of Saint James Clerkenwell in the county of Middlesex Esquire’ purchased ‘for the sume of nyne hundred and seventie Pounds of lawful! English money’ a field called the Newlands (see end-map) on the north side of Oxford Street, ‘situate and being in the parish of Maribom’. His descendant William Bemers started to develop the land in 1738, and built on it Berners Street and Place and Newman Street. (It is said that he also owned Newman Hall at Quendon in Essex).

Berry Place (Clerkenwell 5) was formerly Mulberry Place, in memory of the Mulberry Pleasure Garden which opened in 1742 in Corporation Row. Despite its mulberry trees, skittle alleys, concerts and firework displays, the garden did not attract the public sufficiently to make a profit, and was built over within a few years.

Berry Place (Clerkenwell Road 5) is recorded as the property of a Kentish farmer called Thomas Berry in 1803, the year the street name first appears.

Bertram Street (Highgate 8). A Victorian name of unknown origin.

Berwick Street (Soho 4) was built during the religious turmoils of 1688-9 by a Papist named James Pollett. By giving his street this name, Pollett may have been declaring
allegiance to the Catholic Duke of Berwick, James n’s dashing young iJlegitimate son, who was then fighting in Ireland and on the conti­ nent to restore his father to the throne.

Bessborough Gardens, Place, Street and Way and Ponsonby Place and Terrace (Westminster 7) were begun in about 1841 and named in honour of John Ponsonby, Baron Duncannon of Bessborough. As First Commissioner of Woods and Forests Ponsonby was required to take an active part in the improvements and developments going on in London (including the designing of the present Houses of Parliament), and must have been responsible for these streets, which were Woods and Forests Department property. He was the brother-in-law of Prime Minister Lord Melbourne.

Betterton Street (Drury Lane 4). In honour of Thomas Betterton (c. 1635-1710), ‘the best actor in the world’ according to Pepys. He began his association with this district in 1659
as an apprentice when he made an amateur appearance at the Cockpit Theatre in Drury Lane, and he was later to become the leader of the
United Company at Drury Lane.

Bevin Way (Clerkenwell 4). The Bevin Court Flats here were opened in April 1954 by Dame Florence Bevin, the widow of Labour statesman Ernest Bevin, on the third anniversary of his death.

Bevington Road (North Kensington 2). Bevington is a village in Gloucestershire. Connection with North Kensington unknown.

Bevis Marks (City 5). On the south-west side of Bevis Marks, occupying the land between Bury Street and Heneage Lane, stood ‘one great house, large of rooms, fair courts and garden plots’. It belonged to the Abbots of Bury St Edmunds, and was known as Bury’s Marks.
‘Bury’s’ was corrupted to ‘Bevis’ during the middle ages, probably through scribal confusion between rand v. ‘Marks’ meant ‘boundary’ or ‘territory’, and appears in the words ‘margin’, ‘demarcation’ and ‘marquis’, the guardian of the frontier. When Henry VIII dissolved Bury Abbey, the Heneage family acquired the property.

Bickenball Street (Marylebone 3):
see Portman Square, Marylebone.

Bidborough Street (King’s Cross 4). Bidborough is a village two miles from Tonbridge: see Tonbridge Street King’s Cross.

Biddulph Road (Paddington 3): see
Ashworth Road, Paddington.

Billing Place, Road and Street (Fulham Road) ) stand on the site of the Billing Well Fields beside Billing­ well Ditch. This stream rose in Kensal Green Cemetery and flowed down to Chelsea (see end-map), where a stump of it survives as the Chelsea Creek, although the rest was filled in to take the tracks of the West London Railway. The ditch was once important for drainage and sewage and possibly even navigation, and a record dated 1410 mentions one John Lane in trouble for not scouring the ditch ‘at Byllingwelle’. A few years later we find tenants ordered to cleanse the stream from ‘Countas­ bregge [at Kensington High Street] to Billyng Wellditch’.
Refs: 162, 100.

Billingsgate (Lower Thames Street, City) was the chief City watergate, or quay, for fishing vessels mooring and landing their cargoes, by the early middle ages. An explanation of the name was given by Geoffrey de Monmouth in the twelfth century: ‘Belin a king of the Britons, about four hundred years before Christ’s Nativity, built this gate and named it Belin’s gate, after his own calling; and when he was deadhis body being burnt, the ashes m a vessel of brass were set upon a high pinnacle of stone over the same gate’. Stow writing his Survey of London in 1S98, is rightly sceptical of this version: ‘It seemeth to me not to be so ancient, but rather to have taken that name of some later owner of the place, haply named Beling or Biling’.

Billiter Street (City 5) was Belseter· slane in 1298, the lane of the Bell· founders. Employment for a whole streetful of bellmakers was provided by the 100 churches in the City. Bells tolled not just for Sunday services and weddings as they do now but for all the main hours and devotions of the day, which directed the medieval citizen’s work, leisure and worship, and for the important ‘couvre-feu’, the curfew or lights-out. The little bells of beggars, animals and peddlars added to the ceaseless tinkling and pealing of London in the middle ages.

Bina Gardens (South Kensington 6). Name approved in 1866. Origin unknown.

Bingham Place (Marylebone 3) was named in 1892 after a town near Nottingham, the street being next to Nottingham Place.

Birchin Lane (City 5) is found as Berchervere Lane in 1193. Eilert Ekwall, the leading authority on early City names, derives it from an otherwise unrecorded Old English word ‘beardceorfere’, ‘beard-cutter’; hence Lane of the Barbers.

Bird Street (Oxford Street 4) was begun in 1763 by Thomas Bird, a bricklayer. It formed the continuation of Binney Street, also called Bird Street originally, which he built in 1739.

Bird-in-Hand Yard (Hampstead High Street). The Bird in Hand tavern in the High Street has adjoined this yard since at least 1783.

Birdcage Walk (St James’s Park 7). It is not widely known by Londoners that James I was in his time renowned for his love of wild-life, and collected a large menagerie of exotic animals and birds which he housed at enormous expense in StJames’s Park. His grandson Charles II continued the collection and remodelled the park, and it was probably then that the cages of the ‘volery’ were placed along the avenue which became known as Birdcage Walk.

Bisham Gardens (Highgate 8). In memory of Bisham House, a seventeenth-century villa in Highgate High Street, demolished in 1884. The street was formed across its gardens, which stretched to Swains Lane.

Bishop’s Bridge Road (Paddington 3) is shown on old maps as a path from Paddington Green to Westbourne Green, bridging the River Westbourne. The first Bishop here was Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London, who was granted Paddington by the boy-king Edward VI. He was burnt at the stake by Edward’s sister Mary, but his successors in the See of London are still Lords of Paddington Manor and own most of the freehold land.

Cromwell seized Paddington during the Commonwealth period, but at the Restoration it reverted to the powerful Bishop Gilbert Sheldon, who leased the Manor to his nephews, Sir Joseph and Daniel Sheldon. (After the Sheldons’ lease expired in 1740, it passed to the Fredericks, whose family names cover the area: see Southwick Street). The estate was developed from 1795 on, and four consecutive bishops were commemorated in street names as urbanisation spread: Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London 1787-1808; John Randolph; William Howley, who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1828, and Charles James Blomfield (I786-1857). Hence London Street, Sheldon Street, Porteus Road, Randolph Avenue, Crescent, Gardens and Road, Howley Place and Blomfield Crescent, Road and Villas.

Bishopsgate (City 5) was a Roman road, entering the City through one of the gates on the north side (see end-map). It gained its name from a tradition that the gate was restored in Saxon times by Saint Erkenwald, Bishop of London and Prince of East Anglia, who died in 693; just inside its site stands the medieval church of St Ethelburga, the only church in England dedicated to Erkenwald’s sister. In the middle ages the Bishop of London was responsible for keeping the hinges of the gate in good repair, and in return, ‘from every cart laden with wood he has one stick as it enters the said gate’. The gate was demolished in 1760, and on the site are two old plaques adorned with golden mitres, stating that ‘Adjoining to this spot BISHOPS­ GATE formerly stood’.

Bishopsgate Churchyard crosses the old graveyard of St Botolph-without­ Bishopsgate, now converted into gardens and tennis courts.

Black Horse Yard (Aldersgate Street 5). From a seventeenth-century Black Horse inn in Aldersgate Street, destroyed during the First World War.

Black Swan Alley (London Wall, City). A Blade Swan Tavern stood on the corner with London Wall in the mid-eighteenth century.

Blackburn Road (Hampstead 1) dates from 1869, and is probably named after William Blackburn, a Pentonville builder, who erected houses in and around Frognal in the mid-nineteenth century.

Blackbume’s Mews (Upper Brook Street, Mayfair 7) probably had some connection with the Mr William Blackburne who according to the parish ratebooks came to live in Upper Brook Street in the 1720s, when this area was just being developed.

Blackfriars (City 5) was once the home of the Dominicans, or Black Friars, a begging order of preachers who settled here in 1279 inside the City walls, within easy reach of citizens who would give them sus­ tenance. Blackfriars Lane winds through the middle of their precinct, and the old cloister is now Playhouse Yard. After Henry vrn dissolved the monastery, its church where the preaching friars had attracted large congregations for centuries was replaced by the parish church of St Anne. This was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 and all that remains of it is a plaque recording the site in Church Entrv.
Blackfriars Bridge, the City’s second bridge, was opened in 1769, and leads to Blackfriars Road, thus extending the name of the Dominicans down into Southwark. Blackfriars Underpass, underneath the former monastery precinct, was the first stage of a projected dual­ carriageway to the Tower. For its electrical road-heating and other refinements it was granted the AA Gold Medal in 1967 for distinguished work in the cause of motoring.

Blacklands Terrace (Chelsea 7). A large part of Chelsea was labelled ‘Blacklande’ in a survey of the parish dated 1544. At that time Chelsea was mainly exposed heath
and bleak common, covered in a dark soil.

Blagrove Road (North Kensington 2). Probably after Henry Gamble Blagrove, a nineteenth-century musician, who led the State band at Queen Victoria’s coronation. He is buried at nearby Kensal Green Cemetery.

Blechynden Street (North Kensington 2) crosses a 50-acre estate which James Whitchurch, a barrister, purchased for £10 an acre in the nineteenth century. He left his home at Blechynden in Southampton and built himself a house in Lancaster Road, North Kensington (now occupied by the Little Sisters of the Assumption). Streets were begun on the estate in 1846, and the first to be
laid out were named Aldermaston, Silchester, Bramley and Pamber after four neighbouring villages near Basingstoke, where Whitchurch’s daughter Florence Blechynden Whitchurch was living.

Whitchurch divided his land into building plots which he leased to speculators: among them were John Calverley (Calverley Street), a Notting Hill builder; Joseph Job Martin, who was the landlord of the Lancaster Tavern in Walmer Road as well as the developer of Martin Street; Stephen Hurst, a builder from Kentish Town, who was responsible for Hurstway Street, and James Fowell of Gray’s Inn Road, who moved to more select Ponders End when the profits from Fowell Street started to come in.

Bleeding Heart Yard (Greville Street, Holborn) is derived from an old inn sign depicting a broken-hearted Virgin Mother, but until recently the name was always associated with the redoubtable Lady Hatton of Hatton Garden, who, according to the Ingoldsby Legends, entered into leagne with the Devil. Ultimately the Devil came to claim her, dressed as a dancer in black who whisked her away in the middle of a ball at Hatton House. She was never seen again-

But out in the courtyard-and just in that part
Where the pump stands-lay bleeding a LARGE HUMAN HEART!

Blithfield Street (Kensington 6). A Staffordshire place-name. Connection with Kensington unknown.

Blomfield. Charles James Blomfield, an energetic churchman who became Bishop of London in 1828, is remembered in several London streets. Blomfield Street in the City (5) is close to St Botolph’s Bishops­ gate, where Blomfield was rector before becoming Bishop. Bloomfield Terrace (Pimlico 7) adjoins St Barnabas Church, which the Bishop consecrated on St Barnabas’s Day
1850. In Paddington, on the estate which has belonged to the See of London for centuries, his name was given to Blomfield Crescent, Road and Villas (3): see Bishop’s Bridge Road, Paddington.

Bloomburg Street (Westminster 7). Part of the Chapter of Westminster’s land: see Chapter Street, West­ minster.

Bloomfield Terrace (Pimlico 7) : see
Bloomfield.

Bloomsbury (4) is the name given to the medieval manor which stretched from modern Euston Road to High Holborn, and west to east from Tottenham Court Road to Southampton Row. It is a corruption of Blemund’s bury, the bury or manor house of William de Blemund, who bought the land in 1201. He was the brother of Gervase, an eminent Aoglo-Norman City merchant with a large mansion near Cornhill; hence the family name Blemont, literally ‘Corn hill’. The bury is clearly shown on Agas’ map, an impressive two-storey building protected by a
strong wall and what looks like a moat, dominating the surrounding countryside.

In 1545 the Earl of Southampton (Southampton Row) acquired the manor, which his descendants, the Dukes of Bedford, still partly own today. It was the 4th Earl of Southampton who started to develop the fields in 1661 by building Bloomsbury Square, the first open space in London to be designated a Square. Soon afterwards, to give the residents of the Square access to Southampton Row, Bloomsbury Place was built. Meanwhile, Bloomsbury Market had opened, and to serve it an old cart track was widened and named Bury Place (short for Bloomsbury Place). The road made to connect the market with the Square is now Bloomsbury Way. Bloomsbury Street came much later, as part of a Victorian slum clearance scheme.

Blue Anchor Alley (Bunhill Row 5). The old Blue Anchor inn in Bunhill Row changed to its present name, the Artillery Arms, in 1856.

Blue Ball Yard (StJames’s 7). From a Blew Ball tavern recorded here in the 1740s.

Boddy’s Bridge (Upper Ground, Southwark) is situated in the Manor of Paris Garden (q.v.), whose records mention Richard Boddy living beside
‘Bodyes Bridgin Upper Ground from 1630 until 1642. He built a bridge in Upper Ground over the little stream-one of many draining Paris Garden-which ran beside Colombo Street, under the Bridge and down to the Thames by Bull Alley.

Boldero Street (Lisson Grove 3) contains warehouses of the adjoining firm of Spencer, Turner and Boldero, founded in 1840 as Spencer and Hall, Drapers. By 1857 Boldero had joined the business, which soon afterwards became a wholesale trade. In the 1890s it developed into a great department store, but since the decline of Lisson Grove as a fashionable area the firm has dealt only with wholesale drapery. It occupies 61-93 Lisson Grove.

Bolney Gate (Brompton 6). The 1965 flats called Bolney Gate occupy the site of Bolney House, a Victorian mansion which stood in Ennismore Gardens. It was built for Alfred Ruth and his cousin-wife Octavia Ruth, whose families were landed gentry from Dolney in Sussex.

Bolsover Street (Marylebone 4). Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire was part of the heritage of the Cavendish family. Through marriages of Cavendish heiresses, it passed to the families of Harley and then Portland, the owners of Marylebone Manor. Baron Bolsover is still a title of the Dukes of Portland, but under the 7th Duke the Castle has become National Trust property.

Bolt Court (Fleet Street 5) used to face the Bolt-in-Tun, a busy fifteenth­ century coaching inn on the opposite side of Fleet Street (on the site of no. 64). Its inn-sign showed a bolt, or
arrow, passing through a tun, which was probably the rebus of a landlord called Bolton. (The same sign can be seen carved in St Bartholomew’s Church at Smithfield in memory of Prior Bolton who restored the church).

The Boltons (Earl’s Court 6), the Little Boltons, Bolton Gardens and South Bolton Gardens occupy fields that were held by William Bolton as early as 1538. His heirs, all apparently named William, continued to farm the land for centuries, but sold it when the streets were begun: a property deed dated 1864, when The Boltons was under construction, described it as ‘land formerly of William Boulton esquire’.

Bolton Road (South Hampstead 3) lies on the Eyre Estate.

Bolton Street (Piccadilly 7). The Duke of Bolton owned land near Berkeley Square, according to the minutes of the Westminster Com­ mission for Sewers, which mention in 1696 that sewer pipes were being laid here to serve his property. Three years later this street first appears in the parish ratebooks.

Bonchurch Road (North Kensington 2) was apparently built by a native of the Isle of Wight; the first house to be erected here, in 1875, was called Shanklin House, and a turning out of Bonchurch Road is St Lawrence Terrace-Shanklin, Bonchurch and St Lawrence are neighbouring coastal resorts on the Island.

Bond Court (Walbrook 5) must have been the home of the prominent Bond family. Sir George Bonde, Alderman of Walbrook Ward 1584-1592 and Master of the Haberdashers’ Company, was an ancestor of Sir Winston Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough and the Dukes of Leeds through one daughter, and Victoria’s favourite Lord Melbourne through another. William Bond, also Master of the Haberdashers’ Company, became Alderman of Walbrook in 1649.

Bonny Street (Camden Town 8) was built in 1871, at the same time as Camden Road Station, probably by James Rippoth Bonny, an architect established in Camden Road. The corner house of the new street, next door to Bonny’s office, was a restaurant run by George Pye Bonny. The restaurant and the architect’s premises have since combined and become the Station Hotel, facing Camden Road Station.

Booth’s Place (Wells Street, Maryle­ bone). Joseph Booth was the lessee of this mews in the 1760s, when the name first appears. He lived on the corner, in We11s Street.

Borough High Street (Southwark 5). Southwark, was, and sometimes still is, known as the Borough, because in early times it was the only borough or suburb, outside the City Walls. The Romans founded a settlement here and built the High Street as an approach road to London Bridge.

Boscastle Road (Highgate 8). Boscastle was the name of the first house built here, at the southern end. Probably after the birthplace of the Cornishman who owned the house in the 1860s.

Boscobel Place (Belgravia 7) and Boscobel Street (Marylebone 3) are both named after Royal Oak pubs, Boscobel Woods being the scene of Charles n’s escape from the Round­ heads. Neither of the pubs exist now; the Royal Oak in Belgravia was demolished as part of a redevelopment plan in 1952, and that in Marylebone was replaced by railway sidings in the 1890s.

Boston Place (Marylebone 3) was built in the early 19th century on what used to be Boston Field. The field was probably too waterlogged to be of agricultural value and was used as a rubbish tip. It also contained a large mud pit in which people fell and drowned from time to time.

Boswell Court and Street (Holborn 4) were part of the successful speculative building enterprises carried out in this district by Edward Boswell in about 1710. He was a
bricklayer from St Giles-in-the-Fields and a Churchwarden of that parish.

Bosworth Road (Notting Hill 2). The 13th Earl of Oxford, Lord of the Manors of Notting Hill and Kensington (see Earl’s Court) fought with Henry Tudor at Bosworth Field in 1485. However, it is unlikely that the builder of this street in 1867 had this in mind. Origin unknown.

Botolph Lane (City 5). At the bottom of this lane is a plaque recording the site of St Botolph-by­ Billingsgate, burnt down in the Great Fire. It was one of the four City churches dedicated to the seventh-century saint, who also gave his name to Boston in Lincolnshire. Like the other three, all still standing, the chnrch was situated just by a City gate, for Botolph was a patron of travellers. The others are St Botolph Aldersgate, St Botoph Bishopsgate and St Botolph Aldgate (beside St Botolph Row and Street).

Bott’s Mews (Chepstow Road, Bays­ water) is behind the Princess Royal tavern in Hereford Road, which was opened by James Bott in the early 1840s. The Princess Royal was a popular country inn, with its own bowling green, fish pond and archery ground.

Boundary Road once the boundary between the parishes of St Marylebone and Hampstead, now separates the London Boroughs of Westminster and Camden.

Bourchier Street (Soho 7) was renamed shortly after the death of the Reverend Basil Bourchier (1881-1934), rector of nearby St Anne’s Church. He must have often passed this street on his way to the church from his home in Soho Square.

Bourdon Street (Mayfair 7) is named after Bourdon House on the corner with Davies Street, now Mallett’s the antique dealers. The house was built in about 1725 and first occupied by William and Captain John Burden.

Bourlet Close (Riding House Street, Marylebone). Here great paintings are prepared for art exhibitions all over the world in the framemaking workshops and packing warehouses belonging to James Bourlet, fine art agents. The adjoining premises in Nassau Street have been their headquarters since 1848. The Bourlet family ran the business from the eighteenth century until 1908.

Bourne Street (Chelsea 7) runs beside the River Westbourne. The Westbourne can still be seen from one point in Bourne Street, encased in a large iron pipe that carries it over the tracks of Sloane Square Underground Station. Bourne Terrace (Westbourne Park 3) crosses the same stream higher in its course.

Bouverie Place (Paddington 3) and Radnor Place were named soon after young Lady Catherine Pleydell­ Bouverie died in childbirth at Paddington in 1804, worn down, according to contemporary gossip, by the neglect and ill-treatment of her husband, the future 3rd Earl of Radnor, who was ‘very immoral in respect of female connexions’.

Bouverie Street (Fleet Street 5) and its offshoot Pleydell Street are said to belong to the family of Pleydell­ Bouverie, Earls of Radnor.

Bow Lane and Churchyard (City 5). The famous church of St Mary-le­ Bow was originally called St Mary­ de Arcubus, translated as St Mary ‘of the arches’ or ‘of the bows’. The early Norman arches can still be seen in the crypt, restored since war damage, and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Court of Arches is held there. The ‘great bell of Bow’ of the nursery rhyme used to ring the City curfew in the middle ages.

Bow Street (Covent Garden 4). ‘So called’, as John Strype explained in 1720, ‘as running in Shape of a bent Bow’.

Bowling Green Lane (Clerkenwell 5) was a country lane behind Clerkenwell Priory. At an early date there were bowling greens all along its north side, perhaps once patronised by those twelfth-century City clerks described by Fitzstephen who used to stroll to Clerkenwell ‘in summer evenings, when they walk forth to take the air’, after whom the district is named. The last green here closed in 1849.

Boyle Street (Mayfair 7). After the Boyles, Earls of Burlington: see Burlington, Piccadilly.

Boyne Terrace Mews (Kensington 2. Probably after Boyne House, a large early Victorian villa in Holland Park Avenue, where Holland Park Station now stands.

Boyton Place (Penfold Street, Marylebone). Sir James Boyton, who died in 1926, was Unionist MP for East Marylebone from 1910 until 1918, and lived in the borough at 2 Park Square West.

Bradley’s Buildings (Pentonville 5) belonged to John and Charles Bradley, who ran an ironmongery business in Chapel Market in the 1840s.

Braidwood Street (Tooley Street 5). This name is a tribute to the heroism of James Braidwood, the chief of the London Fire Brigade. He died in 1861 in a flaming warehouse at nearby Cotton’s Wharf, Tooley Street, which collapsed and crushed him, horribly mutilating the body.

Bramerton Street (Chelsea 6) was built on Chelsea Glebe in 1876 and given a Norfolk place-name. Origin unknown.

Branch Hill (Hampstead 1) was so named about 250 years ago probably because it branched out of Hampstead High Street.

Bread Street (City 5), so called by the year 1163, was the traditional London bread market. After a royal decree of 1302 it was forbidden to sell bread anywhere else in the City; in this way prices and weights could be controlled for the benefit of the citizens, and dishonest traders could be punished, like one John of Stratford who ‘for making bread less than the assize, was, with a fool’s hood on his head, and loaves of bread about his neck, drawn on a hurdle through the streets of the City’.

Bream’s Buildings (Chancery Lane 5). Probably from its eighteenth­century builder.

Brechin Place (South Kensington 6). Probably in honour of Lord Panmure of Brechin, who was responsible for building the Kensington Barracks during his term as Secretary of State for War (1855-1858).

Brecknock Road (Camden Town 8). Part of the ancient trackway from King’s Cross to Highgate. Named after Lord Camden’s country estate.

Bremner Road (Knightsbridge 6) was built and named in 1875. Origin unknown.

Bressenden Place (Victoria 7). A modem road (1962) named after Bressenden Row, a little terrace of four or five cottages shown roughly on this site on Horwood’s map of 1819. Bressenden Row disappeared shortly afterwards and the original reason for the name has long been forgotten.

Brewer Street (Soho 7) took its namefrom two breweries which stood on its north side when the street was first formed. The first, opened in about 1664. belonged to Thomas Ayres, who also gave his name to nearby Air Street. It continued brewing until 1826; the Lex Garage now occupies the site. Davis’s Brewery, dating from 1671, adjoined it on the west, on either side of modern Lexington Street, and sur­ vived for about 70 years.

Brewhouse Yard (Clerkenwell 5). The first Brewhouse here opened in 1728, and the spot has been connected with brewing ever since. At present, Allied Breweries Ltd have their headquarters here.

Brick Court (Temple, City), first built in the reign of James I, was the earliest set of brick chambers in the Temple in an age of timber.

Brick Street (Piccadilly 7). An old lane, marked on a plan of 1614 as a hedgerow dividing two fields. The field on its north side, now the land between Brick Street and Shepherd Street, was then the Brickhill or Brick Kiln Close. The field lay in the valley of the Tyburn which was rich in brick-earth. Clay Street is higher up the same valley.

Brickbarn Close (Edith Grove, Chel­ sea). There was a field called Brickbarn Close roughly on this site in 1620. In those days a brick house was still a rarity, so a barn of brick was certainly distinctive enough to give name to a field.

Bridewell Place (City 5) lies close to the site of the River Fleet, which gave rise to so many wells along its course that it was often known as the River of Wells. (Most of them are forgotten, but the Clerkenwell still exists). The well of St Brigid, or Bride, rose beside St Bride’s Church in Fleet Street. The association between the well and the saint probably dates back to very early times, before Christianity had discarded pagan wellworship. St Bride’s is one of the two places in London where relics of a Saxon church on the site can be seen (the other being Allhallows-by-the-Tower). Bridewell, first a palace given by Edward VI to the City for use as a workhouse, then used as a prison from 1729 until its demolition in 1864.

Bridford Mews (Marylebone 4). Named in 1934 after a village in Devonshire; this is a turning out of Devonshire Street.

Bridge Approach (Chalk Farm 8). Built to bridge the London and Birmingham Railway, which reached this point in the 1840s.

Bridge Place (Pimlico 7). After Eccleston Bridge.

Bridge Street (Westminster 7) was made to form an impressive approach to Westminster Bridge, which was finally opened in 1750. The idea of a second bridge over the Thames had been suggested many years earlier, but it was opposed by the City of London, who drew a steady income from toll-paying traffic using London Bridge, and wanted no competition. It was the first bridge on a major scale to be attempted in England since London Bridge in the twelfth century, and was designed by the Swiss engineer Labelye, who used the innovatory method of caissons­ timber boxes filled with stone and sunk to form a foundation. The design was not entirely satisfactory and the original bridge, where Wordsworth was inspired to write Earth hath not anything to show more fair, was removed and replaced in 1853.

Bridgefoot (Lambeth 7) is the name given to the Surrey end of Vauxhall Bridge.

Bridgeman Street (Marylebone 3). William Lord Bridgeman was not only First Lord of the Admiralty, Home Secretary and Chairman of the BBC, but also represented this area, Marylebone, on the London County Council. The street was named after him by the LCC in 1935, the year he died.

Bridgewater Street and Square (City 5) occupy the site of Bridgewater House, the seat of the Earl of Bridgewater. In a tragic fire of 1687 the house was destroyed and the
Earl’s two sons, Viscount Brackley, aged 11, and 8-year-old Thomas, were burned in their beds. When the ruins were built over, Viscount Street and Brackley Street were named in memory of the dead heir.

Bridle Lane (Soho 7). An old lane, dating from a much earlier period than the surrounding streets; by Tudor times it was the boundary between Gelding Close (see Golden Square) and Windmill Field (see Great Windmill Street). The name probably refers to Abraham Bridle, a local carpenter, who built houses in Gelding Close backing on to the lane in the 1680s.

Bristol Gardens (Paddington 3) is a turning out of Clifton Villas. Clifton was a fashionable district of Bristol.

Britten Street (Chelsea 6) was built in about 1818, at the same time as adjacent St Luke’s Church, and was named after a Mr J. Britten who was an early trustee of the church.
Ref: 73.

Britton Street (Clerkenwell Road 5) was first built in 1719 and called Red Lion Street until 1936. In the dank and cobwebbed cellars of the Red Lion Inn (now demolished) from which the street took its name, young John Britton (1771-1857) served a miserable apprenticeship to his uncle, the landlord. His years there ‘dragged on as a lengthened and galling chain: for my health, always weak, was greatly impaired by constant con­ finement in damp, murky cellars’. Only six months before his appren­ ticeship was due to finish, he broke his indentures, and eventually became a famous antiquarian, topographer and architect, the author of the ‘Dictionary of Architecture’ and ‘Beauties of England and Wales’.

Broad Court (Drury Lane 4) was built in about 1746, and was then by far the widest of the side streets giving on to Drury Lane; even so, it was only a yard or two wide at the end where it squeezed between the houses along the Lane. The reason for this was that ribbon development had already spread along Drury Lane, despite Stuart proclamations forbidding suburban expansion, and by the time the fields behind it came to be built up there was no space left between the houses for broad access roads.

Broad Street Avenue (City 5). A turning out of Old Broad Street.

Broad Walk (Regent’s Park 3). The principal, as well as the broadest, path across Regent’s Park, designed by Nash in 1812. It serves to mark part of the boundary between the London Borough of Camden and the City of Westminster.

Broad Yard (Clerkenwell 5). An old yard, which is not, and never has been, particularly broad. The spaciousness and comfort which ‘broad’ implies were always completely lacking: Pinks, the Clerkenwell historian, describes it in 1865 as a nest of squalid human kennels and fever dens, with reeking dust-heaps before the doors-places without light or ventilation’. But it was broad compared to its neighbour, Frying Pan Alley (now demolished), which was only two feet six inches wide at one point, ‘there not being room in it to get a full sized coffin out without turning it on edge’, says Pinks cheerfully.

Broadbent Street (Mayfair 7). Named after a distinguished local resident, Sir William Broadbent (1835-1907), a physician to the royal family granted a baronetcy for his services to medicine, who lived nearby at 84 Brook Street.

Broadwall (Southwark 5) was a long and important causeway in the middle ages. Much of Southwark lay (and still lies) below high tide level, and had to be crossed on the artificial earth walls or banks: Bankside, Upper Ground (sometimes called Narrow Wall) and the Broad Wall.

With the drainage ditches which chequered the marsh and flowed either side of the Wall, the area must have resembled closely the present­ day Romney Marsh around Rye and Winchelsea.

Broadway (Westminster 7) was a wide space at the junction of Petty France and Tothill Street. Like Broadwick Street, it owed its breadth to its early function as a market-place, in this case a haymarket formed in the time of James 1. The market had expired by 1720.

Broadwick Street (Soho 7). The name was originally Broad Street­ the meaningless wick was added in 1936-and at first was only applied to the really broad section of the street, between Lexington Street and Berwick Street. It was begun in 1686, and its width was quite exceptional for that time. Strype, writing in 1720, explained this breadth: ‘About the Middle of this Street is a Place designed for a Hay Market … but whether it will be finished, Time will make appear’. The market was to have replaced the one in the Haymarket, but it was never completed. Instead a street market grew up round the corner in Berwick Street, where it still survives, while the ‘Place designed for a Hay Market’ is occupied by public conveniences.

Broken Wharf (City 5). In the fourteenth century this wharf was shared by the Abbot of Chertsey and the Abbot of Hanune, who argued about who should repair it. Their quarrel lasted forty years, while the wharf slowly rotted and finally collapsed into the Thames.

Brompton Road was the medieval track to the village of Brompton, probably named from broom growing in the neighbourhood. Brompton Place, a turning­ out of the road, was so named in
1938. Brompton Square dates from the 1820s.

Brook Gate (Park Lane 7) is the approach to Hyde Park facing Upper Brook Street.

Brook Mews North (Bayswater 3) was built in about 1850 exactly above the Westbourne Brook, by then forced into underground sewers, close to the point where it flows into the Serpentine (see end-map). Hence also nearby Brook Street, Bayswater.

Brook Street (Mayfair 7). The brook is the River Tyburn, which flowed across Brook Street. There is still a clearly perceptible dip in the street at that point, and in fact it is quite easy to trace the valley of the Tyburn the length of its course through Mayfair. The brook is now an underground sewer, and is visible only where it forms the Regent’s Park lake.

Brooke Street (Holborn 5). Fulke Greville, courtier and man of letters, was born in 1554 at the family seat Beauchamp’s Court in Warwickshire. He attended Shrewsbury School, where he established a lifelong friendship with the young Philip Sidney, then followed Sidney to Court and immediately became one of Eliza­ beth I’s favourites. In fact, he out­ lasted his rivals in the Queen’s favour and was eventually ennobled as 1st Baron Brooke by her successor, James I. Brooke House at Holborn, his town residence, was the scene of his violent death in 1628 when an old servant stabbed him in a fit of rage at being left out of his master’s wilL Brooke House then passed down the family to Fulke’s kinsman Robert Greville, who married Ann Dodding­ ton and died in 1676. The house was then demolished: Brooke Street was soon formed across its site, while the gardens behind became Doddington (now Dorrington), Beauchamp and Greville Streets.Brooke’s Court stood just outside the garden wall.

Brookfield Park (Highgate 8) was formerly a meadow crossed by the upper reaches of the Fleet brook, which issues from the Highgate ponds and now flows in an underground sewer beside this street (see end-map).

Broomsleigh Street (Hampstead 1) is typical of a class of street name that came to maturity in Victorian Hampstead and was the ancestor of all suburban Acacia Avenues, Linden Groves and Meads Roads. The street was built by the Land Building Investment & Cottage Improvement Company Ltd, one of the land companies whose proliferation in the 1850s and 60s revolutionised the pattern of street building and naming: see Burlington Mews. This was the period which saw the beginning of Hampstead’s urbanisation, when landowning families who had farmed their fields for generations, and had no knowledge of how to develop them, sold out to the land companies -a continuing trend which has left most modern suburban building land in the hands of giant contracting firms or local councils.

The new owners had no interest in preserving old associations on these estates. In some cases they would name a batch of streets after the directors of the company and their country homes, but this source was soon exhausted, especially when (as often happened) the company consisted of a solitary businessman. Their only aim in naming streets was to give an impression of genteel, vaguely rural, desirable residences.

Hence the number of countrified suffixes and prefixes found in Hampstead streets. ‘Croft’ is the most popular: Femcroft, Hollycroft, Rose­ croft, Greencroft and Lyncroft. Endings like ‘wood’, ‘grove’, ‘bourne’, ‘hurst’, ‘leigh’ ‘ridge’ and ‘dale’ are fruitful basic elements: Inglewood, Netherwood, Maygrove, Honeybourne, Goldhurst, Cotleigh, Broomsleigh, Loveridge, Briardale, Holmdale. ‘Glens’ in this area Glenbrook, Glenloch, Glenilla, Glen­ more) are no guarantee of rocky vales.

Flower names come into the same class. Narcissus Road dates from 1877, and being also the name of a Greek mythological character led to the appearance of a subsidiary Pandora Road four years later.

When the companies wished to announce attractions more subtly, they relied on ruralistic associations like Ravenshaw Street and Rosemont Road), or names of pleasant villages and towns, usually in the West Country: this accounts for Glastonbury Street, Kemplay Road and Crediton Hill. Insipid but harmless names of this kind continue to spread with public acquiescence wherever English suburban development takes place.

Brown Hart Gardens (Mayfair 7) was originally two separate streets, Brown Street (after John Brown, a local bricklayer, who leased the site from the Grosvenor family of Grosvenor Square) and Hart Street, probably from an early tavern-sign. They were first built in 1738 and united under the present name in 1936.
Refs: 227, 329.

Brown Street (Marylebone 3) dates from about 1815. This uninspired name was that of the speculating builder who leased this land from the Portman family of Portman Square.

A few yards from Browning Mews (New Cavendish Street, Marylebone) lived Elizabeth Barrett, confined to her room at 50 Wimpole Street by her frail health and her overbearing father. Her poetry writing brought her to the attention of Robert Browning, the poet, who managed to overcome the obstacles which kept Elizabeth an isolated recluse. They fell in love, and to escape from Elizabeth’s father (who never forgave her) they eloped one morning in 1846 and were married secretly at St Marylebone Church.
Browning Oose(RandolphAvenue, Paddington), flanked by Robert Close and Elizabeth Close, continues the story: the couple’s cloudless but brief married life was spent in Italy, where Elizabeth, already delicate, declined and died in 1861. Browning then came to Paddington, and lived for 26 years at Warwick Crescent, beside the Grand Union Canal. It is said to be he who first called this area Little Venice, because of the happy Italian memories it revived.

Brownlow Street (High Holborn 4). The Brownlow family, ancestors of the Doughtys, owned property be­ hind High Holborn by the 16th century: see Doughty Street.

Brunswick was a popular name with builders in the year 1795, when Princess Caroline of Brunswick came to England to marry her cousin the Prince of Wales, later George IV. But the marriage was probably the least successful in the history of British royalty. Prince George is said to have been horrified at the sight of his bride and Caroline reported that he spent the wedding night in a drunken stupor. He stayed with her only until their daughter, Princess Charlotte, was born. Caroline, spurned and humiliated, led a wild vagabond life on the continent which shocked all Europe until her death in 1821.

Brunswick Square (Bloomsbury 4) was built in 1795 on part of the grounds of Captain Coram’s Foundling Hospital: see Coram Street.

Brunswick Mews (Marylebone 3), runs behind the Brunswick Chapel in Upper Berkeley Street, opened in 1795. The chapel closed in 1963, but the building still stands.

Brunswick Gardens (Kensington 6), is a mid-Victorian name of unknown origin.

Brushfield Street (Bishopsgate 5) was named in 1870 after Thomas Brushfield of nearby Fournier Street either because he built it – he had been involved in forming the Commercial Road a few years previously – or as a compliment, since Mr Brushfield was the local representative of the Metropolitan Board of Works (forerunner of the Greater London Council)from 1865 until 1875.

Bruton Lane, Place and Street (Berk­ eley Square 7). From the Berkeley family’s Somerset estate: see Berkeley Square, Mayfair.

Bryanston Square, Street and Place (Marylebone 3). From the Portman family’s seat in Dorset: see Portman Square, Marylebone.

Brydges Place (Chandos Place 4). After Giles Brydges, Lord Chandos: see Chandos Place, Strand.

Buckingham Palace. Buckingham Palace is the only official royal residence in the world named after a nobleman. John Sheffield, Dnke of Buckingham (no relation to the Villiers Buckinghams whose title had become extinct) was a philanderer at the dissolute court of Charles 11 and even wooed plain, stolid Princess Anne. Anne seems to have kept a soft spot for him, and many years later, when he was an ambitious and successful politician and she had just become Queen of England, she granted him the Dukedom and also some land out of Green Park as a site for Buckingham House.

Buckingham House became Crown property in 1762, when George III bought it from Buckingham’s heir to give to his consort Charlotte. George III’s sons George IV and William IV wanted to convert the house into a palace, but spent so long perfecting it that both died before it was finished, and it was left to Queen Victoria to become the first royal resident of Buckingham Palace.
Buckingham Palace Road (7) leads to the Palace but predates it by several centuries; it was the ancient road to Chelsea, not given its present name until the time of Victoria. Buckingham Gate (7) was originally simply the name of the gate into St James’s Park beside Buckingham House; it is now also applied to the approach road to the gate. Nearby are Buckingham Place, Palace Street and Palace Place.

Buckingham Street (Strand 4). The name is a relic of the home of the notorious Dukes of Buckingham. George Villiers, the 1st Duke, was the first of the line of Villiers who wielded great power as favourites of the Stuarts. As a youth, he was of such angelic beauty that James I singled him out to be his Cup bea1er, and loaded him with honours and favours. In 1622 he gave him York House in the Strand, once the palace of the Archbishop of York. Villiers intended to rebuild the old house, but only the watergate (still standing in Watergate Walk) had been com­ pleted when he was assassinated at Portsmouth in 1628 by John Felton, a half-mad subaltern.

The 2nd Duke, another George, was a lesser edition of his father-a charming, faithless, flighty courtier. He was also a spendthrift, according to Dryden’s Absolom and Achitophel:

In squandering wealth was his peculiar art,
Nothing went unrewarded but desert.
Beggar’d by fools, whom still he found too late,
He had his jest, and they had his estate.

He finally sold York House, decrepit and heavily mortgaged, to help pay his debts. Streets were laid out on its site in 1674 and were all named after him: George Court, Villiers Street, Duke Street (now part of John Adam Street), Of Alley (now York Place) and Buckingham Street.

Bucklersbury (City 5). The rich Bukerel family, who originated in Italy, are recorded in London by the year 1104. Many of them were Sheriffs or Mayors of London, and by about 1240 they lived in a fortified mansion, or bury, here on the bank of the Walbrook. It was ‘a great stone building, yet in part remaining on the south side of the street’ when Stow wrote in 1598, but ‘hath of long time been divided and letten out into many tenements’.

Bucknall Street (St Giles 4). So named in 1877 after Ralph Bucknall, a local brewer and eminent parishion er. Elected a Vestryman of St Giles in 1675, he took an active part in parish affairs until his death in 1710.

Budge Row (City 5) is found as Bogerow in a document dated 1342, and was the quarter where boge, or lambs-skin fur, was sold. This part of the City was the centre of the London fur and skin trade; an Ordinance dated 1345 required all free men of the trade of furriers to dwell in Walbrook, Cornhill or Budge Row. Skinners’ Hall is still close by in Dowgate Hill.

Bulinga Street (Westminster 7). ‘Bulinga Fenn’ was a marsh mentioned in King Edgar’s Charter (AD 951). It stretched westwards roughly from the site of this street towards Chelsea, covering the future Pimlico district.

Bull Alley (Southwark 5) is probably derived from an inn of this name. The sign of the Bull often indicated a tavern where bull baitings were held; the bull, with its horns protected, was fastened to a stake in the inn-yard and set upon by bulldogs. The sport was already popular in Southwark by 1546, when Henry VIII ineffectually proclaimed the abolition of the Bankside brothels and bull rings.

Bull Inn Court (Strand). The Black Bull Inn in the Strand is first mentioned in a deed dated 1536, when it was described as a ‘new tenement and cottage’. It was demolished in 1686, whereupon this court was formed.

Bull’s Head Passage (Gracechurch Street, City) derived its name from the Bull’s Head Tavern in Gracechurch Street, found mentioned in the Daily Post in 1724.

Bulmer Mews (Nolting Hill 2) was described in 1824 as ground adjoining a field belonging to James Weller Ladbroke and in the possession of widow Sarah Bulmer.
Ref: 227.

Bulstrode Place and Street (Mary­ lebone 3). Bulstrode Park in Buckinghamshire was one of the many properties of the I st Duke of Portland, and the principal family seat nntil 1810. The 2nd Duke married Edward Harley’s heiress, and thereby acquired the land on which this street stands.

Bunhill Row (Finsbury 5). Legend has it that the Bone Hill, later corrupted to Bunhill and Bonhill, came into being when 1,000 cartloads of bones were brought here in 1549 from St Paul’s Cathedral (which owned Finsbury Manor) to ease congestion in the charnelwhouse. As it happens, the name was already in use a few years before that, but the essence of the story may still be true: Finsbury was a naturally marshy district which had been gradually drained since the early middle ages by the process of dumping whatever ballast was available, bones included. Strangely enough Bunhill Fields, from which Bunhill Row took its name, is still chiefly associated with bones: it was the main nonwconform· ist burial ground from 1695 until
1852 and contains the tombs of William Blake, John Bunyan and Daniel Defoe.
The nearby meadow beyond Tabernacle Street was also part of the Bone Hill Field: hence Bouhill Street, built in the late eighteenth century.

Burgess Hill (North Hampstead 1). In 1837 Henry Weech Burgess, of Ardwick in Lancashire, took a lease of two fields in North Hampstead known as Great and Little Temple Woods (see Templewood Avenue), where he and his family lived for many years. Mr Burgess built Weech Road in 1880, but the rest of the estate was not developed until 1903, after his death, when his son Major Ardwick Burgess laid out Burgess Hill and Ardwick Road.

Burleigh Street (Strand 4). Burleigh House in the Strand, ‘a verie fayre howse raysed with bricks’ pictured on Plate v, was granted to the Elizabethan statesman William Lord Burghley (or Burleigh) in 1593. Burghley ‘farre more beautifully encreased’ the mansion and died there in 1598, whereupon it passed to his son Thomas, Earl of Exeter. When the house was demolished in 1676 Burleigh Street and Exeter Street were built on the site. Their descendant the Marquess of Exeter sold the estate in 1855.

Burleigh Road in Kentish Town is also named after Lord Burleigh. The street belongs to St John’s College Carnbridge(see Lady Somerset Road), where Burleigh was educated. When he came to power he founded scholarships which are still awarded at St John’s.

Burlington (Piccadilly 7). In 1664 Richard Boyle, son of ‘the Great Earl of Cork’, newly created Earl of Burlington and known as ‘Richard the Rich’ because of the vast estates he had acquired by marrying Lady Clifford, bought a plot of land on the north side of Piccadilly. It was an ideal site for his town house: on the other side of Piccadilly the fashionable new suburb of St James’s was rising, and the sparkling Restoration court was within easy reach; at the same time the land north of Piccadilly was still virgin field, which suited his determination ‘to have no building beyond him’. Burlington House (now the Royal Academy) was completed a few years later. After the Great Fire of 1666, when London started to grow so fast that even the remote fields beyond Piccadilly were no longer safe from building, the Earl also bought the Ten Acre Close at the end of his garden, in order to safeguard his view to the north.
It was his great·grandson, the 3rd Earl of Burlington, a well-known amateur architect, who developed this land. When he succeeded to the estate in 1704 he was only nine years old, but as soon as he came of age he rebuilt Burlington House and began Boyle Street, Old Burlington Street, Cork Street and Clifford Street on the Ten Acre Close. Later he added Saville Row, (named after his wife, Dorothy Savile,) Burlington Gardens beside his garden wall and New Burlington Place and Street.

Burlington Arcade was built by the 3rd Earl of Burlington’s grandson in 1819, to stop the rabble throwing rubbish into his garden, it is said.

Richard Boyle’s descendants lived in Burlington House until the government bought it in 1854, and they sold off the last of the adjoining property in 1926.

Burlington Mews East and West (Westbourne Park 2) were probably developed by the Burlington Building Society, which held land in Paddington in the 1860s. The Burlington was one of the dozens of Land and Building Societies which sprang up during the great Victorian expansion of London, and covered suburban fields with street after street of tall terraces or semi·detached villas. Many of them were one-man firms, and frequently the same businessman ran half-a·dozen such societies, often doomed to disappear suddenly in the event of bankruptcy. Their names were long and comprehensive (The Land, House and Artizans’ Dwellings Development and Investment Soc­ iety) or short and patriotic (The British Land Company) or simply vaguely aristocratic, like Burlington, but grandeur of nomenclature was no guarantee of stability, and few of them survived into the twentieth century.

Burnaby Street (Chelsea 6). After Edward Burnaby Green, a minor poet who lived at Ashburnham Cottage in Lots Road, close to the site of this street. He was the heir to the Greene family’s immensely prosperous Stag Brewery, one of the two wealthiest breweries in London when Edward inherited it in 1740. The Greenes had married into the Cadogan family, which meant they owned or leased numerous properties in the Cado· gans’ manor of Chelsea, and more· over had exclusive outlets for their beer in Chelsea taverns. But Edward was a disastrous businessman, devoting his profits to his gentlemanly life as an unsuccessful litterateur, and the brewery (now Watney Mann Ltd) almost failed to survive his tenure.

Burnsall Street (Chelsea 6). In memory of Martha Burnsall, who founded a charity for the benefit of ‘poor decayed housekeepers’ of Chelsea in 1805.

Bury Place (Bloomsbury 4), an abbreviation of Bloomsbury Place, was originally a narrow track from High Holborn to Bloomsbury Fields. In about 1662 it was widened to take traffic to the new Bloomsbury Market at Barter Street.

Busby Place (Kentish Town 8).

Ye sons of Westminster who still retain
Your ancient dread of Busby’s awful reign,
Forget at length your fears-your panic end

began a poem on Westminster School’s severest headmaster, Dr Richard Busby. He came to Westminster from Christ Church Oxford, the ground landlords of this part of Kentish Town: see Islip Street, Kentish Town.

Bush Lane (City 5) is first found in a document dated 1445, which mentions Le Busshe Tavern here. The Bush is perhaps the most ancient of all inn-signs; originally it consisted simply of a bush, or bunch, of ivy, the plant sacred to Bacchus, god of wine, tied on the end of a pole to indicate a wine shop.

Bute Street (Old Brompton Road 6). A villa known as Bute House stood here in the Old Brompton Road in the 1840s, when this street was formed.

Byng Place (Bloomsbury 4). Part of the Duke of Bedford’s estate.

Byward Street (City 5) leads to­wards the Tower of London and is named, for no apparent reason, after the Byward Tower there, erected in 1280.

Bywater Street (Chelsea 7) was so named in about 1857, probably after Thomas Bywater, a minor Chelsea property-owner of the period.

Cabbell Street (Marylebone 3). When the Manor House at Lisson village and its surrounding grounds were sold by auction in 1792, the three largest lots went to John Flarcourt (Flarcourt Street), Mr Burne (Burne Street) and George Cabbell, whose descendants built this street through the centre of his plot.

Cadogan (Chelsea 7). The Earls Cadogan have owned most of Chelsea for centuries. The connection began with their ancestor Sir Hans Sloane, President of the Royal Society and of the College of Physicians, whose library and collection formed the nucleus of the British Museum. His brother had settled in Chelsea, and when Sir Hans’ success was established he decided to buy the Manor of Chelsea, in 1712. Having no sons, Sir Hans divided the manor between his two daughters and their heirs, and their family names are now scattered all over the parish.

The first part of the estate to be developed was Hans Town in the north-east, laid out in the 1770s by architect Henry Holland with the help of Samuel Symons, a Kensington carpenter (Symons Street), and William Hemus Rayner (Hemus Place).

Cale Street (Chelsea 6) was named in memory of Judith Cale, who founded a charity in 1717 whereby six poor widows of Chelsea were each given 23 shillings every Christmas.

Callcott Street (Kensington 6). Several generations of talented Callcotts lived at Kensington, in a house in the Mall (now demolished). The most notable were John Wall Callcott (1766-1821), musician, and Augustus Wall Callcott, nineteenth-century landscape painter.

Callow Street (Chelsea 6). The Callows are first found as a family of publicans, who ran a tavern called the Fox & Hom1ds in Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea. Then in about 1840 John Callow set up a builder’s yard a few doors away from the Fox & Hounds, and for the next 30 years he and his descendants were employed by Lord Cadogan, Lord of Chelsea Manor, in building new streets all over Chelsea. Callow Street dates from 1868.

Calvert Street {Chalk Farm 8). The Calvert family, owners of London’s leading brewery in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, bought up several plots around the site of Calvert Street when the fields of Chalk Farm were auctioned as building lots in the 1840s. There they erected taverns and a brewery. Calvert’s has since closed down, but their Chalk Farm brewery, established for convenience of transport on the bank of the Grand Union Canal, still exists as the Engineer pub in Gloucester Avenue.

Cambridge Circus (7). Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue were built in the 1880s and formally opened in 1887 by HRH the Duke of Cambridge, a grandson of George III. This intersection of the two new roads was named after him.

Cambridge Gardens (Notting Hill 2). In the fifteenth century the manors of Notting Hill and Paddington belonged to the Lady Margaret, the mother of Henry of Richmond, head of the House of Lancaster, who ended the Wars of the Roses when he seized the throne as Henry VII in 1485.

She was renowned for her graciousness and generosity, and is mainly remembered now for founding the Lady Margaret professorships at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. In her will she left the Notting Hill and Paddington estates to pay for these professorships – hence Oxford and Cambridge Squares (Paddington) Oxford and Cambridge Gardens, (Notting Hill), and Lancaster Road, (Notting Hill). The manors were held by Westminster Abbey in trust for the universities until Lady Margaret’s grandson Henry VIII, dissolved the abbey along with all other English monasteries and seized the lands in 1543.

Cambridge Gate and Terrace (Regent’s Park 4). Named after a son of George III, like most of the streets on the Crown estate at Regent’s Park (q.v.). Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, was known as ‘the good duke’, being less immoral than his brothers.

from the deal-and streets were begun. Lord Camden died soon afterwards, famous and revered,

Cambridge Place (Kensington 6) was begun in 1850, the year of the death of the Prince Adolphus. The Royal Dukes were a favourite source of street names with nineteenth-century builders.

Camden (8). The district now known as Camden Town was a prebend, a manor belonging to St Paul’s Cathedral, where the income supported a prebendary canon. By about 1670 John Jeffreys was farming the land on behalf of the Cathedral and in 1749 it passed to Charles Pratt, then a struggling barrister, who married Elizabeth Jeffreys of Brecknock Priory. Later Pratt reached the highest possible honours in his career as a lawyer, being appointed Lord Chancellor in 1766 and created Viscount Bayham (after Bayham Abbey, still the family’s country seat) and Earl Camden.

In 1790 Lord Camden came to an arrangement with the prebendary, the Reverend Thomas Randolph, to start developing the land. A contract was drawn up with a local builder called Augustine Greenland – who was to profit well from the deal – and streets were begun. Lord Camden died soon afterwards, famous and revered. Camden Town passed to his sone John, created Marquis Camden, and then to John’s children. George the 2nd Marquis, Georgiana and Caroline. George married Harriet Murray, daughter of the Bishop of Rochester, and died in 1866. By this time Camden Town was virtually completed. Most of the estate was sold off by the 4th Lord Camden at the end of the First World War.

Hence Camden Gardens, High Street, Park Road, Road, Square and Street; Jeffreys Street; Prebend Place; Brecknock Road; Pratt Street; Baybam Street; Randolph Street; Greenland Place, Road and Street; Marquis Road; Georgiana Street; Caroline now Carol Street; Murray Street; and Rochester Place, Road and Square.

Camera Place (Chelsea 6). Origin unknown. There was a Camera Square here by 1830, and the word camera in its optical sense (short for camera obscura, ‘dark chamber’) was in use a century earlier.

Camomile Street (City 5) lies along­ side the great wall which encircled London (see end-map). In the middle ages the ground just inside the wall was kept clear no houses were to be built within 16 feet of it-so that the defences could be manned quickly in an emergency. The waste was left for wild plants, especially camomile, a hardy herb used as a remedy for fevers.

See also Wormwood Street.

Campden Grove, Hill, Street, etc. (Kensington 6) derive from Camp­ den House, a mansion built by Lord Campden in 1612. Carnpden, born plain Baptist Hickes, was a Cheapside mercer who was raised to the aristocracy with startling speed, as a reward for financial services rendered to James I. Tradition has it that he won his Kensington property in a game of cards with the Lord of the Manor, Sir Walter Cope (see Holland Park). Camden’s wife founded the Campden Charities in Kensington, which still distribute pensions and grants to Kensington residents. Their descendants let the house to Princess (later Queen) Anne who lived there with her doomed infant son Gloucester. Campden House is now demolished, and the Campden House flats in Sheffield Terrace cover part of the site.

Canal View (Baynes Street, Camden Town). When Regent’s Park was laid out by Nash in 1812, he also served commercial interests by building the Regent’s Canal to extend the Grand Union Canal from Paddington to the Thames at Limehouse. The canal was opened in 1820, and these houses were erected beside it a few years later as Camden Town expanded.

Candover Street (Marylebone 4) was so named in 1886. There is no obvious connection between the street and Candover, a Hampshire village.

Canning Passage and Place (Kensington 6). Named in honour of George Canning, the statesman, who came to live in Kensington at Gloucester Lodge in 1809, when he was Foreign Secretary.

His son Charles, later the Governor General of India who suppressed the Indian Mutiny, was born there in 1812.

Cannon Hill (West Hampstead 1). Charles Cannon was a successful ‘India and dye merchant’, who founded a business in Mayfair in about 1839 and was appointed official dyer to Her Majesty. Cannon & Co in North Audley Street survived for well over a century, but but has now been taken over by a chain of dyers and cleaners. When he retired, Cannon built himself Kidderpore Hall in Hampstead, named after a district of Calcutta. Kidderpore Avenue was the broad tree-lined approach to the Hall (now Westfield College) and Kidderpore Gardens a country footpath. Cannon Hill was another old path, leading towards the Hall from the village of West End, and Cannon applied to widen it and name it after himself in 1865.

Cannon Lane and Place (Hampstead 1) lead to the early Georgian Cannon Hall. The two old cannon used as road posts on the pavement just outside the gates, and the others placed around the grounds, are said to have been collected by Sir James Melville, Secretary to the East India Company, when he lived at the Hall.

Cannon Row (Westminster 7). ‘Chanon Row’, wrote Stow in 1598, ‘so called for that the same belonged to the Deane and Chanons of St Stephen’s Chappell who were there lodged’. St Stephen’s was founded by King Stephen in 1141 as part of his Palace of Westminster (now the Houses of Parliament) and although the chapel no longer exists, the House of Commons is still sometimes spoken of as St Stephen’s. Edward Ill made the chapel into· a collegiate church, with ‘a Dean, twelve secular Canons, twelve vicars, and other fit servants’, for whom homes were built nearby in Cannon Row. Hence also St Stephen’s Parade, House and Tavern behind Cannon Row, and St Stephen’s Porch and Hall in the Houses of Parliament.

Cannon Street (City 5) was Candelwrite Street in the twelfth century, the street of the candle­ makers. Cockney dialect shortened the street name to its present form, but the City ward through which Cannon Street passes is still called Candlewick.

Cantelowes Road (Kentish Town 8) lies on the Manor of ‘Cantlowes alias Kentishe Towne’, one of the Prebendal Manors of St Paul’s Cathedral. These were estates granted to St Paul’s in the early middle ages for the support of a priest known as a Prebendary, who received all the income from the land in return for certain duties at the Cathedral. The Prebendary of Kentish Town in 1242 was Roger de Cantilupe, whose name was apparently adapted and applied to the manor. Hence also Cantelupe House in Bartholomew Road, Kentish Town, and a park called Cantelowes Gardens in Camden Road.

Canvey Street (Southwark 5) was Essex Street until 1891, when it was renamed after a district in South Essex.

Capener’s Close (Kinnerton Street, Belgravia). John Capener owned a strip of land here on the bank of the River Westbourne in the 1820s. He built the yard and set up a carpentry and undertaking business there which survived until 1848 – long enough to establish his name on the map.

Carburton Street (Maylebone 4). Carburton in Nottinghamshire was part of the dowry that Hemietta Cavendish brought to Edward Harley.

Cardinal Cap Alley (Southwark 5). Medieval and Tudor Southwark was famous for its licensed stews, or brothels, ‘for the repair of incontinent men to the like women’, as Stow put it in 1598. He continues: ‘these allowed stew-houses had signs on their fronts, towards the Thames, not hanged out, but painted on the walls, as a Boar’s head, the Cross keys, the Gun, the Castle, the Crane, the Cardinal’s bat, the Bell, the Swan, etc.’. The Cardinal irreverently commemorated may have been Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, who died in 1447 – the stews were under the jurisdiction of the Bishops of Winchester. The house was an inn frequented by actors in Shakespeare’s time, and stood on the site of 49 Bankside.

Cardington Street (Camden Town 4) marked the boundary of the Duke of Bedford’s property in this area.

Carey Laue (City 5) was Kyrune­lane in the thirteenth century, probably derived from an early owner called Kyron.

Carey Place (Vauxhall Bridge Road, Westminster). Part of the Chapter of Westminster’s land.

Carey Street (Chancery Lane 4). This name is probably derived from the Carey family home. Lady Fanshawe, the wife of Royalist supporter Sir Richard Fanshawe, mentions in her Memoirs for 1656:

‘We that day came to London, into Chancery Lane . . . to a house we took of Sir George Carey for a year’. Shortly after that date Carey Street was begun across Little Lincoln’s Inn Fields, to the annoyance of local landowners who wanted to preserve the open spaces.

Carker’s Lane (Highgate 8). Before being truncated by the railway, this was a pathway to the Gospel Oak and Hampstead. By about 1820 it was Corker’s Lane, probably taking its name from a local farmer.

Carlisle Avenue (City 5). A very recent name by City standards, dating only from 1894, but its origin is already lost.

Carlisle Mews (Marylebone 3) is a turning out of Penfold Street, formerly Carlisle Street.

Carlisle Place and Morpeth Terrace (Victoria 7) were laid out in about 1850, probably under the supervision of George Howard, Viscount Morpeth and Earl of Carlisle (great-great­ grandson of the Countess who gave her name to Carlisle Street, Soho). As Chief Commissioner of the government department of Woods and Forests, Carlisle was responsible for much of the new development in London at that time.

Carlisle Street (Soho 7). From Carlisle House, a large mansion on the site of Nos. 10-12 Carlisle Street. (It was destroyed by bombs in 1941 and replaced by Caps House.) The Countess of Carlisle lived there from 1725 until her death in 1752, not far from her estranged husband who had a house in Soho Square. Carlisle House later became a fashionable school of arms and manners.

Carlos Place (Mayfair 7), originally Charles Street, was renamed in 1886 because of confusion with Charles Street off Berkeley Square. In honour of Carlos I of Portugal, who married Princess Marie Amelie of France in that year.

Carlow Street (off Camden High Street 8) was originally Caroline Street, adapted to the present name in 1865 because of the excess of Caroline Streets in London. Built about 1821, the year the notorious Queen Caroline died.

Carlton. Carlton Gardens and Carlton House Terrace (St James’s 7) occupy the site of Carlton House, built in 1709 for Lord Carlton. Unlike most noble town houses, it kept its name despite changes of ownership. The Prince of Wales lived there, and spent so much money renovating it after he was made Regent in 1811 that ‘Carlton’ became a byword for spendthrift luxury. But in 1826 he tired of it, the house was demolished, and these terraces were built.

The name remained popular for the rest of the century with builders and publicans who wished to imply an ambiance of elegance. Carlton Hill, St John’s Wood (3), Carlton Vale, Paddington (2), and Carlton (now Carltoun) Street, Kentish Town (8), date from the 1840s and 1850s, and there are still half a dozen Carlton pubs in London.

Carlyle Square (Chelsea 6) was named in 1872 after philosopher aud historian Thomas Carlyle, then living nearby at 24 Cheyne Row. The French Revolution and most of Carlyle’s greater works were written there.

Carmel Court (Holland Street, Kensington) leads to the back of Mount Carmel Chambers, named after the Priory and Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, founded in Kensington Church Street in 1863.

Carmelite Street (City 5). Once the home of the Carmelites, or White Friars.

Carnaby Street (Soho 7). From Karnaby House on the east side of the street, erected in 1683, a couple of years before the street was formed, and demolished about forty years later. The origin of the name is not known.

Carol Street (Camden Town 8). Originally Caroline Street, after Lady Caroline Camden.

Caroline Place (Bayswater 3) dates from 1821, the year Princess Caroline of Brunswick (see Brunswick) died.

Caroline Terrace (Belgravia 7) was built io 1834. Origin of name no longer known.

Carpenters Yard (Houndsditch, City) stands on top of the Hounds Ditch (q.v.), the city moat where London’s garbage was dumped for centuries; ‘by which means’, wrote Stow in 1598, ‘the ditch is filled up, and turned into garden-plots and carpenters’ yards, and many large houses are there built’.

Carrington Street (Shepherd Street, Mayfair). Nathan Carrington Esquire was the holder of Brickhill Close, the field on the north side of Brick Street, at the time this area was developed, the mid-eighteenth century.

Carrol Place (Highgate Road 8). Origin unknown.

Carter Lane (City 5) may have been the quarter where the carters lived; two of them, Stephen and Thomas le Charetter, lived by the lane in 1319. Another explanation is that carts had to make this detour when St Paul’s Churchyard became a no-thoroughfare in 1284: the churchyard had had to be walled up because ‘the lurking of thieves and other lewd people in the night time’ led to ‘divers robberies, homicides and other acts of violence’.

Carteret Street (Westminster 7). Sir Edward de Carteret acquired a plot of land here in 1671 and built on it this street and the Royal Cockpit.

Carting Lane (Strand 4) was known for centuries as Dirty Lane, a name discarded by the residents in about 1830. It was probably the route for carts bringing wares to and from Beaufort Wharfs at the bottom of the lane.

Carton Street (Marylebone 3). Sidney Carton was the hero of Dickens’ A tale of two Cities who went ,to the guillotine in order that his sweetheart’s beloved husband might escape to England. The connection between the book and the street is the French chapel here (now a synagogue), built by emigres during the period in which the story is set. The street was given its present name in 1911.

Cartwright Gardens (King’s Cross 4). Major John Cartwright, known as ‘the Father of Reform’ because he agitated for universal suffrage and the abolition of slavery, lived in this street in his old age and died here (at No 37) in 1824. There is a statue of him in the gardens opposite.

Caston Street (Old Street 5) was named after William Caston (1692-1766), the inventor of Caslon typeface. He established his first type­foundry near here on the site of 5 Helmet Row in 1725.

Castle Lane (Westminster 7). An old track which led from Petty France out across the swampy fields of Pimlico. At its far end (now Palace Street) stood the seventeenth century Castle Inn.

Castle Road (Kentish Town 8). Here stood the sprawling Castle Inn, supposed by local tradition to have been King John’s royal hunting lodge. Its extensive pleasure gardens sloped down to the banks of the Fleet (see end-map). The inn was demolished to make way for this road in 1849, whereupon a much smaller Castle pub was built on part of the site.

Castle Yard (Southwark 5) may be a memento of Paris Garden Manor House, which stood close to this yard, near where Bankside meets Hopton Street. A prominent turreted building, standing on a raised bank of earth and protected by a moat, it was probably a fortified stronghold in medieval times. But as Paris Garden became tbe home of bullbaiters, prostitutes and actors, the Manor House degenerated into a notorious brothel, a favourite haunt of Charles I’s courtiers. A court official used to call there before sittings of Parliament, it is said, to collect younger members of the House of Lords.

Some London apprentices tried to drive the prostitutes out of the Manor House, but in their elevated position the ladies were able to withstand the siege. The end of the old mansion came in 1769, when it was demolished to make way for the Blackfriars Bridge approach.

Castlehaven Road (Kentish Town 8) used to have several different names along its length, until in 1938 it was decided to unite the street under one name, neutrally chosen from the gravestones of St Pancras, the local parish church: Elizabeth, Countess of Castlehaven, was buried there in 1743.

Castlereagh Street (Marylebone 3). In memory of the famous Conspiracy of nearby Cato Street (q.v.), whose principal victim was to be Lord Castlereagh, the Tory statesman. Castlereagh vigorously opposed the movement to reform Parliament, and the plotters also considered him responsible for the Peterloo massacre and the post-war misery. The Con­ spiracy failed, but only two years later, in 1822, Castlereagh cut his own throat with a penknife and was buried ‘amid popular rejoicing’.

Cathcart Road (West Brompton 6) and Cathcart Street (Kentish Town 8). From the Crimean War hero.

Cathedral Place (City) was built in 1962 to replace extensive war damage beside St Paul’s Cathedral, itself miraculously spared by the bombs.

Cathedral Street (Southwark 5) was formerly Church Street. It led to the parish church of St Saviour’s which before the Reformation was St Mary Magdelen’s, a lay chapel occupying a wing of St Mary Overy Priory, founded about the time of Alfred the Great.In1897 St Saviour’s became a pro-cathedral, and in 1905 it was constituted the Cathedral of the new diocese of Southwark.

Catherine Place (Westminster 7). So named in 1798. Origin unknown.

Catherine Street (Aldwych 4) was begun in the time of Charles II and named in honour of his consort, Catherine of Braganza.

Catherine Wheel Alley and Court (Bishopsgate 5) was the yard beside a galleried coaching inn in Bishopsgate called the Old Catherine Wheel, which claimed to date from 1594. It was burnt down in 1895.

Catherine Wheel Yard (St James’s). From a tavern which stood near the corner of StJames’s Street and Little St James’s Street from the 1680s until 1908.

Cato Street (Marylebone 3). Like other local streets (see Homer Row) this has a classical name: Marcus Porcius Cato was a Roman statesman. In a room above a stable here the ringleaders of the Cato Street Conspiracy were trapped and arrested in 1820. The plot had aimed to murder Lord Castlereagh and the cabinet while they dined at Lord Harrowby’s,
after which a new government was to be set up to relieve the prevailing misery following the Napoleonic wars. As a result of the scandal caused by this affair, the name was changed to Horace Street, after another Roman, but the original name was restored in 1937. Neighbouring streets have been appro­ priately called Harrowby Street and Castlereagh Street.

Catton Street (Holborn 4) was named in 1965 in memory of Charles Catton, who lived nearby at 4 Gate Street. Catton was a painter and engraver, but what really brought him acclaim was his innovation of depicting the figures on either side of the escutcheon on coats of arms with a resemblance to nature. George III appointed him official painter of the royal coaches and later made him a founder of the Royal Academy. His son Charles Catton (1756-1819), painter, also lived in Gate Street for a time.

Causton Street (Westminster 7). Part of the Chapter of Westminster’s estate.

Cavaye Place (Kensington 6). In honour of Major-General William Cavaye, decorated for his heroism during the Zulu War, who later became Mayor of Kensington (1907-9). He lived not far from here in Neville Terrace.

Cavendish. The ancient family of Cavendish split into two branches in the seventeenth century: one branch produced the Dukes of Newcastle, whose eventual heiress, Lady Margaret Cavendish, married the owner of Marylebone Manor. Her daughter Henrietta married Edward Harley in 1713, and four years later he began Cavendish Square (4). Cavendish Place and Old and New Cavendish Streets soon followed. Henrietta’s descendant, the 4th Duke of Port­ land, purchased a plot of land St John’s Wood in 1827, and built on it Cavendish Close and Cavendish Avenue (3).
The other branch of the family was created Dukes of Devonshire, and Cavendish Court and Devonshire Square (q.v.) in the City are on the site of their town house. In 1766 the two branches were linked when Dorothy Cavendish, daughter of the 4th Duke of Devonshire, married the grandson of Henrietta Cavendish: hence Devonshire Street, Marylebone.

Caxton Street (Westminster 7). After William Caxton, who set up the first printing press in England at Westminster in 1477. The site of his house at the sign of the Reed Pale in theAbbey Almonry is now Abbey House at the east end of Victoria Street.

Cayton Street (City Road 5) was built in about 1805 and called New Street. There were so many other London New Streets that it was changed in 1885 to Cayton, after a Yorkshire village; an uninspired choice, perhaps, but no more so than New Street.

Central Markets (Farringdon Street 5). The London Central Meat Market of 1868, England’s largest meat and provision market, stands on the site of an ancient livestock market at Smithfield. Here converged Duck Lane, Cow Bridge, Chicken Lane, Cow Lane, Cock Lane and Cowcross Street(of which only the last two still exist), named after the animals which were driven along them to be crowded into reeking pens to await the slaughterer. The smell, squalor and congestion grew so great that the cattle market had to be abolished, and the Central Markets now deal only in carcases, stacked in vast underground cold-storage vaults.

Central Street (Finsbury 5) is part of a very old lane which led through the fields from Golden Lane in the City to Islington village green. The name Central Street was chosen by St Luke’s Vestry in 1861, perhaps because the track runs roughly though the centre of St Luke’s parish.

Chadwick Street (Westminster 7) was so named in 1889. A few months earlier one of the local charity schools the Blue Coat School, had received £500 by the will of Mrs Hannah Sarah Chadwick- She and her husband had also given generously to the parish almshouses, so the parish vestry decided to name a street in their honour.

Chagford Street (Marylebone 3) belonged to Viscount Portman (see Portman Square), Lord Warden of the Stannaries, and is named after the pleasant Devon village which is one of the principal stannary towns of Dartmoor.

Chalcot Crescent, Gardens, Road and Square .(Chalk Farm 8). Chalcot was an earlier form of the name Chalk Farm.

Chalk Farm Road (8). There is no chalk in this area; the name is a corruption of Chalcot Farm. The name Chaldecote is found here by 1253, and probably meant ‘cold cottages’, suggesting that the slopes of Haverstock Hill were bleak and exposed in the early days of the settlement. Chalcot Crescent, Gardens, Road and Square were built on the farm land in. the nineteenth century. Meanwhile, the old Chalk Farm House became first a tea garden, then a tavern, and was finally rebuilt as the present Chalk Farm Tavern on the site in Regent’s Park Road

Chalton Street (Euston) dates from about 1800. name lost.

Chamberlain Street (Chalk Farm 8) probably elonged to James Bradley Cbamberlain, an optician of High Holborn, who was admitted as a tenant of the Manor of Tottenham Court in respect of some land near Chalk Farm in 1860.

Chancery Lane (5) was construct d by the Knights Templars in about 1160 to lead through fields they owned, and was originally called New Street. The source of the present name goes back to Ralph Nevill, Bishop of Chichester and Lord Chancellor of England. In 1227 Henry III gave him land for a palace in this lane: hence Bishop’s Court and Chichester Rents, small turnings out of Chancery Lane. Nevill bequeathed the palace to his successors in the see of Chichester, who until 1340 usually also held the office of Lord Chancellor Their official documents, the Roll of the Court of Chancery, were stored in a building on the other side of the lane.

Chandos Place (Strand 4). After Giles Brydges, 3rd Baron Chandos whose daughter Catherine married the owner of this street, the Earl of Bedford.

Chandos Street (Marylebone 4) James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos – -Princely Chandos’ – was one of the pioneer builders on Edward Harley’s fields at Marylebone. At first he intended to erect a magnificent palace occupying all the north side of what was to be Cavendish Square, with gardens stretching to Regent’s Park. Chandos Street, adjoining the proposed mansion was named accordingly. But because of financial losses after the bursting of the South Sea Bubble in 1720 he eventually built two much smaller houses in Cavendish Square. In 1735 he moved into one of them but Harley’s fields were by then a thriving building estate. Chandos complained that every night I am poisoned with the brick kilns and the other abominate smelles which infect these parts’ and he occupied his town house a rarely as possible.

Change Alley (Cornhill, City) was originally named after the nearby Royal Exchange but afterwards it became the first Stock Exchange, when stockbrokers started to meet in coffee houses here in 1698. Later they moved to the site of the present Stock Exchange.

Chapel Market (Pentonville 5), originally plain Chapel Street, was began about 1791, the year St James’s Chapel in Pentonville Road was consecrated by the Bishop of London. The first mention of the Market is fouod in 1868 when a resident complained to the local Parish Vestry about a butcher’s stall erected there daily. His complaint had little effect, as Chapel Market is now one of London’s best known street markets.

Chapel Place (Oxford Street 4). When Edward Harley started to plan the development of his Marylebone estate in 1717, he intended it to have all the amenities of a self contained town, including a market and a chapel. The market has gone but St Peter’s Chapel is still here.

Chapel Side (Bayswater 2). The Bayswater Chapel was erected in 1818 by Edward Orme, to serve his tenants in the Orme Square neighbourhood.It was raised to the dignity of a church and consecrated to St Matthew in 1858, and has since been completely rebuilt.

Chapel Street (Belgravia 7) was built in about 1811 beside the Lock Chapel attached to the Lock Hospital in Grosvenor Place. Lock Hospitals were originally for the treatment of lepers, and later for venereal diseases. This one was erected in 1746, when the district was still rural, and re moved a century later when the fields became the wealthy Belgravia area, whose residents probably did not relish such an institution in the neighbourhood.

Chapel Street (Edgware Road 3) is named not after the Paddington Chapel on the comer of Harcourt Street, but after the Bentinck Chapel, built in 1772, which stood on the south west corner with Transept Street and closed down in the 1840s. Refs: 7, 279.

Chapone Place (Dean Street, Soho). After Hester Chapone (1727-1801), essayist, who wrote Letters on the Improvement of the Mind which was popular in girls’ educational circles. She lived at 90 Dean Street in her youth.

Chapter Street (Westminster 7). This and the surrounding district, formerly called Tothill Fields, have belonged from earliest times to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey, and their successors, the Church Commissioners. Many of the streets bear famous names connected with the Abbey, and with Westminster School, which originated as the Abbey school run by the monks and is still situated within the Abbey precinct.

One of the earliest streets to be built in the neighbourhood was Great Peter Street (originally Saint Peter Street), dedicated to the Abbey’s patron saint. There is a legend that when the Abbey was founded by Sebert, a seventh century King of the East Saxons, the saint attended the consecration in person. Another tradition holds that Edward the Confessor, who rebuilt the Abbey, had a ‘special and singular affection for St Peter’. The erection of monastic buildings was continued by John Islip (John Islip Street), who was elected Abbot at Westminster in

A much later builder at the Abbey, Master Mason Thomas Gay­ fere, who restored the Henry vu Chapel in the eighteenth century and lived at Smith Square, is commemor­ ated in Gayfere Street, a turning out of Smith Square.
Most of the Abbey property of Tothill Fields remained marshy pasture, crossed only by ditches and the occasional path, until Vincent Square was laid out in 1810 to form a playgrouud for the scholars of Westminster School, and was named after Dr William Vincent, Head­ master at Westminster 1788-1802 and Dean 1802-1815. Other new streets built in the vicinity of the Square commemorate prominent masters or scholars at the School: Nicholas Udall, sixteenth-century headmaster and also the author of the earliest known English comedy, Ralph Roister Doister; William Carey, appointed headmaster in 1803, who bequeathed £20,000 for Westminster students at Oxford; Dr William Page, who succeeded Dr Carey in 1814; the Reverend William Gunion Ruther­ ford, an eminent classical scholar scholar who was headmaster 1883-1901; and Sir Harry Vane (1613-1662), the regicide, who was a
Westminster schoolboy. The main stream which drained Tothill Fields before it was developed was one of the mouths of the Tyburn, known at this point in its course as the King’s Scholars’ Sewer; it now runs directly beneath an alley called King’s Scholars’ Passage. Side by side with this scholastic element, Tothill Fields was endowed with numerous ecclesiastical names. The first of these, to take their subjects in chronological order, was Osbert de Clare, a twelfth-century prior of Westminster. After the dissolution of the Abbey, Westminster briefly became a Bishopric. Thomas Thirleby, the first and last bishop, proved extravagant, squandering the Westminster land during his 10 year rule (1541-1550), and the experiment was not repeated. Since then Westminster Abbey has been gov­ erned by Deans, and from 1663 until 1802 the deans of Westminster were also Bishops of Rochester.(Hence the analogical Medway Street, probably so called because Rochester is situated on the River Medway.) One of the more prominent Bishops of Rochester and Deans of Westmin­ ster was Francis Atterbury (1662-1732), royal chaplain to William and Mary, who was later condemned for treason because of his support for the Jacobites, and exiled.

Next come a number of early nineteenth-century streets    named after contemporary Canons of Westminster: Charles Fynes-Clinton; Thomas Causton; the Reverend Dr Blomberg, Domestic Chaplain to George IV; Wi1liam Douglas; and William Cureton, an eminent Syriac scholar. They were followed by a cluster of streets dedicated to Victorian and early twentieth-century Deans at the Abbey: Dean Bradley, Dean Farrar (the author of Eric, or Little by Little), Dean Ryle, Dean Stanley and Dean Trench.
Finally, three streets connected rather indirectly with Westminster Abbey: Erasmus Street, named after the great sixteenth-century Dutch theologian whose writings were to encourage the Reformation in England; Spenser Street, so called because the poet Edmund Spenser lived in Westminster and is buried in the Abbey; and Stillington Street, after Bishop Robert Stillington (d. 1491) who was at one time Dean of St Martin’s Westminster.

Charing Cross (7). The earliest known reference to the little village of Charing dates from about AD 1000 when it was called Cyrringe (Old’ English cierring, ‘turning’ or ‘bend’) from the bend in the Strand at this point.

The cross was set up in memory of Edward I’s Queen Eleanor. When she died near Lincoln in 1290 Edward ordered that stone crosses should be erected to mark the route of the funeral cortege as it made its slow journey to Westminster Abbey. Chnring Cross was the last of the twelve crosses and the most expen­ sive, taking several years to finish: It stood on the site of the equestnan statue of Charles I on the south side of Trafalgar Square, and disappeared in 1647 during the Puritan fervour for ‘the utter demolishing removing and taking away of all Monuments of Superstition or Idolatry’. No clear pictures of the ori inal. cro.ss have survived and the Victorian replica outside ‘Charing Cross Station is largely a work of imagination.

Charing Cross Road was built in the 1880s. North of Cambridge Circus it follows an ancient highway which was the continuation of St Martin’s Lane, but the southern end was newly cut through slum streets to provide a more direct route to Charing Cross.

Charlbert Street (St John’s Wood 3) is part of Portland Town, an area that was built up in the 1830s. Most of its streets were unimaginatively given male Christian names: Charles, Henry, Frederick, John and William. All except Chnrles Lane have since been changed, because the names were duplicated in other parts of London. Charles Street was amalgamated with the Prince Consort’s name in 1897 – this is a turning out of Prince Albert Road ­ to produce the hybrid Charlbert.

Charles Street (Berkeley Square 7). A Berkeley family name.

Charlotte Place and Street (near Tottenham Court Road 4) date from about 1761, when Queen Charlotte married George III. As a queen she was undistinguished, but as a dutiful wife she was perfect: docile, domestic and decorous and the bearer of fifteen little Royal Highnesses.

Charrington Street (King’s Cross 4) lies on the Brewers’ Estate (see Aldenham Street, King’s Cross) and is named after the company of brewers.

Charterhouse Square and Street (Clerkenwell      5).       The    monastic order of the Carthusians (Carthusian Street) originated in the desolate mountains of the Grande Chartreuse in Burgundy, where the monks lived in austerity and such isolation that the order was slow in spreading to England. It was not until the late fourteenth century that the London Charterhouse (the anglicised version of Chartreuse) was founded by Sir Walter Manny and the Bishop of London, Michael de Northburgh (Northburgh Street).

The site selected at Clerkenwell, conveniently close to the City, consisted of two adjacent graveyards which had been consecrated at the time of the Black Death. The larger of these, New Church Haw, was approached by a lane now named Charterbouse Street, at the end of which the monks built a stone archway giving on to a five-sided green and beyond it the monastery buildings: see Plate rr. The green has kept its shape to this day, and is now Charterbouse Square. The other burying ground, known as Pardon (see Pardon Street), lay outside the monastery walJ to the north, beyond modern      Clerkenwell Road (see end-map).

The Charterhouse was brutally suppressed in 1537 by Henry VIII and fell into secular hands. The Earls of Rutland established their town house on part of the property, on the site of Rutland Place. Then in 1611 Thomas Sutton bought the Charterhouse as an almshouse and a school for poor boys. He and Sir Robert Dallington, another seventeenth century Master of the Charterhouse, have given their names to Great Sutton Street and Dallington Street, on the former Pardon Churchyard.

Sutton’s Charterhouse foundation still owns what were once Pardon and New Church Haw, and pensioners still fill his almshouse, but the parts of the monastery once occupied by Charterhouse public school (now at Godalming) have been taken over by St Bartholomew’s Medical School.

Chaston Street (Kentish Town 8). Edward Chaston was the manager of the National Bank in Camden High Street for many years. Throughout the 1860s he was shrewdly buying up plots of building land in the rapidly expanding district of Kentish Town, and this little field beside Grafton Terrace (developed about 1870) must have been one of his investments.

Cheapside (City 5) is derived from Old English ceap, ‘market’, and was London’s central market for cen­ turies. Since it was a main road through the City, and was also used for jousts, entertainments, and Lord Mayors’ processions, stringent regu­ lations had to be proclaimed to ease the congestion caused by the market. In Edward I’s time (1272-1307) it was ordered that ‘All manner of victuals that are sold by persons in Chepe, upon Cornhulle, and elsewhere in the City, such as bread, cheese, poultry, fruit, hides and skins, onions and garlic, and all other small victuals, for sale as well by denizens as by stran­ gers, shall stand midway between the kennels [gutters] of the streets, so as to be a nuisance to no one, under pain of forfeiture of the article’. Streets leading out of Cheapside still indicate some of the commodities for sale: Bread, Wood, Honey, Milk and Poultry.

Chelsea (6-7) was an Anglo-Saxon settlement. Its name has been variously interpreted as Chesil ea, ‘isle of shingle’, Cealc hythe, ‘chalk landing-place’, or Caelic hythe, ‘cup­ shaped landing-place’.

Chelsea Bridge Road.  The bridge over the Thames was opened in 1858 as urbanisation spread this far west along both banks of the river.

Chelsea Embankment was completed in 1874. To build it, some 9 acres of land were reclaimed frOm the Thames, which was thus deepened and made more navigable.

Chelsea Manor Street passes through the centre of the former gardens of the New Manor House in Cheyne Walk. The Old Manor in Lawrence Street was granted to Sir Reginald Bray (Bray Place) along with Chelsea parish, by Henry VII, in recognition of Sir Reginald’s support during Henry’s long struggle for the throne. After Bray’s death, Henry VIII purchased Chelsea, and built the New Manor. It was the home of his widow, Queen Katherine Parr, who lived there with her young stepdaughter, the future Queen Elizabeth. In 1657 Charles Lord Cheyne bought the Manor. His son, William Lord Cheyne, sold it in 1712, but before he did so Cheyne Row and perhaps Cheyne Walk were begun. The next owner of the manor was Sir Hans Sloane (Sloane Sqnare), the famous physician. His daughters’ descendants still own much of Chelsea.

Chelsea Park Gardens occupies a quarter of the vanished 40 acre Chelsea Park, imparked in Tudor times and once the property of Sir Thomas More. It contained a villa belonging to the Henniker­ Wilson family until its demolition in 1876, the period when the last remnants of the Park were surrendered to the builders: hence Henniker Mews, another of the streets which have engulfed the Park.

Cheltenham Terrace (Chelsea 7) and adjacent St Leonard’s Terrace were erected in the 1840s by John Tombs, who lived at Upton St Leonard’s, about 8 miles from Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, before settling at Smith Square, West­ minster, as a builder and bricklayer.

Cheney Road (King’s Cross 4). This part of Agar Town was developed by William Cheney, a builder. William’s widow Sarah lived in Cheney Street and owned many properties in the neighbourhood around 1850.

Chenies Place (Pancras Road, Somers Town) and Chenies Street (Bloomsbury 4) are both on estates belonging to the Dukes of Bedford.

Cheniston Gardens (Kensington 6). The name is taken from Chenesitun, the Domesday Book form of. ‘Kensington’.

Chequer Street (Whitecross Street 5). A very old street, named from a former Chequer Inn here. The sign of the Chequer in the middle ages indicated the office of a money·
changer, who used a board divided into squares, called an exchequer (from French exchiquier, ‘chess-board’), to make his calculations. The money-changer usually ran a tavern as a side-line, to keep the coin flowing back into his own pockets, and thus the Chequer became a common inn-sign.

Cheshire Court (Fleet Street, City) adjoins the old Cheshire Cheese tavern. The present Cheshire Cheese was built on the site of an earlier tavern a few months after the Great Fire of 1666, which consumed all this area. It was Dr Johnson’s ‘local’ during the period when he lived at Gough Square, Bolt Court and Johnson’s Court, and was famed for its expertly cooked steaks.

Chester Close, Row, Square, and Street (Belgravia 7). Part of the Grosvenor estate.

Chester Gate, Place, Road and Terrace (Regent’s Park 4): see Regent’s Park.

Chesterfield (Mayfair 7). Chester· field House in South Audley Street, Mayfair, was built for Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, the statesman and man of letters whom Dr Johnson described as ‘a Wit among Lords and a Lord among Wits’. The magnificent mansion was completed in 1749 and remained the family home for the next hundred years, but it has now been rebuilt as blocks of fiats, while its gardens and outbuildings have become Chesterfield Street and Gardens. Hence also Stanhope Gate and Row. Nearby Chesterfield Hill was so named in 1939.

Chesterton Road (North Kensington 2). The Chesterton family have been connected with the development of Kensington for generations. Charles Chesterton became Estate Agent to the Phillimore family in the 1820s, and his son Arthur (the grandfather of author G. K. Chesterton, who wrote The Napoleon of Notting Hill, founded Chesterton & Sons in Kensington High Street. The firm now has four branches in West London and still administers the Phillimore estate.

Chetwynd Road (Kentish Town 8). Charles John Chetwynd, Lord Ingestre (the future nineteenth Earl of Shrewsbury) entered a business partnership in 1857 with Lord Alfred Spencer Churchill, a younger son of the Duke of Marlborough, and purchased a large meadow at Kentish Town, adjoining the estate of his first cousin William Lord Dartmouth (see Dartmouth Park). Chetwynd Road, Ingestre Road, Spencer Rise and Cburchhill Road were laid out on the meadow the same year.

Cheval Place (Brompton Road 6). French cheval, ‘horse’, from the early nineteenth-century stables here, some of which are still standing. The first stable at the western entrance to the street has an old carved horse’s head worked into the plaster above the door. Brompton was formerly noted for its numerous French residents.

Cheyne Gardens, Place Row and Walk (Chelsea 6-7). From the Cheynes, Lords of Chelsea Manor.

Chicheley Street (Lambeth 4). In memory of Archbishop Chichele, who was Archbishop of Canterbury 1414-43 and as such owner of Lambeth Palace and the surrounding Manor of Lambeth. He built the present Lollard Tower at Lambeth Palace.

Childs Place, Street and Passage (Earl’s Court 6). The Earl’s Court Rolls for 1554 record that Thomas Child, the owner of a tenement and adjacent meadows, was sworn a tenant of Earl’s Court Manor. Through the seventeenth century the Rolls frequently mention Matthew Child, who often had to be reminded to keep the ditches and lanes around his property in good repair. In 1870 a Miss Childs owned houses at Childs Place. She may have been the last of the family, since nothing more is heard of them after that date.

Chiltern Street (opposite Baker Street Station 3). From the Baker Street junction, the Metropolitan Railway extends its north-western arms well into the Chiltern hills, with stations at Chalfont and Wendover. Hence also Chiltern and Chalfont Courts in Baker Street, and Wendover Buildings in Chiltern Street.

Chilworth Street (Paddington 3) was named after a place in Hampshire by analogy with other Hampshire names hereabouts.

Chippenham Road (Paddington 2) and the neighbourhood around it are officially known as St Peter’s Park, because they comprise the northern part of the Manor of Westbourne, a property of the Abbey Church of St Peter (Westminster Abbey) from the early middle ages until the nineteenth century. The Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey leased Westbourne to the millionaire Philip Rundell, goldsmith to George III, who took up residence at Westbourne Manor House. Rundell’s sister Eleonora married Samuel Goldney from Chippenham in Wiltshire, whose family were country neighbours and close friends of the Neelds of Grittleton, Wiltshire (hence the Neeld Arms in the Harrow Road). These three families were closely involved in the development of St Peter’s Park. In 1820 Philip Rundell transfered the Abbey’s lease to Joseph Neeld, whose grandson Sir John Neeld began Rundeli, Goldney, and Grittleton Roads in the 1860s. Sir John also named Foscote Mews after a farm near Grittleton belonging to the Goldneys, and Braden Street, Sevington Street, Surrendale Place and Lanhill Road from four of his own properties. The River Kennet (Kennet Road) rises not far from Chippenham. The same families owned another estate four miles north of St Peter’s Park, in Hendon, which is now covered by Rundell Crescent, Neeld Crescent, Foscote Road and Sevington Road.

Chiswell Street (Finsbury 5) was Chysel Strate as early as 1217. The name is said to be derived from a well of excellent water, called the ‘Choice Well’. ‘There are,’ wrote Fitzstephen in about 1180, ’round London, on the northern side, in the suburbs, excellent wells with sweet, fresh, clear water, gushing over glistening pebbles’. The well was probably the pond at the east end of Chiswell Street shown on Agas’s map of c. 1560 , railed in on three sides and draining into the roadside ditch on the fourth side. But by the time John Stow compiled his Survey of London in 1598 most of Fitzstephen’s wells were ‘all decayed, and so illled up, that their places are hardly now discerned’.

Chitty Street (near Tottenham Court Road 4). Named in 1885 in honour of the Chitty family, Joseph and his sons Joseph, Thomas and Edward, all distinguished Victorian legal writers. Joseph Chitty the elder, the author of many legal books, died in Conway Street, close to Chitty Street, in 1841, and his most talented son, Thomas (1802-1878), lived in nearby Gower Street.

Christchurch Hill and Passage (Hampstead 1). Christchurch, Hampstead, was consecrated in 1852.

Christchurch Street (Chelsea 7) leads to Christ Church, founded in 1838.

Christopher Place (Euston 4). Origin unknown.

Church Avenue (Kentish Town 8) leads to Kentish Town Congregational Church, opened in 1848.

Church Cloisters (City) adjoins the Church of St Mary-at-Hill (q.v.). There were never any cloisters here­ the alley was Church Passage until 1938.

Church Passage (Gresham Street, City) encircles the church of St Lawrence Jewry.

Church Place (Piccadilly). The church is St James’s, designed by Wren and consecrated in 1684.

Church Row (Hampstead 1). St John’s Church was built to replace the little medieval church of St Mary in 1745, when Hampstead’s reputation as a fashionable spa started to attract a larger congregation. Many of the houses in the Row date from the same period.

Church Street (Edgware Road 3). The section of Church Street between Paddington Green and the Edgware Road is probably as old as Padding­ ton’s first church, about which nothing is known except that it existed in 1222. Then St James’s was built on the northern part of Paddington Green, near the end of Church Street, in 1678, and was replaced by the present church of St Mary’s, about 80 yards distant, in 1791.

Churchill Gardens Road (Westminster 7). One of the very few London streets named after a twentieth­century hero. It crosses Churchill Gardens Estate, a former decrepit working-class area which was conveniently cleared of buildings by bomb damage in the Second World War and completely redeveloped in its present form in 1946. That same year Winston Churchill became the first person to be awarded the Honorary Freedom of the City of Westminster, and his name was the obvious choice for the City’s new housing estate.

Churchway (Euston 4) is the remnant of an ancient footway through the fields from High Holborn to Old St Pancras Church in Pancras Road. Now, strangely enough, it leads straight to new St Pancras in Euston Road.

Churton Place and Street (Pimlico 7). Part of the Grosvenor family’s Pimlico estate.

Circus and Crescent (both in Vine Street, City) were built in the 1770s, and some of the original houses are still standing despite bomb damage. The names ‘crescent’ and ‘circus’ to describe a range of houses had then only just come into use, following the fashionable new Royal Crescent and Circus at Bath, and these must have been the first London streets so described.

Circus Mews (Marylebone) is an off-shoot of Enford Street, formerly Circus Street, which was intended to lead to Cumberland Circus, a ring of houses halfway along Great Cumber­ land Place. The eastern segment of the circus was completed in 1789 and still exists, but in name and house-numbering it is not now distinguished from the rest of Great Cumberland Place. With the outbreak of the French Wars the scheme was abandoned, and the western side was never begun.

Circus Place (City 5) leads to Finsbury Circus.

Circus Road (St John’s Wood 3) is all that ever materialised of the Great British Circus. The project, devised during a lull in hostilities with the French in 1803, was strangely similar to Nash’s plan for nearby Regent’s Park, also uncompleted, a dozen years later. There was to be an inner and an outer circle of houses to cover the whole of the St John’s Wood area. A mile in circumference, the outer ring would have 66 houses and the inner 36, ‘with appropriate offices’, boasted the scheme’s promoters. In the centre would be forty-two acres of ‘pleasure ground’. But war broke out again, and only this approach to the circus was built.

City Road (5) was built to link the City with the end of the new Pentonville Road at the Angel, Islington, thus cutting a mile off the journey from Moorgate to Islington village. It took only four months to make, as paths already existed along the route, and was opened in June 1761. It was considered the finest road around London, ‘with a footpath on each side’! Mr Charles James Dingley, its projector, modestly refused to name the road after himself, but streets leading out of it have since been called Dingley Road and Place.

Clabon Mews (Chelsea 7). John Moxton Clabon was solicitor to the Cadogan family and was probably involved in building this mews for them in 1875.

Clanricarde Gardens (Kensington 2) was formerly named Campden Place, being part of Lady Campden’s Charity estate, but because of its notorious slums it was known locally as Little Hell.The street was cleared and rebuilt in 1869, when a new name, sonorous and aristocratic, was sought to destroy the old image. The namer was probably thinking of the Marchioness of Clanricarde, wife of Postmaster General Clanricarde and daughter of George Canning, one of Kensington’s famous residents.

Clare Market (Houghton Street 4) belonged to John Holies, Baron Houghton and Earl of Clare.

Claremont Square and Close (Clerkenwell 5). After Claremont Park, near Esher in Surrey, which was given to Princess Charlotte, only legitimate child of the Prince Regent, when she married Prince Leopold of Saxe Cobourg. Much of her brief married life (1816-17) was spent there, and Claremont Square dates from about that time.

Clarence. Prince William, Duke of St Andrews and Earl of Munster, was the second brother of the Prince Regent. He was born in 1765 and created Duke of Clarence 24 years later. Several inn signs were dedicated to him in honour of the occasion; among them was the Duke of Clarence on the corner of Pancras Road and Clarence Passage (4). The pub closed down in 1926 and the premises are now a toy factory. The prince is represented on his brother’s estate at Regent’s Park (q.v.) by Clarence Gate, Gardens and Terrace and also Munster Square and St Andrews Place. Clarence Gate gave its name to near­ by Clarence Gate Gardens, built in 1909 and quite devoid of gardens. In 1830 the Duke came to the throne as William IV, whereupon the Clarence pub at Kentish Town was opened and gave its name to Clarence Way.

Clarendon Street (Pimlico 7). The Pimlico area was the last of the Grosvenor family’s great London estates to be developed. It was begun in the 1830s, by which time the streets they owned in Mayfair and Belgravia had apparently exhausted the supply of names of Grosvenor titles and estates. They therefore had recourse to other people’s titles, and named the new streets in Pimlico after a variety of euphonious dukedoms, earldoms, marquessates and baron­ ies: hence Chichester, Clarendon, Cumberland, Denbigh, Gloucester, Sussex, Westmorland, Winchester, Worcester, Cambridge, Cornwall, Colchester and Aylesford Streets.

Clareville Grove and Street (South Kensington 6). After Clareville Cottage, which used to stand in the Old Brompton Road (then Brompton Lane) close to the site of these streets. In the 1840s it was the home of singer Jenny Lind, ‘the Swedish Nightingale’. The cottage was demolished in about 1880.

Clarges Street (Piccadilly 7) was built on one of the fields belonging to Sir William Pulteney, who appointed his friend Sir Thomas Clarges as trustee for his estate when he died in 1691. Sir Thomas’s son Sir Walter, who had been Pulteney’s fellow MP for Westminster, formed the street in

The Clarges were a family of lowly and dubious origin, but Thomas became a leading politician at the Restoration and was knighted by Charles II, while his sister Anne, ‘not at all handsome or cleanly’, ‘without either wit or beauty’, •a plain homely dowdy’, married the Restoration hero, the Duke of Albemarle.

Clark’s Place (City 5) contained the Hall of the Brotherhood of parish clerks, the officials responsible for recording the christenings and burials in their parish, and beside it ‘proper almshouses, seven in number, for poor parish clerks, and their wives and their widows, such as were in great years not able to labour’, as Stow wrote in 1598. The inmates of the almshouses received the sizeable grant of ninepence a week. But under the boy-king Edward VI a powerful knight took over the Hall and tore it down when the clerks protested, and the Crown seized the almshouses : ‘The alms houses remain in the queen’s hands, and people are there placed, such as can best make friends; some of them, taking the pension appointed, have let forth their houses for great rent’, says Stow with ill-suppressed indignation.

Clarke’s Mews (Beaumont Street, Marylebone). William Clarke, probably a builder by trade, leased this site from the Duke of Portland, the ground landlord, in the eighteenth century.

Claverton Street (Pimlico 7). Part of the Grosvenor family’s Pimlico estate.

Clay Street (Marylebone 3) is probably on the site of a clay pit­ there were rich deposits of surface clay along the course of the Tyburn, which flowed beside the site of this street. Clay was dug to provide the bricks that were the main building material in eighteenth century London; brickkilns were usually set up as close to the source of clay as possible, and their smell and refuse ruined rural amenities outside the town years before streets finally obliterated the fields.

Clement’s Inn Passage (Aldwych 4). One of the old inns of chancery described by Stow in 1598 was ‘called Clement’s Inn, because it standeth near to St Clement’s church, but nearer to the fair fountain called Clement’s well’. The inn and the ‘fair fountain’, one of the many holy wells of medieval London, have been replaced by the Law Courts, but St Clement Danes Church still stands.

Clement’s Lane (City 5) contains St Clement’s Eastcheap, dedicated, like St Clement Danes, to the first-century bishop martyred by the Romans.

Clere Street and Place (Finsbury 5). St Agnes-le-Claire, or le Clere, was a medieval spring of clear water dedicated to St Agnes, the saint of purity. It rose at the junction of Old Street and Paul Street, and irrigated the nearby meadows where Clere Street was to be built. After 1731 it was exploited as a medicinal bath, ‘much applauded by the learned physicians of old, and now greatly extolled by the most eminent profes­ sors of this age’, according to adver­ tisements. The bath closed in 1845, and the only trace now is in the name Bath Place, off Old Street.

Clerkenwell (5). ‘Around the northern outskirts of London are excellent springs with sweet, fresh, clear water, gushing over glistening pebbles. Among them is the Fons Clericorum, the Clerks’ Well’, wrote Fitzstephen in about 1180. Stow, 400 years later, says the well ‘took the name of the parish clerks in London, who of old time were accustomed there yearly to assemble, and to play some large history of Holy Scripture’. Medieval Clerkenwell was a pleasant village within easy reach of London, ‘frequented by scholars and youths of the city in summer evenings, when they walk forth to take the air.’ A map of Stow’s time shows the water of the Clerks’ Well flowing freely into a public trough. The well can still be seen on request under the premises of Messrs Hatch Pinner in Farringdon Road near the corner of Clerkenwell Green.

Clerkenwell Green is wedge-shaped, widening at the end where the well stood. This was probably the scene of the clerks’ annual biblical plays. The actual green has long disappeared; the few trees there at present are a fairly recent attempt to justify the name.

On the north side of the Green stood a Benedictine nunnery, founded in about 1100. After the dissolution of the monasteries, private houses straggled over the nunnery close, and the tortuous Clerkenwell Close grew up. The nunnery was destroyed except for its church of St James, rebuilt in 1792, which gave its name to StJames’s Row and Walk, also once part of the close.

Clerkenwell Road was formed through Clerkenwell parish in the 1870s.

Cleveland. In memory of Barbara Villiers (of the Villiers family which produced generations of royal favourites, one of Charles II’s most rapacious mis tresses. In 1668 this ‘most Splendid, Illustrious, Serene and Eminent Lady of Pleasure’ was libelled in print, and to console her the king immediately granted her Berkshire House, a sumptuous mansion shown facing St James’s Palace. Two years later she was created Duchess of Cleveland and her home became Cleveland House; the road on its south side is still called Cleveland Row.

As Barbara’s influence at court waned, she concentrated on obtaining titles and profitable marriages for her numerous royal bastards. Her second son, Henry Fitzroy, Earl of Euston and Duke of Grafton, married the heiress to Tottenham Court Manor, and the old lane which separated this estate from Marylebone Manor is now Cleveland Street.

Cleveland Gardens, Square and Terrace (Bayswater 3) date from the 1850s and are probably named after the builder; numerous property deeds of the period mention one William Frederick Cleveland of Maida Vale developing empty plots in Paddington and Bayswater.

Clifford Street (Mayfair 7). A Burlington family name.

Clifford’s Inn Passage (Fleet Street, City) leads round the old Inn, or town house, which Edward II granted to Baron Robert de Clifford, ancestor of the Earls of Cumberland, at the rent of one penny a year. His widow let it in 1345 to law students, who finally bought it from the Earl of Cumberland three centuries later. Since the legal Society of Clifford’s Inn disbanded in 1902, the Inn has been used as commercial premises.

Clifton. Clifton Gardens, Place, Road and Villas (Paddington 3), Clifton Hill (St John’s Wood), and Clifton (now Cliff) Road and Villas (Camden Town 8), all dating from the mid­ nineteenth century, are probably named after the fashionable district of Bristol where Brunei’s Clifton Suspension Bridge, an amazing feat of engineering, was constructed 1832-1864.

Clink Street (Southwark 5). ‘Clink’, the slang word for ‘prison’, is derived from the Clink jail which used to stand here on the corner with Stoney Street. ‘Then next is the Clioke’, wrote Stow in 1598, ‘a gaol or prison for the trespassers in those parts; namely, in old time, for such as should brabble, frey or break the peace on the said baok [Bankside], or in the brothel houses’. The origin may be Old French ‘clenche’, meaning a catch or bolt on a door.

Cloak Lane (City 5) used to be called Horseshoe Bridge, because of a little bridge which carried the street over the Walbrook. Cloak is probably derived from ‘cloaca’, ‘sewer’, after a sewer draining into the brook at this point.

Cloth Fair (City 5) and the network of little alleys around it were part of the precinct of St Bartholomew’s Priory, where a great fair was held annually at the feast of St Bartholo­ mew. Medieval drapers and tailors from all over Britain and even the continent attended it, and set up booths and counters where they sold their cloth. The centre of activities was the Hand & Shears Inn, still in existence, whose sign denotes the tailors’ trade. During fairtime it was used as a court of justice, where the tailors• yardmeasures were checked for standard length, and any offen­ ders were summarily condemned to the stocks or whipping-post. Later the purpose of the fair was forgotten; it degenerated into a licentious riot and finally had to be suppressed, but by that time the clothsellers had settled permanently in Cloth Fair. As late as 1815 it was still occupied mainly by tailors, clothiers and drapers.

Clothier Street (City 5) was famous for its ‘sellers of old apparel’ in Eliza­ bethan times, and remained so for centuries. When an official Clothes Exchange (hence Exchange Buildings) was established here in 1875, the scrabbling for bargains produced a pushing and crowding, confusion, Babel of sounds, and fermentation of all unsavoury odours’; but demand has since declined and the old clothes merchants have deserted the area, reappearing on Sundays only in Petticoat Lane, a little further east.

Cloudesley Place (Islington 5). Richard Cloudesley was a parishioner of Islington who died in about 1517 in great trepidation as to his standing with his Maker: all his money was left to the poor of the parish provided they said !000 masses for his soul ‘as hastily as may be’ after his death. He also directed that the income from his 14-acre meadow Stony Field (hence Stonelleld Street) should pay for ‘yeerely, for ever, a solemn obit to be kept for me and a trental of masses to be said for my soul within the said church of Islington’.

Cluny Mews (Kensington 6) was probably named by association between the Benedictine Abbey of Abingdon which owned Kensington during the middle ages (hence Abingdon Road), and the Cluniac order of Benedictine monks.

Clydesdale Road (Notting Hill 2). Probably after Colin Campbell, a Victorian general who was created Lord Clyde of Clydesdale, A veteran of the Napoleonic campaigns and a victor of Alma in the Crimea, in 1857 he managed to suppress the Indian Mutiny and returned home to be loaded with honours. At his death in 1863 he was given a hero’s burial in Westminster Abbey, and this street was begun shortly afterwards.

Coach & Horses Yard (Mayfair 7). There has been a tavern at the entrance to this mews since the 1780s. For the first few years of its existence it was called the Coach & Horses, but soon changed to its present name, the Burlington Arms.

Cobourg Street (Euston 4). Leopold of Saxe-Cobourg was a prototype ‘prince charming’ who brought brief happiness into the life of Princess Charlotte. She was the only child of the Prince Regent and his wife, and spent a miserable secluded childhood, the pawn of her feuding parents. Her love-match with Saxe­ Cobourg in 1816, when this street was built, ended with her death in childbirth the following year. Saxe­Cobourg was later chosen King of the Belgians and was Queen Victoria’s beloved ‘Uncle Leopold’.

Cochrane Street (St John’s Wood (3). Thomas Cochrane, lOth Earl of Dundonald, was better known as Admiral Lord Cochrane, whom Napoleon called ‘le loup des mers’. His career crashed in 1814, when he was convicted of conspiring with the French, but in 1832 he was cleared of all charges. That same year, re-estab­ lished as a hero, he moved to Hanover Lodge, a villa in Regent’s Park, and this nearby street was then named after him with almost indecent haste.

Cock Hill (Middlesex Street 5). Probably from a long-vanished inn­ sign.
Cock Lane (City 5) was probably the lane where fighting-cocks were bred and sold in the twelfth century. Cock-fighting was already a popular sport; Fitzstephen tells us in about 1180 that it was the custom for London schoolboys to bring cocks to their master on Shrove Tuesday, and spend the morning matching them in the schoolroom.

Cockpit. Cockpits were circular buildings contammg spectators’ benches around a central arena, where the lighting-cocks, equipped with spurs about 2 inches long, gashed each other to death. The sport was very popular, especially with the English kings, who built a succession of Royal Cockpits; it took a queen, Victoria, to declare cock-fighting illegal.

The Cockpit in Birdcage Walk, St James’s Park, on the right side of Cockpit Steps if approached from the park, was distinguished by an ornate cupola, and is said to have been built for Charles II. It was demolished in 1816 because it had passed out of fashion, ‘that behind Gray’s Inn having the only vogue’. The site of this Gray’s Inn Cockpit is marked by Cockpit Yard, Holborn 4; it stood at the blind end of the yard, and has now completely vanished.

Cockspur Street (Trafalgar Square 7), according to the English Place-Name Society, was probably the street where cocks’ spurs were sold. Prize fighting-cocks may have been fitted with their spurs here before being taken across St James’s Park to the Whitehall Cockpit or the Royal Cockpit at Cockpit Steps.

Coin Street (Southwark 5), so named in 1893, may be a memento of the ‘mint of coinage’ established by Henry VIII in Suffolk Place, South­ work (see Guildford Street). A large number of coins were found in a field by the Mint in 1833.

Colbeck Mews (Kensington 6). The Reverend William Royde Colbeck of Freshingfield in Suffolk acquired some land in Kensington in 1849, and it was probably his descendants who built this mews 25 years later.

Coldbath Square (Rosebery Avenue 5). In 1967 Walter Baynes of the Middle Temple (whose name sur­ vives in Baynes Court, off Coldbath Square), purchased a field beside the River Fleet. A few months later he discovered a cold spring rising there, which he decided to exploit for its medicinal properties. As soon as he had erected a bath-house around it, he advertised the water as ‘famed for the curing of the most nerval dis­ orders’. Coldbath Square was later built round the bath-house and spring, which both survived until about 1870. Rosebery Avenue now cuts across the site, and has swept away most of the Square, and the bath with it.

Coleherne Road (Earl’s Court 6). The name Coleherne is first found here in a document dated 1433, and the English Place-Name Society suggests a derivation from Old English ‘byrne’, ‘corner’. For centuries a Coleheme House (demolished in 1900) stood on the site of Cole­ heme Court.

Coleman Street (City 5) is thought to have been the quarter of the charcoal burners, or coalmen, at about the time of the Conquest. Before coal became plentiful, charcoal was important as a fuel. It had to be prepared by slow combustion in special hearths, the skill being handed down in families for generations.

Coleridge Gardens (Hampstead 1). The poet Coleridge was a frequent visitor to Hampstead, often dining at the Holly Bush Tavern on Holly Mount, or staying with various Hampstead friends.

Coley Street (Gray’s Inn Road 4). After Henry Coley (1633-c. 1695), a well-known astrologer in his day, who lived nearby in Baldwin’s Gardens, Gray’s Inn Road. He wrote a widely read Key to the whole Art of Astrology, new filed and polished and a popular annual Almanack, containing ‘great and wonderful Predictions’.

College Crescent (Swiss Cottage 1). The New College of Divinity for Protestant Dissenters was an amalgam of three older divinity colleges, united in one building at Swiss Cottage in 1850. The college moved to its present premises further north along Finchley Road in 1938, and the old site is now occupied by New College Parade, Finchley Road.

College Grove (Camden Town 8) was once a genuine rural grove; it consisted of a footpath and tiny bridge over the River Fleet, for the use of the Veterinary College. By 1850 it was quite built up on either side.

College Hill and Street (City 5). On College Hill stood the home of Richard Whittington, four times Lord Mayor of London. His fame rested largely on his generous bequests, one of which was the foundation of Whittington College aod Almhouses on the site of his house. This College for priests is now at Felbridge, where it is still administered by Whitting­ ton’s company, the Mercers. The almshouses moved in 1808 to Highgate Hill, where young Dick traditionally ‘turned again’.

College Lane (Kentish Town 8). After the ground landlord, St John’s College, Cambridge. The lane was originally a cart-track to St John’s Farm in Highgate Road, at the point where the railway now crosses the road.

College Place (Camden Town 8) runs parallel to Royal College Street.

Collier Street (Pentonville 4): see

Colonnade (Bloomsbury 4). No trace remains of the Georgian colonnade which ran along one side of this mews. It consisted of a row of little old shops, whose upper storeys projected over the pavement, sup­ ported by a pillared arcade. The more mundane back entrance of Russell Square Station and other modern buildings have now replaced it.

Colville Gardens, Houses, Road, Square and Terrace (Notting Hill 2), like nearby Clydesdale Road, were probably named after a distinguished Victorian soldier: Charles Colville, a hero of the Napoleonic Wars who was later made a general.

Commercial Place (Chalk Farm 8). When Regent’s Park was laid out by Nash in 1812, he also served commercial interests by building the Regent’s Canal, which connects the Grand Union Canal at Paddington with the Thames at Limehouse. The wharves and warehouses of Commercial Place, which was the main intermediary loading point along the canal, were then built to link up with the new railway from Euston, although Chalk Farm was still completely rural at the time.

Compayne Gardens (Hampstead 1). Origin unknown.

Concert Hall Approach (Belvedere Road, Lambeth) leads to the Royal Festival Hall, built in 1951 for the Festival of Britain Exhibition.

Conduit. Conduits, pipes and channels carrying water from fresh springs outside London into the densely populated areas, were vital to the pre-Water Board Londoner. The Thames and its tributaries had become inadequate or polluted by the thirteenth century and water had to be conveyed artificially from further afield. With the exception of the New River the ancient conduits are all disused, but several of them are perpetuated in street names.

The fifteenth century Roundhead Conduit was fed by a spring rising in the water rich gravel of Bayswater, and was so called because of a conical shed with a sphere on top which sheltered the conduit-head. It stood in the Conduit Fields on what was to become the north side of Conduit Street (now Craven Road) and supplied water until the area was developed in about 1840. It has given its name to Conduit Place, Bayswater (3).

The Roundhead pipe ran along Oxford Street as far as a spring beside the River Tyburn, where it was joined by a much older conduit: see Stratford Place. From there the water was conveyed to the City by means of a pump house in Conduit Mead, where Conduit Street (Mayfair 7), was built in 1713. The pipes and pumps have long disappeared, but the freehold of Conduit Mead still belongs to the City Corporation.

White Conduit Street and Lamb’s Conduit Street (qq.v.) retain the names of two more former conduits.

The former led from a medieval spring in Pentonville, and the latter was an Elizabethan dam made in one of the tributaries of the River Fleet (see end-map), forming a reservoir which prevented the fresh water being wasted among the sewage of the Fleet.

Conduit Court (Long Acre) apparently belonged to Leonard Conduit, who paid rates for the newly built court in the 1680s.

Connaught Place, Square and Street (Paddington 3). Connaught House in Connaught Place, one of the aristocratic mansions in the fashionable new area north of Hyde Park, was built in 1808 for George III’s nephew William, Duke of Gloueester and Earl of Connaught. These streets and nearby Gloucester Gardens, Square and Terrace, soon followed. The Duke’s cousin Princess Caroline, banished from the court of her estranged husband, the Prince Regent, also lived at Connaught House until she left England in 1814 on the start of her wild and scandalous wanderings around the Continent, which were to end with her trial for adultery six years later.

Constantine Road (Hampstead 8) was built in 1887. Origin unknown.

Constitution Hill (Green Park 7). The origins of this name have been fruitlessly debated for many years. It was originally applied not to the road but to the wooded slopes of Green Park beside the road. The earliest reference to it seems to be in an anecdote about Charles II, who ‘after taking two or three turns one morning in St James’s Park (as was his usual custom) . . . walked up Constitution Hill, and from thence into Hyde Park’ … presumably for the sake of his bodily constitution. However, the name might be analogous to the patriotic Place de la Republique and its equivalents, a class of street name found in every continental town, but in which London is conspicuously deficient.

Convent Gardens (Notting Hill 2) leads to the garden of the Franciscan Convent of the Order of St Clare, founded in 1859 by Cardinal Manning. (There is also a Cardinal Manning School in the neighbourhood).

Conybeare (South Hampstead 8). On the Eton College estate: see Eton Avenue, South Hampstead.

Coomassie Road (Kensal Town 2). Coomassie was the former name for Kumasi in Ghana, which was captured by the British under Sir Garnet Wolseley in 1874, shortly before this street was begun.

Cooper’s Row (City 5) acquired its name from wine coopers who stored their casks in dark recesses against the town wall. There is still one wine warehouse in Cooper’s Row, but another, very old-established, firm had to move to less venerable vaults beneath the nearby railway arches in America Square, after bombing destroyed the old premises and exposed a long stretch of Roman wall to daylight for the first time for centuries.

Cope Place (Kensington 6). After Sir Walter Cope, father of Lady Holland: see Holland Park, Kensington.

Copthall Avenue, Bnildings and Court (Throgmorton Street 5). A Copped Hall was the medieval word for a large building with a crested roof. There must have been such a mansion here-Stow recorded that there were ‘divers fair houses for merchants and other’ along this part of Throgmorton Street in 1598-but no details of it have survived.

Coptic Street (Bloomsbury 4) was formed during the building boom following the Great Fire of 1666 and called Duke Street, after the Dukes of Bedford who owned it (see Bedford Square), then renamed in 1894 to end confusion with other Duke Streets. The new name was inspired by an important collection of Coptic Manuscripts (the literature of Christian Egypt) which had been brought to the nearby British Museum the previous year.

Coram Street and Coram’s Fields (Bloomsbury 4). Until 1926 Coram’s Fields contained Captain Thomas Coram’s Foundling Hospital. During his service at sea Coram came into heartrending contact with the destitute illegitimate children of the ports,and he spent 17 years struggling to organise relief for them. At first there was prudish opposition on the grounds that he was encouraging vice, but in 1739, when Coram was about 70 years old, his ‘Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children’ was finally incorporated by royal charter. Hundreds of unmarried mothers were relieved of their burden at Coram’s Fields and told to ‘sin no more’. The charity attracted the rich and the famous; Hogarth, one of the original Governors, painted pictures for it which can be seen in the Foundling Hospital offices in Brunswick Square, and the composer Handel (Handel Street) gave organ recitals in the Hospital Chapel and donated the score of the Messiah to the Hospital.

The Foundling Hospital estate at Bloomsbury consisted of 56 acres of pasture land, where development was begun in 1792 when funds were running low. The earliest streets here were given topical names : Guilford Place and Street in honour of Prime Minister North, Earl of Guilford and President of the Hospital, who died in 1792; Grenville Street after Lord Grenville, the current Foreign Secretary; Lansdowne Terrace commemorates the Prime Minister who con eluded peace with the USA; Mecklenburgh Place, Square and Street were a compliment to Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburgh, George III’s consort, and Brunswick Square marked the Prince Regent’s disastrous marriage to Princess Caroline of Brunswick in 1795.

Development of the rest of the estate was initiated by Sir Thomas Bernard (Bernard Street), Vice President of the Hospital, whose desire to increase the charity’s revenues outweighed public outcry at the desecration of the fields. In 1810 Sir Thomas was succeeded by Michael Heathcote (Heathcote Street). Other Governors included the Earl of Marchmont (Marchmont Street), Dr John Hunter 1728-1793 (Hunter Street), the leading surgeon of his time, and Sir Stephen Gaselee whose wife Henrietta (Henrietta Mews) was buried in the Foundling Hospital chapel in 1838. Kenton Street is named after Benjamin Kenton, a poor tavern waiter who made a fortune from his method of bottling ale so that it could be taken by sailors to all climates without the cork popping out; he bequeathed his money to London charities when he died in 1802.

The Foundling Hospital is now at Berkhamsted, but Coram’s Fields is still a children’s playground, and income from the streets on the estate now supports the Coram Nursery in Brunswick Square.

Cork Street (Mayfair 7) belonged to the Earl of Burlington and Cork: see Burlington, Piccadilly.

Corlette Street (Marlebone 3). Possibly after Hubert C. Corlette, a minor artist who used to live in this parish at 11 Beaumont Street in the late nineteenth century. The street name was approved in 1883.

Cornhill (City 5) is one of the earliest names in the City, recorded even before the Norman Conquest of 1066. It is one of the twin hills of London, facing Ludgate Hill across the valley of the Walbrook. When Saxon tribes started to resettle the City after the ravages of the Dark Ages, the population was too small to fill out the old boundaries. Settlement apparently started on Ludgate Hill, and the other hill may well have been cultivated; where better to grow the food supply than within the relative safety of the old Roman walls?

Cornwall Crescent (North Kensington 2). Much of this area was developed in the 1850s by the Reverend Samuel Walker of St Columb Major, Cornwall. His building methods were unwise; the early houses were too remote from the main road to sell well, and financial ruin was the result: see All Saints Road, North Kensington.

Cornwall Gardens (Kensington 6). Prince Albert Edward, Duke of Cornwall and Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII), came of age in 1862,the year this street was planned. The event was greeted with nation wide celebrations and ceremony.

Cornwall Road (Lambeth 5). In 1337 Edward m granted the Manor of Kennington and a marshy meadow in Lambeth to his son Edward, the first Duke of Cornwall, known as the Black Prince. This land was ‘to be held by … him and his heirs, eldest sons of kings of England and dukes of Cornwall, and not to be granted to any other’. Prince’s Meadow in Lambeth was drained and developed in 1815, when Cornwall Road and Duchy Street were begun. The Meadow and Kennington Manor now belong to Prince Charles, as the present Duke of Cornwall, and are administered by the Duchy of Cornwall office in Kennington Lane.

Cornwall Terrace (Regent’s Park 3). Like all the Regent’s Park (q.v.) terraces, the name is connected with the Prince Regent: following a still existing tradition (see Cornwall Road above), the heir of the reigning monarch of England has the title of Duke of Cornwall.

Corporation Row (Clerkenwell 5). Under the ‘Act for the better reliefe of the poor of this kingdom’ (1662) the parishes around London were to act as one corporate body, or Corporation, pool their resources, and provide a large workhouse for their communal poor: ‘That from hence forth there be and shall be one or more Corporation or Corporation Workhouse . . . within the Bur roughs, Towns, and places of the County of Middlesex’. £5,000 was raised and a healthy site in Clerkenwell, looking north over the fields, was selected. It later become a prison, whose dungeons still existed under Hugh Myddleton School in 1970.

Cosway Street (Marylebone 3) was named after former Marylebone resident Richard Cosway (1740-1821), a fashionable artist and miniature painter patronised by the Prince Regent and the court beauties.

He was also an avid collector of objets d’art, and his house in Stratford Place ‘was like a dealer’s shop’. This street was built on Lisson village green a few years after his death.

Cottage Place (Brompton 6) contained six early Victorian mews cottages attached to the newly built mansions in Brompton Square. The cottages have since been replaced by the Territorial Army centre in Brompton Road.

Cottage Walk (Chelsea 7) probably took its name from the five mews cottages serving the houses in Cadogan Place.

Cottesmore Gardens (Kensington 6). Probably after Cottesmore in Rutland, a country home of the Campdens of Campden Hill, Kensington.

Courtfield Gardens and Road (Earl’s Court 6). By the time of Henry VII and probably earlier, “Courtefielde’ was the name of a large field at Earl’s Court. Courtfield was parcelled into building lots in the 1870s, and the cart-track which had led across the middle of the field for centuries then became Courtfield Road and Gardens.

Courthorpe Road (Gospel Oak 8) was built in 1879. Origin unknown.

Courtnell Street (Paddington 2). Reuben Courtnell Greatorex was an architect of the firm of Greatorex & Co, surveyors, builders and decorators, responsible for developing large stretches of rural Paddington from the 1850s on. The street was named in 1872, when Reuben was appointed to the post of Church­ warden of Paddington.

Cousin Lane (City 5) is first mentioned in 1305, in the will of Joanna Cosyn, who owned some houses here. Several Cosyns are recorded as landowners in the neighbourhood at about that time, and like many wealthy London families they acquired civic importance and responsibility: William Cosyn, who died in 1345, was Sheriff of London and an Alderman for several years.

Covent Garden (4) was the garden belonging to the Convent, or Abbey, of Westminster. The monks owned it from at least 1222 until Henry VIII dissolved the Abbey in 1536. Agas’ map of about 1560 shows it as a large garden enclosed with a strong wall and dotted with trees, bounded by St Martin’s Lane and Drury Lane on the west and east and roughly by Floral Street and the backs of the houses along the Strand to the north and south. The monks used the garden as an orchard, and it is probable that even in those early days the surplus fruit was sold off to the public. When the famous market was set up in the present street called Covent Garden (begun in 1631), it may be that the sellers were following a tradition several centuries old.

Soon after the dissolution the garden was granted to the Earl of Bedford, whose descendants owned it until the twentieth century, and most of the streets built there, except Covent Garden itself, are named after his family.

Coventry Street (Piccadilly Circus 7) is first found on a Tudor plan dated 1585, where it was labelled as ‘the waye from Colbroke to London’. It takes its present name from Henry Coventry (1619-1686), Secretary of State, who bought Shavers Hall, the principal building in the street, in 1673 and renamed it Coventry House. The house was demolished shortly after his death, but its site is still enclosed by Shavers Place. New Coventry Street, the extension of Coventry Street, was formed 1843-6 and provided the only route eastwards from Piccadilly until Shaftesbury Avenue was built.

Cowcross Street (Smithfield 5). So called, said Stow writing in 1598, ‘of a cross sometime standing there’, in the middle of the road at the point where Cowcross Street meets St John Street. Cows were driven past it to Smithfield Meat Market. Other ‘animal’ streets leading into Smithfield then were Cow Bridge, Chicken Lane, Cow Lane, Cock Lane, and Duck Lane. Only Cock Lane has survived.

Cowper Street (City Road 5) belonged to John and Frederick Cowper, who went into partnership as owners of extensive warehouses at St Paul’s Chnrchyard in the City in about 1808. The business flourished, and by 1833 they also owned a number of properties in and around Cowper Street.

Cowper’s Court (Cornhill, City) used to belong to the Cowper family; John Cowper of Cornhill was an Eliza­ bethan Alderman of London and the ancestor of the poet William Cowper and the Earls Cowper. Several generations of the family lived at Cornhill and were buried at St Michael’s Church almost next door to Cowper’s Court.

Cox’s Court (City 5). Cox was probably the owner or builder of this court in about 1700.

Crace Street (Euston 4) is not far from New St Pancras Chnrch, Euston Road, whose elaborate ornamentation was designed by J. G. Crace in 1866.

Craddock Street (Kentish Town 8). Probably after William Craddock, a bootmaker who owned a small piece of land in this area in the 1860s, when the street was built.

Craigs’s Court (Whitehall 7) takes its name from Joseph Craig. Little is known about Craig except that in 1674 he bought the medieval Charing Cross Hennitage and built this court on its site. In 1809 his grandson General Francis Craig bequeathed all his property to the Earl of Harrington hence Harrington House, Craig’s Court.

Cramer Street (Marylebone 3). Wilhelm Cramer, a celebrated German violinist, followed his friend J. S. Bach to London from Germany in 1772, and lived with him at nearby Newman Street, where, it is said, he used to correct Bach’s compositions. His initial success encouraged him to settle in England, but he was to die here poverty-stricken in 1799. He is buried in Marylebone Cemetery.

Cranbourn Alley and Street, and Cecil Court (Charing Cross Road 7) are part of an estate belonging to the Cecils, Earls of Salisbury and Viscounts Cranboume. In 1609 Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury and son of William Cecil, Lord Burleigh (see Burleigh Street) acquired this plot of land astride the future route of Charing Cross Road. His descendants began the streets in the 1670s. The property is now administered by Salisbury Settled Estates.

Crane Court (Fleet Street 5) used to be Two Crane Court, and possibly belonged to a family with two cranes on its coat of arms.

Craven. Craven Street, off the Strand (4) is the oldest of the Craven family’s properties in London; Dame Elizabeth Craven bought it in 1620 as an investment for her sons Thomas and William. William became the 1st Earl Craven, the faithful admirer of James I’s daughter the Queen of Bohemia, whom he loved all his life. Legend has it that he finally married her in their old age.

But the Earl is chiefly remembered for his courage during the Great Plague of 1665, when he stayed in London to help with the crisis while his fellow peers fled. He hired a plot of land in rural Soho to build a pest­house, an isolation hospital, which he bequeathed to the parishioners of Westminster in case of any future outbreaks of plague. None occurred; so in 1734, by which time Soho was densely developed, Craven’s descendants obtained Parliamentary permission to move the Pesthouse to the country. On the Soho site they built Marshall Street, named after the family seat of Hampstead Mar­ shall in Berkshire, and they acquired three acres of ground in healthy Paddington for the new cottage hospital.

This property too was eventually built over in the nineteenth century, producing Craven Hill, Craven Hill Gardens, Craven Road and Craven Terrace (3). When the Paddington Pesthouses finally disappeared, the income from the estate was diverted to other purposes and now goes to supply comforts for the sick of Westminster.

Crawford Passage (Clerkenwell 5) was a country path across the valley of the River Fleet some 300 years ago. At one time it was called Pickled Egg Walle Charles n is said to have eaten a pickled egg at a tavern here (on the site of 6 Crawford Passage), whereupon the landlord named the tavern and hence the lane after the dish. The present name dates from about 1760, when Peter Crawford became the landlord of the Pickled Egg.

Creechurch Lane (City 5) once led through the Priory of Holy Trinity Christ Church. In the middle ages Christ was pronounced ‘Chreest’ in the continental manner, and shortened to Cree in this instance to avoid the difficult consonant cluster ‘stch’. Creechurch Place retains the shape of the Priory’s main courtyard. After the Priory had been suppressed by Henry vm, it passed to the Duke of Norfolk.

Creed Lane (City 5). From the textwriters living near St Paul’s.

Cremorne Road (Chelsea 6). Just about where Cremorne Road meets Lots Road stood Chelsea Farm. In 1778 Lord Thomas Dartrey, later created Viscount Cremorne, bought the farm and redesigned it as a villa overlooking the Thames, with pleas­ ant gardens extending to the King’s Road. When his widow sold Cre­ morne House in 1825 it was opened as a sports club for ‘various skilful and manly exercises’ and named the Stadium. A few years later it became Cremorne Gardens,          a      pleasure ground offering concerts, fireworks, galas and balloon ascents-hence the Balloon pub in Lots Road. The gardens closed in 1877, whereupon Cremorne Road, Dartrey Road and Stadium Street were built.

Crescent Place (South Kensington ) runs behind Egerton Crescent.

Crescent Row (Old Street 5), centuries ago, was part of Old Street, which was particularly wide at this point where it curved into Goswell Road-see Plate II. At some time before 1600 an island row of houses appeared in the middle of the road, leaving this narrow alJey, known as Ragged Row, Rotten Row or Middle Row, on the south side. The present more dignified name was given on account of its shape, in 1936.

Cresswell Gardens (South Kensington 6) covers exactly the grounds of a villa called Cresswell Lodge, demolished in 1878. The Gunter .family of Gunter Grove, owners of extensive estates in this area, leased the ground, which was part of Great Coleherne Field (see Coleherne Road) to William Cresswell of Baton Street, Pimlico, in 1813. It was still held by Miss Frances Cresswell sixty years later.

Cripplegate Street (City 5) is situated in the Ward of Cripple­ gate, which took its name from one of the gates in the City wall. A plaque now marks the site of the gate in Wood Street, and sections of the wall can be seen on either side. There was probably a cripule, or tunnel, here, perhaps connecting the gate with the Barbican (q.v.) or the bastions. However, medieval citizens were convinced it was derived from cripples begging at the gate; there was a legend that when the body of King Edmund the Martyr was carried through into the City the lame were cured, and the church just outside the gate is dedicated to St Giles, patron of beggars. ‘Creplegate’ and St Giles’ Church are drawn on the Agas map of c. 1560.

Croftdown Road (Highgate 8) winds down to Croft Lodge, the old villa on the corner with Highgate Road, next door to La Sainte Union convent.

Croftway (West Hampstead 1). A passage leading to Ferncroft Avenue.

Crogsland Road (Kentish Town 8) was built in 1867. Origin of name lost.

Cromer Street (King’s Cross 4), originally Lucas Street (hence the Lucas Arms on the corner), was formed in 1801 by Joseph Lucas, the owner of the land, to lead from Gray’s Inn Road to an old country beerhouse and skittle ground called the Golden Boot. But the Boot had gained a certain notoriety some years earlier when the ringleaders of the Gordon Riots met there with the landlord, Mr Speedy-the Speedy family held the licence until the twentieth century, and there is still a Speedy Place beside the Boot in Cromer Street-and only thirty years after Lucas Street was built, its reputation was so bad that its name had to be changed, and the neutral Cromer, after a town in Norfolk, was chosen.

Cromwell Road (South Kensington 6) was formerly a narrow country lane leading to Cromwell House, an old villa so called because of a local tradition that Oliver Cromwell once owned it. Although no evidence can be found to prove this, it is certain that the Protector’s son Henry was married at Kensington, and he may have lived in the neighbourhood. Cromwell House was demolished when Queen’s Gate was begun because it stood right in the path of the new street. Hence also Cromwell Crescent and Place, South Kensington.

Crosby Square (City 5) was once the home of Sir John Crosby, a medieval draper who rose in the commercial and social scale to become Alderman of Bishopsgate Ward and a Sheriff of London. He leased a plot of land from the Prioress of St Helen’s Bishopsgate (his tomb can still be seen in St Helen’s Church) and built himself a house that rivalled many a royal palace. Crosby Square itself was his main courtyard, approached along the passage that still connects it to Bishopsgate. Around the court were arranged the chapel, chambers, outhouses, kitchen gardens and the Great Banqueting Hall with its minstrels’ gallery. Sir John died childless, and later Sir Thomas More owned Crosby Place. The Banqueting Hall has been transferred bodily with its fifteenth-century interior to More’s beloved Chelsea, where it is used as a hostel of the British Federation of University Women.

Cross Key Square (City 5). The Cross Keys of St Peter was a popular inn-sign in London, especially before the Reformation.

Cross Keys Close (Marylebone Lane 3). The Cross Keys tavern-now the Prince Alfred-used to stand at the entrance to the Close, and owed its sign to Philip Keyst a local carpenter, who built the Close and surrounding streets in the 1770s.

Cross Lane (City 6). Cross Lanes and Streets used to be very common­ there were still 19 of them in London in 1936-and were always passages which crossed from one road to another and had no distinctive features of their own. Most of them have been renamed now to avoid confusion, but there is still an old Cross Street near Islington Green, which connected the two main routes through Islington village, Upper Street and Essex Road.

Crosswall (City 5) crosses the line of London wall. A long section of the Roman wall can be seen about 100 yards south of Crosswall, with a plan showing its exact course.

Crown Court (Covent Garden 4). After the Crown Tavern where Punch was inaugurated in 1841, built in the seventeenth century at the Russell Street entrance to the court. The Crown closed in about 1868 and Drury House, the premises of Messrs Stanley Gibbons, now covers the site.

Crown Office Row (Temple 5). The Clerks of the Crown used to frame indictments at their Office here from Tudor times unti1 1882.

Crown Passage (St James’s 7). The name is first recorded in 1689, when there must have been a Crown tavern here.

Crown Place (Kentish Town 8). There must have been a country inn with the sigu of the Crown at this point along Kentish Town Road in about 1800, although no record of it has been found.

Crowndale Road (Camden Town 4). A medieval track to old St Pancras Church in Pancras Road and the boundary of the Duke of Bedford’s property.

Crox1ey Road (Paddington 2). A Hertfordshire place-name. Connection with this district unknown.

Crucifix Lane (Bermondsey 5). The Holy Cross of Bermondsey, a wood­ en crucifix discovered near here in 1117 and believed to have dropped from heaven, was enshrined in Bermondsey Abbey (at the junction of Bermondsey Street and Abbey Street). After the dissolution of the Abbey, the crucifix stood on Horselydown Common, at the east end of Crucifix Lane, until its destruction by a mob of fanatical Elizabethan protestants.

Cruikshank Street (Clerkenwell 5). After George Cruikshank (1792-1878), caricaturist and artist, who illustrated Dickens’ Sketches by Boz and Oliver Twist, among other books. He spent much of his life in this area, first at Myddleton Terrace and later at 23 Amwell Street.

Crotched Friars (City 5). The Friars of the Holy Cross (Latin ‘crux’ became ‘crouch’ or ‘crutch’ in Middle English) had a small monastery in this lane, where Mariner House now stands. They wore a red cross on their habit, and carried a silver cross before them (The crutch used by cripples is similarly derived, being shaped with a cross-piece.)

Cubitt Street (near Gray’s Inn Road (4) adjoined the extensive premises of Messrs Cubiti’s, the buildiog com­ pany, whose headquarters were here until 1930. The firm was founded by Thomas Cubitt, who opened the workshops in Gray’s Iun Road in 1815 and then built the surrounding streets, including Cubit! Street. He developed much of Bloomsbury for the Duke of Bedford, and spread his houses, many of them still standing, across North London from Camden Town to Stoke Newington. In 1825 he embarked on his greatest achievement, draining the remote and desolate swamps which were to become Belgravia and Pimlico.

Cullum Street (Fenchnrch Street 5). Until the Great Fire of 1666, Sir Thomas Cullum’s mansion occupied all one side of this street. As the younger son of a country gentleman he was sent to London as a boy to make his fortune, and succeeded so well that he became immensely rich and was elected Sheriff of London in 1646.

Culpeper Street (Pentonville 5). After Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654), physician, astrologer and medical writer, who used to visit fields in this neighbourhood, collecting plants to study for his Herbal.

Cumberland Gardens (Clerkenwell 5). Built and named in the 1840s. Origin unknown.

Cumberland Place, Terrace and Market (Regent’s Park 4) were part of John Nash’s scheme for the development of the Regent’s Park Estate in the 1820s. The Place and Terrace were designed for the wealthy, and the Market, which sold hay and straw, was a working class area.

Cunard Place (Leadenhall Street, City) adjoins Cunard House, headquarters of the Cunard Line which Samuel Cunard founded with George

Cunningham Place (Maida Vale 3) is on the Harrow School estate, and is named accordingly.

Cursitor Street (Chancery Lane 5). The office of the Cursitors, ‘with divers fair lodgings for gentlemen, all of brick and timber’ stood on the corner of Cursitor Street and Chanw eery Lane from the time or Elizabeth

The twenty four cursitors, of clerici de cursu, used to issue writs for the court of chancery, until their funcw lions were absorbed by the Petty Bag Office in 1835. This was abolished in its turn in 1888.

Curzon Street and Place (Mayfair 7). Since the late seventeenth century the Curzon family have owned a plot beside the River Tyburn called Brookfield, which was the site of the original May Fair (see Mayfair) and now contains Shepherd Market, Chesterfield House and cottages. The Company built the street in 1734, and still owns the property.

Cythia Street (Pentonville Road 5). Origin unknown.

Cypress Place (off Maple Street, Tottenham Court Road). A tree name, by association with Maple Street.

Cyrus Street (Clerkenwell 7). So named in 1880; before that it was King Street. Origin unknown.

Dacre Street (Westminster 7). The last Lord Dacre of the South owned a mansion in Tothill Street called Stourton House (see Strutton Ground), which backed on to the site of this street. His wife, Lady Anne Dacre, a distant cousin of Elizabeth I, is remembered in West minster for founding alms-houses and a charity school nearby in 1594. They stood in Buckingham Gate until the late nineteenth century, when the school was merged with the United Westminster School in Palace Street, at the rear of the original premises. Dacre Street was built and named in about 1676.

Dane Street (Holborn 4). In 1522 the churchwardens of St Clement Danes parish bought a plot of land fronting High Holborn and known as the Holborn Estate, whose profits were to go to the honest poor of the parish. It includes houses in Eagle Street and Dane Street, and still belongs to St Clement Danes Hoi­ born Estate Charity. The income has been put to various uses through the centuries; at present it supports St Clement Danes School in Hammer­ smith, some alms-houses at Garratt Lane in Tooting and the St Clement Danes Church School in Drury Lane.

Danube Street (Chelsea 6) was formerly Little Blenheim Street, from the Blenheim pub nearby. The pub is in the neighbourhood of Marl­ borough Street, and was therefore associated with Marlborough’s victory at the village of Blenheim on the River Danube in 1704.

Danvers Street (Chelsea 6) was once the drive leading to Danvers House ­ ‘the prettiest contrived house that I ever saw in my life’ according to Pepys – built for Sir John Danvers in 1623. It was pulled down in 1696 and the driveway was immediately turned into a street.

D’Arblay Street (Soho 7) was so named in 1909 because Fanny Burney, later Mme D’Arblay, novelist, spent ten years of her childhood (1760-1770) at 50 Poland Street opposite the end of D’Arblay Street:

  • Dartmouth Street, SW1 Admiral George Legge, 1st Lord Dartmouth, was one of James II’s principal advisers and a kinsman of the powerful Villiers family which influenced all the Stuart sovereigns.

 

Admiral George Legge, 1st Lord Dartmouth, was one of James II’s principal advisers and a kinsman of the powerful Villiers family which influenced all the Stuart sovereigns. In 1673 he purchased the country manor of Lewisham: hence Lewisham Street, an offshoot of Dartmouth Street, and Dartmouth Grove, Hill and Row and Legge Street in Lewisham. Viscount Lewisham is still the courtesy title of the Earl of Dartroouth’s eldest son. In 1755 George’s great-grandson William 2nd Earl of Dartmouth’ acquired by marriage land at Kentish Town and Highgate.. The Kentish Town field was developed in the 1860s by the. 5th Earl, who employed as his land agent John Eeles Lawford, a local Churchwarden and slate merchant, the founder of Lawford and Sons, builders’ merchants in Camden Town. He built Lawford, Patshull and Sandall Roads; Patshull was the family home in Staffordshire, and Sandall in the West Riding of Yorkshire probably part of the Earl’s 8,000 acres of property in that county. The Highgate estate-Dartmouth Park Avenue, Hill and Road (8) and Woodsome Road, named after the family seat near Huddersfield-was developed 1870-1885, and still belonged to the Earls of Dartmouth in the early twentieth century.

Dartrey Road and Terrace (Chelsea 6). After Baron Dartrey, Viscount Cremome: see Cremome Road, Chelsea.

Daventry Street (Marylebone 3) was built in about 1820 on Lisson village green. Origin of name unknown.

Davies Street (Mayfair 7). The marriage of Sir Thomas Grosvenor to Mary Davies, heiress of the Manor of Ebury, which covered present-day Mayfair, Belgravia, and Pimlico, was to influence greatly the development of this part of London: see Grosvenor Square, Mayfair.

Dawson Place (Notting Hill 2). John Silvester Dawson owned a brewhouse at Notting Hill Gate in 1786, and the following year leased fields behind it. His heirs began the street on his land in about 1852.

De Vere Gardens (Kensington 6) was so named in 1875 in memory of Aubrey de Vere (also remembered in Aubrey Road and Walk), who was a Norman noble in high favour with William I. After the Conquest he was granted vast estates including the manor of Kensington, as the Domes day Book records:

‘Manorium. Albericus de Vertenet de episcopo Constantiensi Chenesi tum’. (‘Aubrey de Vere holds Ken­ sington Manor from the Bishop of Coutances’.)

Aubrey had five sons and one daughter. The eldest son, Geoffrey, was very ill as a young man. In gratitude for a cure effected by the Abbot of Abingdon thefather granted Kensington Church and 270 acres of surrounding land to his Abbey (see St Mary Abbot’s Place) and this became the ‘Manor of Abbot’s Kensington’. The de Veres were created Earls of Oxford in 1155 and the portion of Kensington which they retained was distinguished from the Abbot’s land by the name ‘Manor of Earl’s Court’. When the direct male line came to an end with the death of the 14th Earl in 1526, Earl’s Court Manor passed to his sister Dorothy Nevill (Neville Street and Terrace, Earl’s Court), whose grand­daughter sold it in 1609 to the ancestor of the Holland family.

De Walden Street (Marylebone 4). Lady Lucy Howard De Walden, great-great-granddaughter of Edward Harley inherited the Manor of Marylebone in 1879, and today the Marylebone estate belongs to her descendant, the 9th Baron Howard De Walden.

Dean Bradley Street, Dean Farrar Street, Dean Ryle Street, Dean Stanley Street and Dean Trench Street (Westminster 7) were all built on land belonging to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster.

Dean Street (Soho 7). Probably in honour of Bishop Compton, Dean of the Chapel Royal.

Dean’s Court (St Paul’s Churchyard, City) has contained the residence of the Dean of St Paul’s since the early middle ages.

Dean’s Mews (Cavendish Square 4). The name is probably connected with the Roman Catholic College and Convent of the Holy Child. through whose premises the mews winds.

Dean’s Yard (Westminster Abbey 7) contains the Deanery, the home of the Dean of Westminster. Before the dissolution of the monasteries the Deanery was the Abbot’s house.

Deanery Street (Park Lane 7). Originally Dean and Chapter Street. Built on a small plot of land belonging to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster.

Delancey Street (Camden High Street 8). The Fitzroy family of Fitzroy Square, Lords of Tottenham Court Manor, granted a number of fields on their estate between Camden High Street and Regent’s Park to James Delancey esquire of Marylebone, in esquire of Marylebone, in 1795. Four years previously Lord Camden’s little town had started to rise from the fields on the other side of the High Street, thus opening up this part of London for genteel development, and Delancey began to erect houses almost at once. He may also have given his name to James (now Jamestown) Road nearby.

Denham Street (Shaftesbury Avenue 7). Named after Thomas Denman (1735-1815), physician who lived in a house on the south side of the street, and his son Thomas who was born there in 1779 and became Lord Chief Justice in 1832. The younger Thomas was an active law reformer, responsible for the abolition of the death penalty for forgery.

Denmark Street (St Giles 4) was formed across the site of St Giles’ Leper ospital soon after 1683, the year Princess (later Queen) Anne married dull Prince George of Denmark. ‘I have tried him drunk and I have tried him sober, but there is nothing in him’, sighed the Merry Monarch, his uncle by marriage. Demnark was the father of Anne’s 17 children, who all died in infancy.

Denmark Street is better known by its nickname Tin Pan Alley, the centre of the pop music publishing business.

Dennington Park Road (West Hampstead 1). Dennington is a village in Suffolk. Connection with West Hampstead unknown.

Denyer Street (Chelsea 7). In memory of Miss Elizabeth Denyer of Cheyne Row, Chelsea, who died in 1824 and left money to be distributed each year among 8 aged parish spinsters ‘of good character, constant at a place of worship, and who have not been beggars’.

Derby Gate (Parliament Street 7) occupies the site of Derby House, a stately mansion built in 1618 by the Earl of Derby on a plot in Cannon Row which Edward VI had given to his grandfather in 1552. It was used for a time as Charles II’s admiralty office, but was demolished to make way for this street in the 1680s.

Derry Street (Kensington High Street 6) is named after Derry & Toms department store, whose premises occupied most of one side of the street.

Devereux Court (Strand). Once the home of Robert Devereux, ill-fated Earl of Essex.

Devonshire. Devonshire Row and Square and Cavendish Court, Bishopsgate 5), cover the site of the town house of the Earls of Devonshire. William Cavendish, the 2nd Earl, bought the house where later the wife of the 3rd Earl entertained Charles II. At her death in 1675 her son, the 4th Earl, sold the house to Nicholas Barbon,, who demolished it and built the streets on the site.

Devonshire Close, Place and Street (Marylebone 4), commemorate their descendant Dorothy Cavendish, 16-year-old daughter of the 4th Duke of Devonshire. She married the heir to the Harley estates in Marylebone.

Devonshire Terrace (Bayswater 3) dates from about 1855, when for some reason this name was very popular: at that time there were no less than nine Devonshire Terraces in London as well as nine Devonshire Streets and other variations of the same name.

Dewsbury Terrace (Camden Town 8), under its former name of Union Terrace, acquired a very bad reputation as a squalid and dissolute street. To help it gain respectability the London County Council bestowed a new name in 1908, and followed their usual practice of choosing a suitably neutral provincial town name, in this case Dewsbury in Yorkshire.

Diadem Court (Dean Street, Soho). Originally Crown Court, built 1692. Probably named from a Crown Inn here, of which no record has yet come to light.

Diana Place (Euston Road 4) dates from about 1800. The origin of the name is lost.

Dilke Street (Chelsea 7). Built in 1875 and named after Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, the current MP for Chelsea.

Distaff Lane (Cannon Street 5). Distaffs, cleft sticks about 3 feet long that held flax or wool to be spun, were an important feature of every home in the land in the middle ages. They were made and sold in this twelfth-century lane.

Dobson Close (South Hampstead 1). In memory of W. C. T. Dobson, a Victorian painter, who lived nearby at Adelaide Road from 1848 until 1854.

Dolphin Square (Pimlico 7), built in 1936, was named after the dolphin which used to stand nearby. A dolphin was a pump for drawing water from a river, and looked like a little conical summerhouse, half submerged. The Grand Junction Water-Works Company, which sup­ plied most of Westminster, placed this one in the Thames in 1820, in the mouth of the Westbourne beside the Royal Hospital grounds-the worst possible place for it, since the Westbourne was by then an open sewer, according to an angry pamphleteer, who described the dolphin as a ‘wooden-headed, dingy-coloured, ill- shapen, insidious engine of destruction’.

Dombey Street (Holborn 4) was so named in 1936 ‘after the Dickensian characters’. One wonders why; the plot of Dombey and Son has no connection with this area.

Dominion Street (Finsbury 5) was South Street until 1938, when to the residents’ great indignation the London County Council decided to abolish all the South Streets in London except the one in Mayfair. Renamed after Dominion House, now Dominion Buildings, on the corner with South Place.

Donne Place (Chelsea 7). John Donne, the great poet, often visited Chelsea to stay at Danvers House.

Doon Street (Lambeth 5). Doon is a common Scottish and Irish place­ name. Connection with Lambeth unknown.

Dorman Way (South Hampstead 1) is an access-way to a housing estate built in 1956. It is named after the playwright Joseph Dorman, the author of Sir Roger de Coverley, who is buried in Hampstead church.

Dorofell Street (Kilburn 1) was formed in 1881. Origin of name unknown.

Dorset Close, Square and Street (Marylebone 3) belong to the Portman family (see Portman Square) who own extensive estates in Dorset. Dorset- Square stands on the site of the original Lord’s Cricket Ground, and the name may also refer to ‘the noble Cricketer’, the 3rd Duke of Dorset, one of the earliest patrons of the game; •a most admirable cricket­player-more cannot be said of him as he is not in possession of any brains’ wrote a contemporary in 1791.

Doughty Street (Holborn 4). The Doughty family owned a long narrow strip of land stretching north from High Holborn, which they inherited from their forbears, the Brownlows. Its first recorded owner was a Tudor Joho Brownlow of High Ho1born, whose son Richard was Chief Protonotary of the Court of Common Pleas in the time of Elizabeth I, and is mentioned in the Dictionary of National Biography. Brownlow Street was begun by Richard’s grandson William Brown­ low who died in 1675 and was the father of Elizabeth Doughty. George Brownlow Doughty and his wife Frances Tichborne continued the development through the 1720s with the help of James Burgess (Great James Street). Their grandson Henry, the last of the male line, employed a carpenter called JobnBlagrave to open up a new street named John Street in 1754. Its continuation beyond Henry Street (now renamed Roger Street) is Doughty Street. With the extinction of the Doughty family in 1826, the property passed to Frances’ distant kinsman, Sir Edward Tichborne.

Douglas Place and Street (Westminster 7) are part of the Chapter of Westminster’s estate.

Douro Place (Kensington 6). In honour of the great Duke of Welling­ ton, created Baron Douro after his brilliant crossing of the River Douro during the Napoleonic Wars. Though close to his death by the time this street was formed in 1846, he was still Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces.

Dove Mews (Kensington 6) is a remnant of an old country path called Dove Lane, which led from Kensington High Street to the Old Brompton Road, via what are now Victoria Road, Grenville Place and Ashburn Place.

Dovehouse Street (Chelsea 6). Dove House Close, the field containing the feudal Dove Cote of Chelsea Manor, where doves were nurtured and fattened for the Lord’s table, occupied the site of nearby Paultons Square.

Dover Street (Piccadilly 7). Henry Jermyn, Earl of Dover, was the nephew of Henry Jermyn, Earl of St Albans (see Jermyn Street), who died in 1684leaving his fortune to his namesake. That year Dover invested the money in a piece of land beside Piccadilly, formerly part of the Albemarle House grounds (see Albemarle Street) and had this street built with a large mansion for himself on the west side, where he died in 1708.

Dowgate Hill (City 5) used to extend down to the river’s edge, where there was a Saxon watergate or dock. As for Dow, nobody knows. Stow in 1598 derived it from ‘Downe gate, so called of the sudden descending or down-going of that way’, which is no more improbable than all the learned explanations that have been attempted since his time.

Down Street (Piccadilly 7). Several generations of the Downes family held fields and cottages along this stretch of rural Piccadilly. The street was developed in the 1720s by John Downes, a bricklayer, Temperance his wife, and their son John, a grocer of St Martin’s-in-the-Fields.

Downing Street (Whitehall 7) was built by Sir George Downing (1623-1684), diplomat. He sat in both the parliaments called by Cromwell, but changed his allegiance when the Restoration was imminent, and hurriedly assured Charles II of his support. As soon as the king returned to England, Downing started to petition him for a lease of this site opposite the royal palace of White­ hall, and finally gained it in 1664. A few years later he began to build Downing Street, which he intended as a row of houses ‘fit for persons of good quality to inhabit in’. When the lease expired the land reverted to the Crown, and is now occupied by Government buildings. In 1667 Downing was chosen as First Secretary of the Treasury Commission, and by coincidence No. 10 Downing Street was later to become famous as the home of the First Lord of the Treasury (Prime Minister). Sir George was not popular with his contemporaries, who thought him obsequious, treacherous and mean; Pepys said he was ‘a perfidious rogue’ and ‘so stingy a fellowI care not to see him’.

Downshire Hill (Hampstead 1). A Regency street, formed during the period when John Keats was living a few yards distant in the future Keats Grove. Probably built by a native of County Down in Ireland.

Downside Crescent (Hampstead 8). Probably so called because of its position on the slopes below Hampstead Village.

Drake Street (Holborn 4), which dates from about 1706, is probably named after its builder.

Draper’s Gardens (City 5). The Drapers, the third of the Twelve Great City Companies, established their Hall here in Throgmorton Street on the attainder of Thomas c;romwell, Earl of Essex, whose house and gar­ dens here they purchased from Henry VIII in 1541. Stow, writing in 1598, could remember the overbearing means Cromwell employed to acquire these gardens, which stretched as far as London Wall and remained a City beauty spot for centuries: he calmly sent in henclnnen to occupy the gardens of his neighbours, among them Stow’s father. ‘My father had a garden there, and a house standing close to his south pale; this house they [Cromwell’s men] loosed from the ground, and bare upon rollers into my father’s garden twenty-two feet, ere my father heard thereof; no warning was given him … and he paid his whole rent, which was 6s 6d the year, for that half which was left’.
Nowadays the ‘gardens’ scarcely qualify for the title, being simply a network of access roads serving huge office blocks, but the Drapers are still the landowners here.

Draycott Avenue, Place and Terrace (Chelsea 7). Close to the corner of Draycott Avenue and Draycott Place once stood Blacklands House, a mansion leased by Sir Francis Shuckburgh-there is a Shuckburgh Arms in Denyer Street-in 1820. Five years later he married Anna Maria Draycott, and these streets adjoining his grounds were developed
at about the same time

Drayson Mews (Kensington 6). One George Drayson of Pembroke Road, Kensington, apparently built this mews in 1871.

Drayton Gardens (South Kensington 6) was so named in the 1840s, apparently from the Drayton Arms pub on the corner.

Droop Street (Kensal Town 2) was originally called D Street.

Drummond Crescent and Street (Euston 4): see Fitzroy Square, Tottenham Court Road.

Drury Lane (4). An early medieval lane, originally called Via de Ald­ wych, probably formed to connect St Giles Leper Hospital with the hos­ pital’s fields of Aldwych Close, which lay around modern Aldwych. In about 1500 a successful barrister from Suffolk, in need of a town mansion conveniently close to Lincoln’s Inn, acquired some land here. His name was Sir Robert Drury, and his home, Drury House, remained the most conspicuous building in the Lane for over two hundred years. Agas’ map of c.1560 (Platei)showsthemansion standing among fields, shaded by large trees and enclosed with a strong palisade.

The direct line of Sir Robert’s descendants ended with the death of his great-great-grandson, another Sir Robert, the patron of Joim Donne, in 1615; afterwards the property passed out of the family. Gradually rows of small houses filled up the courtyards and gardens of Drury House, while the mansion was subdivided and demolished bit by bit, until the last trace finally disappeared, it is said, in 1809. Since then the site has been transformed by the Kingsway improvements. In modern terms Drury House stood right in the middle of the road at the point where Kingsway runs into Aldwych.

Dryden Street (Drury Lane 4). In honour of John Dryden, the poet, who had a house nearby at 137 Long Acre from 1682 until 1686, a period when he was at the peak of his career and one of the most sought-after writers of the time

Duchess of Bedford Walk (Kensington 6). Georgiana Duchess of Bedford lived at Campden Hill in a large house whose gardens stretched down to this old lane. She moved there with her aging husband, the 6th Duke, in 1823, and there spent the 14 years of her widowhood. She was renowned for her hospitality, and at times the throng of visitors was so great that the carriages were obliged to use the back lane; this may be how the Duchess’s name came to be given to it. After her death in 1853, the house was taken by the Duke of Argyll, commemorated in nearby Argyll Road. He had recently been made Lord Privy Seal and was soon to become Postmaster General, and his political career required a house where he could entertain freely. He continued the Duchess of Bedford’s tradition of hospitality until he died in 1900. The old house was demolished in 1955.

Duchess Street (Marylebone 4). Probably after Dorothy, Duchess of Portland, whose husband, the 3rd Duke, owned this land at the time the street was built : see Harley Street.

Duchy Street (Lambeth 5) belongs to the Duchy of Cornwall : see Cornwall Road, Lambeth.

Dulferin Street (Finsbury 5) crosses an area that was formerly congeries of small courts and slum a1Ieys, usually entered by passages under houses, crowded with old and dilapidated tenements. Light, air and ventilation were dangerously lacking and the death rate was high. Under the auspices of an Artizans’ and Labourers’ Dwellings Improvement Act, the whole district was scheduled for redevelopment in 1880. The old buildings were torn down and the site was sold to the Peabody Trust, who erected their present dwellings here. By 1883 new streets had been cut across the land and named Dulferin, Cahill, Baird, Errol and Roscoe, probably after trustees or associates of the Peabody Donation Fund.

Duke of Wellington Place (Hyde Park Corner). The Wellington Arch and the Wellington Monument stand here as memorials to the Iron Duke. The site was chosen because it faces Apsley House, the town mansion of the Dukes of Wellington-hence Apsley Way, a new road linking Duke of Wellington Place and Hyde Park Corner. Apsley House was originally built for Lord Chancellor Apsley in 1771-he designed the house himself and absentmindedly forgot to include a staircase. Apsley’s son moved out in 1807, and a few years later it became the home of the Duke. It is still occupied by the present Duke of Wellington, who opened part of the house to the public as the Wellington Museum in 1952.

Duke of York Street (St James’s 7). In honour of James Duke of York, later James II: see King Street.

Duke Street (Oxford Street 7) was begun in 1728. It could be after any contemporary duke-or none in particular.

Duke Street Hill (Bermondsey 5) was begun nine years after Waterloo and named in honour of the Duke of Wellington. At the bottom of Duke Street Hill, in what was then called Wellington Street and is now Borough High Street, stood a Gothic cross known as the Wellington Clock Tower, now removed to Swanage.

Duke Street, St James’s (7), like parallel Duke of York Street, was named in honour of James Duke of York, later James II.

Duke’s Lane (Kensington 6) was one of the earliest lanes of Kensington village, but the name does not appear in the parish ratebooks until 1784. The true origin of the name is not known. However, Duke’s Lane led to the grounds of Campden House (see Campden Grove), which was the home of Lord Lechmere, the joint hero of Swift’s long ballad Duke upon Duke. The ballad tells the story of Baron Lechmere, who came to live at Campden Hill in 1719, and Sir John Guise, his neighbour at Brompton, both promoted to the status of Dukes for the duration of the poem. Lord Lechmere invited Sir John to his house for whist, and when the latter refused, pleading his gout as an excuse, went off to Brompton in a passion to insist on his coming:
The Duke in wrath call’d for his steeds,
And fiercely drove them on : Lord! Lord! how rattled then thy stones,
0 kingly Kensington!

Lechmere stormed into Sir John’s house and insultingly tweaked his nose, but when Sir John finally called for his pistols Lechmere retreated as hastily as he had come:
Back in the dark, by Brompton Park
He turned up through the Gore;
So slunk to Campden House so high,
All in his coach and four.

Duke’s Place (City 5) was part of the precinct of Holy Trinity Christ Church (see Creechurch Lane), a rich priory founded by Queen Matilda. Nothing of it has survived, but Creechurch Place marks the site of its main court, and the cloisters became Mitre Square. This was the first monastery dissolved by Henry VIII, who wanted to make a present of it to Lord Chancellor Audley. Audley’s only daughter married Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. The Duke lived here in great style, riding splendidly round the City ‘attended with 100 horse in his livery, with his gentlemen afore, their coats guarded with velvet; and four Heralds riding before him’. The flamboyant power of the House of Howard often aroused royal resentment; in 1572 the Duke had to be removed, and was brought to the block, like so many of his kindred. Afterwards his house was sold to the City Corporation.

‘attended with 100 horse in his

livery, with his gentlemen afore, their coats guarded with velvet; and four Heralds riding before him’. The flamboyant power of the House of Howard often aroused royal resentment; in 1572 the Duke had to be removed, and was brought to the block, like so many of his kindred. Afterwards his house was sold to the City Corporation.

Duke’s Road (Euston 4) marks the south eastern tip of the lands be longing to the Fitzroys, Dukes of Grafton.

Dulford Street (North Kensington 2) may have belonged to the Walrond family, whose country seat was at Dulford in Devon. Various Victorian Walronds are recorded in Kensington, and Mr Arthur Wal­ rond, an old Rugbeian, founded the Rugby Clubs in Walmer Road, close to Dulford Street, in 1885.

Duncannon Street and Agar Street (Strand 4) were formed as a result of the Strand Improvement Act of 1829, a slum clearance scheme to sweep away the old congested alleys on the site, and improve communications around Charing Cross. George Agar Ellis was Chief Commissioner of Woods and Forests, the government department in charge of the redevelopment. He died in 1833 aged only 36, before rebuilding was completed, and was replaced by Lord Duncannon.

Dunollle Road (Kentish Town 8). Dunollie in Argyllshire may have been the birthplace of builder John McNab, who helped develop this area in the 1870s.

Dunraven Street (Mayfair 7). After Lord Dunraven, a well-known yachtsman in his day, who lived at No. 27 in this street during the 1890s

Dunstable Mews (Marylebone 3) was Upper Wimpole Mews, serving Upper Wimpole Street, until 1935 when the London County Council selected ‘Dunstable’ for reasons unknown.

Dunster Court (Mincing Lane, City) was Dunstan’s Court on seventeenth century maps, and Jay just within the parish of St Dunstan-in-the-East.

Dunworth Mews (North Kensington 2) was built in 1868. Origin of name unknown.

Durham House Street (Strand) was once in the grounds of the Bishop of Durham’s Inn in the Strand, one of a line of episcopal palaces fronting the Thames in the middle ages. Its first occupant was Richard le Poor, Bishop of Durham, a great builder who moved Salisbury from Old Sarum to New Sarwn in 1220. Successive Bishops of Durham owned the Strand estate for the next 400 years. By the mid-eighteenth century the Durham House grounds had degenerated into a slum, which the Adam brothers redeveloped as the Adelphi (q.v.). The two arms of Durham House Street were originally called James Street and William Street, after James and William Adam.

Durham Place (Chelsea 7) is on the site of Durham House, an old building dating back perhaps to the mid-sixteenth century and finally demolished in about 1920.

Durham Terrace (Westbourne Park 2). Named after the Durham Castle pub, built round the corner in Alexander Street in about 1850.

Dyer’s Buildings (Holborn 5). This land was given to the Dyers’ Company as a site for eight almshouses during the reign of Edward VI, a period when charitable men of property tried to provide for the poor and homeless as the monasteries had always done until Edward’s father dissolved them. The almshouses have long been demolished and the income from the Buildings diverted to other causes.

Dynham Road (Kilburn I) dates from 1882. Origin unknown.

Dyott Street (St Giles High Street 4) was built across Pitance Croft, a field once belonging to St Giles Leper Hospital. In 1649 Henry Bainbridge (hence Bainbridge Street) purchased Pitance Croft and the property descended jointly to his granddaughters, Dame Mary Maynard, Sara Buckeridge and Jane Dyott, who each gave her name to a street, although Maynard and Buckeridge Streets have now disappeared. Their families were prominent parishioners, frequently mentioned in the parochial records of St Giles.

Eagle Street (Holborn 4). There was an Eagle inn in this street until about 1793.

Earl’s Court (Kensington 6). After the Norman Conquest the manor of Kensington was granted to the de Veres who were created Earls of Oxford not long afterwards. It is unlikely that the Earls ever actually lived at Kensington, but they must certainly have visited their Court House from time to time. This was the most important building on the manor, where fines were levied, local laws passed, and rents and dues collected. In the early seventeenth century the Earls of Oxford were superseded by the Earls of Warwick and Holland as Lords of the Manor. They lived in Kensington at Holland House, and probably formed Earl’s Court Road to link the House with the Court.

The old Court stood in Earl’s Court Road beside a little lane which is still called Old Manor Yard. After 1789 it was downgraded to a farmhouse – the fate of so many old English manor houses still scattered around the countryside – and the court sessions were held in a newer building slightly to the north. Both buildings were demolished in the 1870s and the manorial courts discontinued.

Earlham Street (Seven Dials 4). Formerly Earl Street – ‘ham’ was added in 1937 to distinguish it from other Earl Streets. Origin uncertain; the name was probably chosen simply to give aristocratic tone to the street.

Early Mews (Camden Town 8) was built by Joseph Early, a plumber based in Camden High Street. He and his family (George, who carried on the plumbing business, and John, a local builder), were responsible for much of the new development around Camden High Street in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Earnshaw Street (Holborn 4) is named after Thomas Earnshaw (1749-1829), inventor of the modern chronometer escapement and balance, whose workshop was situated nearby at 119 High Holborn, now marked with a commemorative plaque.

Easley’s Mews (Wigmore Street, Marylebone). Farmer Abraham Easley held a small piece of land beside Marylebone Lane in the mid-eighteenth century. Wigmore Street has been built on most of his field, yet the name just manages to survive in this little-known alley.

East Heath Road (Hampstead 1). An old track, shown skirting Hampstead East Heath on Rocque’s map of 1745.

East Poultry Avenue (Smithfield 5) is the roadway through the poultry section of Smithfield Market.

Eastboume Terrace (Paddington 3). So called in antithesis to the ancient name of Westbourne.

Eastcastle Street (Marylebone 4). Castle Street took its name from an old Castle tavern which stood in Oxford Street until the mid­ eighteenth century, when the area was developed. It was a long street, divided for convenience into Little and Great Castle Streets. Possibly the former resented this implied inferiority, as it was changed to Castle Street East, and then Eastcastle in 1918.

Eastcheap (City 5). By the time William the Conqueror arrived in London, this was the cheap, or ‘market’, in the east (as opposed to Cheapside, often known as West· cheap). It was the main meat market, and butchers’ stalls lined the road.

‘The cooks cried hot ribs of beef roasted, pies well baked, and other victuals’, wrote Stow; ‘There was clattering of pewter pots, harp, pipe and sawtry’. The problem was to dispose of the offal, generally known as puddings. Finally in 1402 the butchers were granted Pudding Lane, an alley leading from Eastcheap down to the Thames, where they had the right to cast the entrails.

Eastminster (Tower Hill 5) leads to the Royal Mint, which occupies the site of the Cistercian Abbey of St Mary Graces, also known as Eastminster in contrast to Westminster. It was founded by Edward III in 1348.

Eaton Close, Gate, Lane, Place, Row, Square and Terrace (Belgravia 7). Part of the Grosvenor heritage.

Ebury (Westminster 7). The earliest form of this name, as it appears in the Domesday Book, was Eia or Eye. Eia, which means ‘island’ or ‘well·watered land’, was a large manor consisting of modern Mayfair, Belgravia, Pimlico and Hyde Park. The name originated because Pimlico was a marshy tract riddled with inlets from the Thames, and also because the manor was bounded by water on three sides: by the Tyburn, the West­ bourne and the Thames (the fourth boundary being Oxford Street, the Roman road to the west). By the fourteenth century, when Hyde had achieved independence as a separate manor, the district was known as Eibury or Ebury, sometimes corrup ted to Avery, ie ‘the manor·house of Eia’. This manor-house was the future Ebury Farm, standing on the site of Ebury Square and Avery Farm Row. From very early times the farm was approached by two cart·tracks which are now Ebury Street and Ebury Bridge (bridging the Southern Region Railway).

On the opposite side of the manor, nearly 1½ miles north of the farm, is another reminder of the old name : Avery Row, lying exactly along the course of the vanished River Tyburn and therefore marking the eastern boundary of Eia.

Ebury has a remarkably uninterrupted history for a London manor, in that it has remained virtually intact and under one family for over 300 years, since Mary Davies, the wife of Sir Thomas Grosvenor, inherited it in 1665.

Edge Street (Kensington 6) belonged to a gentleman called Andrew Edge, who started to build the street in 1831.

Edgware Road (3) is part of the Roman Watling Street, the route from Dover to London and then to Chester via St Albans, and Roman layers of gravel and flint have been excavated here. The road skirted the great forest of Middlesex, following the firm ground midway between the Tyburn and Westbourn valleys, hardly deviating from a perfectly straight line until it reached Aegceswer, or Edgware, once the ‘wer’ or fishing pool of a Saxon called Aegc.

Edis Street (Chalk Farm 8). Named not long after the death of Colonel Sir Robert Edis (1839-1927), wbo used to represent this district on the London County Council.

Egbert Street (Chalk Farm 8) was built in 1865 by Messrs Manley and Rogers (see Manley Street, Chalk Farm), whereupon the Metropolitan Board of Works chose this name for them for reasons unknown.

Eldon Road (Kensington 6) takes its name from an early Victorian house called Eldon Lodge (now 52 Victoria Road), which stood alone in the open countryside when first built. It may well have been named after Lord Chancellor Eldon, a frequent visitor to Holland House, Kensington, who died in 1838.

Eldon Street (City 5). From a former Earl of Eldon pub here, dedicated to Lord Chancellor Eldon, who was appointed to the woolsack in 1801 after the dismissal of the unpopular Chancellor Rosslyn. Eldon is remembered in several street and tavern names.

Elgin Avenue (Maida Vale 2) and Elgin Crescent (North Kensington 2) take their names from the Lord Elgin Arms and the Elgin Hotel respectively. These pubs both commemorate the 7th Earl of Elgin, who was sent to Constantinople as Envoy Extraordinary in 1799. During his stay he obtained permission from the Turks, as overlords of Greece, to take away Greek antiquities from the Parthenon. His collection, known as the Elgin Marbles, was purchased in 1819 for the British Museum, and there it remains despite repeated proposals that the treasures should be returned to the Greeks.

Elizabeth Bridge and Street (Belgravia and Pimlico 7). A Grosvenor family name.

Ellerdale Close and Road (Hampstead 1) were so named in 1872. Origin unknown.

Elm Court (Temple, City) was so called by 1620, and perpetuates the erstwhile presence of elm trees here.

Elm Park Gardens, Lane and Road, Elm Place and Queen’s Elm Square (Chelsea 6). The Queen’s Elm is now the name of the pub here in Fulham Road, but it also referred to a great elm tree beside the inn, prominently drawn on old maps of Chelsea. The story goes that Queen Elizabeth was strolling in the fields here with her host, Lord Burghley, who lived at Brompton, when it came on to rain. They took shelter beneath the elm and Her Majesty declared ‘Let this henceforward be called the Queen’s Tree’. The tale may well contain an element of truth, since the ‘Queenes tree’ is mentioned in the parish records during Elizabeth’s lifetime.

Elm Row (Hampstead 1). The old houses in Elm Row date from the 1720s, when there were elm trees in the locality.

Elm Street (Gray’s Inn Road 4) may have been noted for its elms in the late seventeenth century, when it was a little lane leading down to the banks of the Fleet, and marked the northern limit of the urban area.

Elm Tree Road (St John’s Wood 3) is built on the site of the Oak Tree Field. There may well have been an Elm Tree Field in the neighbourhood.

Elms Mews (Bayswater Road 3) is shown on old maps as Elms Lane, a path beside the Westbourne stream. This lonely spot where the bourne crossed the highway (Bayswater Road) may have been the site of ‘The Elmes’, a place of execution until it was superseded by Tyburn Tree.

Elsham Road (Kensington 2). A Lincolnshire place-name. Connection with Kensington unknown.

Ely Place (Holborn 5). In 1290 John de Kirkeby, Bishop of Ely, bequeathed to his see Ely House, his home in Holborn famed for its gardens and vineyards
stretching from Leather Lane to the River Fleet. The house and grounds are pictured on Agas’s Elizabethan map. Shakespeare mentions the garden in Richard II I:

My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn,

I saw good strawberries in your garden there.

Three centuries of episcopal ownership at Ely Place ended when Queen Elizabeth commanded the current Bishop of Ely, much against his will, to lease part of the property to her favourite Sir Christopher Hatton, who promptly built a rival palatial mansion for himself encroaching on Ely House. After the Bishop’s death in 1581 the bishopric was unoccupied for 18 years, which gave Hatton ample time to seize the rest of the grounds, leaving little but Ely House itself to the See of Ely. Later Bishops fought to recover their property, but in vain. Without the gardens, the house had few amenities, and finally in 1772 it was demolished to make way for Ely Place and Court.

Until recently Ely Place was a detached part of the County of Cambridge, and was rated as such. Even today it is shut off from the rest of London by heavy gates and a patrolling Beadle, and the Metropolitan Police have no jurisdiction inside it.

Elystan Place and Street (Chelsea 6). Cadwgan ap Elystan was the ancestor of the Cadogan family.

Embankment Gardens (Chelsea 7). Situated behind Chelsea Embankment.

Embankment Place (Westminster) lies behind the Victoria Embankment (q.v.).

Emerald Street (Holborn 4) was originally (about 1700) called Green Street, perhaps because it was the nearest street to the Bowling Green where now Cockpit Yard stands, or perhaps after Edmond Greene. It was adapted to the present hue in 1885, because London had too many Green Streets.

Emerson Place and Street (Southwark 5) commemorate the Emerson family of Southwark, thought to be ancestors of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American essayist and poet. William Emerson, buried in 1575, ‘lived and died an honest man’ according to his memorial in Southwark Cathedral. His son Thomas founded a local charity, and Thomas’s son Henry was a noted property-owner hereabouts.

Emery Hill Street (Westminster 7). On the corner of Emery Hill Street and Rochester Row stand the United Westminster Almshouses, founded in 1708 by Emery Hill, a wealthy and philanthropic parishioner of St Margaret’s, Westminster.

Emperor’s Gate (South Kensington 6) was built in 1873, the year Bismarck united Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia in the League of the Three Emperors, a mutual aid pact providing against possible attack from other powers.

Endell Street (St Giles 4). There were narrow alleys on this site by the seventeenth century, but Endell Street proper was not formed until 1846, after an Improvement Act. James Endell Tyler was the Rector of St Giles-in-the-Fields at the time, and his parishioners insisted on naming the new road after him. He modestly refused to allow Tyler Street, and the compromise of Endell was reached.

England’s Lane (Hampstead 8). At the end of this lane, on the site of the houses at the corner with Eton Avenue, stood an old farm house called Upper Chalcots, indicated on Rocque’s map of 1745. In 1776 Eton College, the ground landlords, leased it for 16 years to James England, along with 100 acres of good farming land.

English Ground (Bermondsey 5). This name is said to date from the coming of the railway to London Bridge in the 1840s, when there was an influx of English and Irish navvies settling around Tooley Street. Differences of faith and temperament led to so many brawls and breaches of the peace that two separate ghettos grew up; the English lodged in the group of narrow alleys called English Ground, while the Irish stayed in a similar enclave a safe distance away, formerly known as Irish Ground.

Ennismore Gardens, Place and Street (Kensington Road 6) were once part of the grounds behind Kingston House in Kensington Road. The house was built in about 1770 and originally belonged to Elizabeth Chudleigh, renowned as the biga­ mous Duchess of Kingston. Then from her death until about 1937 it was the home of the Earls of Listowel, whose second title is Viscount Ennismore. The streets were begun in 1848.

Epworth Street (City Road 5). After Epworth in Lincolnshire, the birthplace of John Wesley. Just round the corner in City Road stands the chapel Wesley founded in 1777, and next to it the house where he lived and died, now the Wesley Museum.

Eresby Road (Kilburn 1) was given this Lincolnshire place-name in 1879 for reasons unknown.

Errington Road (Kensal Town 2). John Edward Errington (1806-1862) was a civil engineer at the time of the great railway boom. He was partly or solely responsible for the entire network of railways from Lancaster to Inverness. His work in the south includes bridging the Thames at Richmond, Kew and Kingston. He is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, which is why he is remembered here in Kensal Town.

Erskine Road (South Hampstead 8. After one of Hampstead’s notable residents, Thomas Erskine the lawyer. He came to Erskine House, adjoining the Spaniards Inn, in 1788, and it remained his home for 33 years, the period of his rise to fame and power. He reached the peak of his career in 1806 when he was made Lord Chancellor and first Baron Erskine.

Essendine Road (Paddington 2) is named after a village in Rutland, whose connection with this area is unknown.

Essex Street (Stand 4) crosses the site of Essex House, the palatial home of Elizabeth I’s great favourite Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. Here Essex plotted to overthrow the queen in 1601 when he found he had lost her favour, but quickly surrendered when cannon were brought up to threaten the house. He was beheaded a fortnight later on Tower Green. Nicholas Barbon, the speculative builder (see Barbon Close), later acquired his land, demolished the house, and built Essex Street, Little Essex Street and Devereux Court there in about 1680. Part of the property was sold to the Middle Temple, for whom Barbon erected New Court.

Essex Road, Islington, is traditionally connected with the same earl; it is said that he used to stay at the Queen’s Head on the corner with Queen’s Head Street, and that Elizabeth used to visit him there.

Estelle Road (Gospel Oak 8) was built in 1879. Origin unknown.

Eton Avenue, Road and Villas and Eton College Road (South Hampstead 8). The ‘College of the Blessed Mary of Eton beside Windsor’ was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI, who endowed it with the manor of Chalcots (now known as Chalk Farm) in South Hampstead. The king also granted the school an estate at Windsor formerly belonging to Merton Priory, and founded King’s College, Cambridge. Eton College consists of a provost-the first provost was William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester- 11 fellows, and about 1200 pupils divided into Collegers, living at the school, and Oppidans, pupils boaxding at lodgings in town. The development of the Chalcots estate, which includes King Henry’s Road, Chalcot Gardens, Merton Rise, King’s College Road, Provost Road, Winchester Road, Fellows Road, Oppidans Road and Wadham Gardens (after the Oxford college) was begun in the 1860s; Harley, Adamson, Crossfield and Elsworthy Roads were probably named after architects or contractors employed by the college. The original houses lasted just about a century; in the 1960s demolition began and the Victorian terraces were replaced by multi-storey blocks for which the college has used the names of former provosts and vice-provosts of Eton: Conybeare, Quickswood and Hawtrey.

Europa Place (Finsbury 5) dates from 1793, when meadow lands still bordered Lever Street, and Central Street was a country path to Islington village green. Origin of name unknown.

Euston Buildings, Grove, Road, Square and Street (Euston 4). Part of the estate of the Fitzroys, Earls of Euston.

Evangelist Road (Kentish Town 8) is on part of an estate bequeathed to St John’s College, Cambridge (see Lady Somerset Road), and is named after the College’s patron saint.

Eversholt Street (Camden Town 4). Partly on the Duke of Bedford’s estate.

Exchange Buildings (City 5) refers to the Clothes Exchange here.

Exchange Court (Strand 4) took its name from the New Exchange, a bazaar which stood just opposite this court, on the south side of the Strand. It opened in 1609 to the great alarm of the City traders at Queen Elizabeth’s Royal Exchange, who saw it ‘as a Pawne or Exchange, for the sale of things usually uttered in the Royal Exchange’. After the Restoration it became a place of ill repute, the haunt of prostitutes and swindlers, so that it was gradually abandoned by honest traders and closed down in 1737.

Exchange Street (Dingley Road, Finsbury). After the adjacent Clerkenwell Telephone Exchange.

Exhibition Road (South Kensington 6) crosses the estate which the Commissioners of the Great Exhibi­tion of 1851 purchased with the profits from the Exhibition. The land was then largely fields, which the Commissioners, true to the spirit of the Great Exhibition, decided to develop as the cultural centre of the metropolis. The result was the cluster of South Kensington museums and colleges, along with the Royal Albert Hall and the Institut Francais, which have been built on the estate.

Exmouth Market (Clerkenwell 5) is a very old track which did not get this name until the Exmouth Arms tavern here was built in about 1816, the year Admiral Lord Exmouth, a distinguished veteran of the Napoleonic wars, won world-wide acclaim for his successful besieging of Algiers when the Bey refused to abolish Christian slavery.

Starcrcross Street near Euston Station had the same origin: it was formerly Exmouth Street, also from an Exmouth Arms, but it has been renamed after a district just outside the town of Exmouth.

Eyre Court (St John’s Wood 1) occupies the site of the Eyre Arms Tavern, an inn which was the scene of daring hot-air balloon ascents in the early nineteenth century. It is part of the Eyre estate (see end-map) purchased by wealthy City merchant Henry Samuel Eyre in 1732. He died childless in 1754, leaving the property to his younger brother Kingsmill, who is commemorated in a nearby street name. In 1825 the then Henry Samuel Eyre-there has been a Henry Samuel in every generation; the present head of the family is Henry Samuel Robert Eyre-leased a number of his fields to Henry Bolton of Thorncroft in Surrey: hence Bolton Road, South Hampstead. The present lessees of the Eyre estate are Norwich Union Life Assurance Society, who redeveloped part of the area in 1961, giving Norwich and Norfolk place­ names to their new streets and dates from about 1712. Origin unknown.

Fairfax Place and Road (South Hampstead 1). A Victorian name of unknown origin. In 1964 two newly built cui-de-sacs leading out of Fairfax Road were named Marston Close and Naseby Close after General Fairfax’s principal victories for the Roundheads during the Civil War.

Fairholt Street (Montpelier Walk, South Kensington). After Frederick William Fairholt (1814-66), engraver and antiquarian, who spent the last few years of his’ life near here at Montpelier Square.

Fairlop Place (St John’s Wood 3) used to be Oak Tree Yard, off Oak Tree Road. In 1898 it was renamed after the village of Fairlop in Essex which was celebrated for its monster oak tree 36 feet in circumference, beside which an annual fair was held. The tree was burnt down in 1805.

Falcon Court (Fleet Street, City) took its name from ‘a house called the sign of the Falcon’ standing opposite St Dunstan’s Church in Fleet Street. A Mr Fisher bequeathed the Falcon to St Dunstan’s parish, along with four houses in Falcon Court, in 1547. Fisher willed that the income should provide every poor parish householder with 12 pence a year; and just in case his generosity did not come to the attention of the Almighty, he also ordered an annual service to be held at St Dunstan’s in memory of himself.

Fann Street (Golden Lane 5) was built at about the time of the Great Fire of 1666, or even earlier, and was called Fan’s Alley at first. Fan was probably a builder or property owner here.

Faraday Road (North Kensington 2) and Murchison, Wheatstone, Rendle and Telford Roads were laid out on one of the fields of Portobello Farm in 1868 and dedicated to nineteenth-century men of science and engineering:Sir Roderick Murchison, geologist, Sir Charles Wheatstone,    physicist,  James Meadows Rende!, engineer, Thomas Telford the bridge builder and Michael Faraday, chemist and philosopher.

Farm Street (Mayfair 7). About 250 years ago this street was part of Hay Hill Farm.

Farmer Street (Netting Hill Gate 2). In 1825 the Farmer family bought a plot of land beside ‘a new intended Street to be called Kensington Place’, and built their home on part of the ground (3 Kensington Place, next to the Chapel). 25 years later Edward Farmer, a Marylebone ironmonger, and his numerous brothers and spinster sisters still’ living in Kensington Place, had Farmer Street built on the rest of the property. Nearby Farm Place was named in 1938 under the mistaken impression that ‘a farm previously existed on the site of Farm Place and Farmer Street’.

Farrier Street (Kentish Town 8) was named in 1961 by association with the nearby Royal Veterinary College: a farrier is a horse doctor. Vague associative names of this kind are common in current street-naming.

Farringdon Road and Street (5). In Saxon times the City of London was divided into a number of administrative units or wards, each under the control of an alderman whose position was roughly that of Lord of the Manor. By the end of the thirteenth century the wards were acquiring the names by which they are known today. ‘The whole great ward of Farindon,’ wrote Stow in 1598, ‘tooke name of W. Farindon, Goldsmith, Alderman of that ward, and one of the shiriffes of London: in the year 1281 … he purchased the Aldermanry of this ward. This Aldermanry descended to Nicholas Farendon son to the said William and to his heyres.’ The family governed the ward for 82 years, long enough for the name to become established. Farringdon Street was       built though the ward in about 1830 above the course of the River Fleet, by then an underground sewer. Farringdon Road, built higher up the Fleet valley in the 1850s, was designed to improve health, morals and traffic circulation in Clerkenwell: it was to cover over the malarial Fleet; clear the slums of the district, ‘inhabited by many persons of a vicious and immoral character’; and drive a thoroughfare through narrow streets which were ‘almost impassable for carriages’. So named because it continued Farringdon Street-it does not enter Farringdon ward at all.

Fawcett Street (West Brompton 6) was built in about 1867. Origin unknown.

Featherstone Court and Street (City Road 5). Matthew Featherstone was a lesseeof Upper Moorfields(now Finsbury Square) and Bunhill Fields Burial Ground. In 1732 he built Featherstone Street on a slice of land taken from Bunhlll Fields and lived there himself, in a large house on the north side, until 1755.

Fenchurch Street (City 5) took its name from the old church of St Gabriel on the south side of the street; a plaque marks its site. Fenchurch Street runs through the middle of Langbourne Ward, which is traditionally said to be derived from a stream called the Lang Bourne flowing beside Fenchurch Street. If the stream really existed the street may well have been fenny. An alternative explanation postulates a market here for fenum, ‘hay’ (French ‘foin’), presumably at the Gracechurch Street end where a grassmarket is thought to have been held: see Gracechurch Street.

Ferdinand Place and Street (Chalk Farm 8). Lord Ferdinand Fitzroy was Lord of the Manor: see Fitzroy Square, Tottenham Court Road.

Fermoy Road (Westbourne Park 2). Fermoy is a market town in County Cork. Connection with this district unknown.

Ferncroft Avenue (Hampstead 1). The trio of Ferncroft, Hollycroft and Rosecroft Avenues was built across Platt’s Farm in 1896 by a builder and contractor named Hart who firmly believed (as his correspondence with the London County Council shows) that he had to pick ‘pretty’ names in order to attract buyers. Briardale and Clorane Gardens on the other side of Platt’s Lane were also his creation. These are all typical ‘advertising’ names.

Fernsbury Street (Margery Street, Finsbury) was so named in 1912, the official reason for the choice being that Fernsbury was ‘said to be the origin of the name Finsbury’.

Fernshaw Road (Chelsea 6). Formerly Maude Grove, after Jane Maude who married Robert Gunter (see Gunter Grove). The present pretty but meaningless name was given in 1892 because Maude Grove had acquired a bad reputation.

Fetter Lane (City 5). A thirteenth­ century name derived from an Old French word faitour, ‘lawyer’ or ‘attorney’. At that date lawyers were already congregating here around the future Inns of Court. But such was the reputation of medieval law men that it was a short downward step to the meaning ‘cheat’, ‘imposter”false faitours’ as Chaucer twice refers to lawyers and from there to ‘idler’; so Stow may have been right when he wrote in 1598 that it was ‘so called of Fewters (or idle people) lying there’.

Field. Field Court (Gray’s Inn) takes its name from the adjoining Jockey’s Fields (q.v.). Field Place (Clerkenwell 5) was built by a Mr Peter Field in the 1820s, and Field Street (King’s Cross 4) probably has a similar origin, although it dates from rather earlier, about 1767.

Finborough Road (West Brompton 6). Alter Finborough Hall, the country home of the Petywards: see Petyward, Chelsea.

Finch Lane (Cornhill 5). This twelfth-century street, originally called Finkeslane, takes its name from Aelfwin Fink, a resident here in about 1165. Fink’s occupation is recorded as ‘moneyer’, a striker of coins, which was then a highly skilled and responsible trade. The moneyer was required to engrave his own name on the dies from which the coins were cast, so that he could be called to account for any deficiencies.

Finchley Road and Place (St John’s Wood and Hampstead 1). In 1827 an Act of Parliament was passed to provide a new route out of London, because ‘The want of an outlet from the North West side of London to the Great North Road is striking-there being no way to that road west of the Tottenham Court Road, although a great proportion of the Noblemen and Gentlemen connected with the Northern districts live in the West’. The new road was to go to Barnet by way of Finchley, thus avoiding the hills of Hampstead and Highgate. Finchley Place, a turning out of the Road, was named in 1893.

Finsbury (5) indicated the feudal bury, or manor house, of the Fiennes family. The bury, shown as ‘Finsburie Court’ on Elizabethan ·maps , was an impressive square building with a large central courtyard, standing on the corner of Chiswell Street and Finsbury Pavement. Much of Finsbury Manor was unprofitable marsh known as Moorfields, which was donated to the people of London, according to the legend, by two ladies of the Fiennes family, the sisters Mary and Catherine Fiennes. In 1415 a roadway still called Finsbury Pavement was built across the marsh ‘for the ease of the citizens to walk that way’ and Moorfields became London’s first civic park. Remnants of it survive as the greens in the middle of Finsbury Square and Finsbury Circus, both built on Moorfields in about 1790.

Finsbury Street backs on the site of the ‘bury’.

    • Finstock Road, W10 An Oxfordshire placename: this is a turning out of Oxford Gardens

First Avenue (Kensal Town 2). The ownership of the district now known as Kensal Town or Queen’s Park has been a mystery for centuries, because from Tudor times until 1901 it formed part of the Manor and Parish of Chelsea, two or three miles away. Chelsea residents never discovered how they acquired this enclave, but they were quite sure they didn’t want it. When the Metropolitan Boroughs were formed in 1901, Chelsea, Kensington and Paddington did their best to avoid being saddled with the slums of Kensal Town, but it was eventually divided between the two latter.

Always a ‘poor relation’, Kensal Town has had a rough deal in street names as in everything else. The streets south of the Grand Union Canal were laid out in 1841 and uncaringly labelled East, West, Southern and Middle Rows. Most of the remainder was developed in 1875 by the Artizans, Labourers & General Dwellings Company, who were the landlords until 1964. The north-south streets of their grid were numbered 1-6 and euphemistically entitled ‘avenues’: First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. The remaining streets were simply labelled A Street through to 0 Street. However, eight years later it was decided that even artizans and labourers deserved a little better than this: A became Alperton, after the Company’s brickyard in Middlesex, and was followed by Barfett, Caird, Droop (after H R. Droop, AL & GD Co Director 1877-1883), Enbrook, Farrant (Sir Richard Farrant, Director 1877-1906), Galton (probably in honour of Sir Francis Galton, the anthropologist), Huxley (probably the scientist), Ilbert, Kilravock, Lothrop, Marne, Nutbourne and Oliphant, all retaining their original initial. The last of the Kensal Town fields was developed by the United Land Company, who magnanimously gave slum dwellers a taste of culture in the names Beethoven and Mozart Streets, and probably named Herries Street rather ironically after the Rt Hon John Herries, a member of the Victorian Commission for Improving the Metropolis.

First Street (Chelsea 7), begun in 1845, was the first street laid out on the Hasker estate: see Hasker Street, Chelsea.

Fish Street Hill (City 5). By the thirteenth century the City fishmongers had settled in this street close to Billingsgate, London’s main fish market. Soon afterwards they built their Hall in nearby Fishmongers’ Hall Street. Members of the Fishmongers’ Company still come from the Hall to inspect the quality of the fish at Billingsgate. In the middle ages fishmongers were intensely hated by the poor, for whom fish was the staple diet, because the Company used its monopoly to keep prices artificially high.

Fisher Street (Red Lion Square 4) is built on Red Lion Field, formerly a 17-acre paddock crossed by footpaths known as Fishers Walks. In Tudor times Red Lion Field was part of the property belonging to Sir William Harpur, who bequeathed the adjoining meadow to Bedford School: see Bedford Row. Harpur’s heirs sold it in 1596 along with the Red Lion Inn on High Holborn to Thomas Fisher for £850-a high price for the period, showing that the Red Lion was already a thriving concern. The last of the Fishers to own the land was Thomas’s grandson Sir Richard, who relinquished it to the building speculator Nicholas Barbon (see Barbon Close) in 1684, and lived to see Red Lion Square and Fisher Street rise on the field.

Fisherton Street (Marylebone 3) is named after a district near Salisbury because it was originally part of Salisbury Street. The two ends of Salisbury Street were severed when the Great Central Coal Depot was built through the middle of the street in about 1900, and in 1914 it was decided to rename the northern section.

Fitzjohns Avenue (Hampstead 1) is the main thoroughfare through an extensive estate, formerly the demesne lands of Hampstead Manor, which has belonged to the family of Maryon-Wilson since Sir Thomas Spencer Wilson married the great-niece of John Maryon, heir to the manor, in 1767. The family name is perpetuated in Maryon Mews. Other streets on the estate have been given the names of country properties belonging to the Maryon­ Wilsons: in West Essex are Fitzjohns, near Canfield, and also Chesterford. Villages and farms on the Piltdown estates in East Sussex have yielded Nutley, Maresfield, Lindfield, Netherhall, Broadhurst, Dalebam and Fairhazel. Finally, a property in Berk­ shire provided the names Bracknell Gardens and Way.

Fitzmaurice Place (Mayfair 7). The Fitzmaurices, Marquesses of Lans­ downe, had a town house on this site.

Fitzroy Square and Street (Tottentenham Court Road 4), Fitzroy Road (Chalk Farm 8) and Fitzroy Park (Highgate 8). Henry Fitzroy was an illegitimate son
of Charles II and his notorious mistress, Barbara Villiers : hence the family name Fitzroy, ‘King’s son’. The king loaded Barbara with honours and rewards,
including making her Duchess of Cleveland and granting her the estate of Malden in Surrey)’. As their children grew older they too were given titles and
riches: at 9 years old Henry, the second son, was married to five-year-old Isabella Bennet, only child of the king’s favourite Lord Arlington, who left her a country
estate at Euston in Suffolk and the large manor of Tottenham Court, extending from Tottenham Court Road to Highgate. To celebrate his marriage the little Henry was created Earl of Easton and later Duke of Grafton. He died in combat at the age of 27.

Henry left a son Charles, 2nd Duke of Grafton, who was responsible for building in 1756 the ‘New Road from Paddington to Islington’, which is now cailed Euston Road where it crosses the Fitzroy estate. The 2nd Duke’s daughters were Caroline Stanhope, Countess of Harrington, who was the grandmother of Lady Caroline Drummond, and Isabella, Baroness Conway and Marchioness of Hertford. Tottenham Conrt Manor passed to the 2nd Duke’s grandson, created 1st Baron Southampton, who married Anne Warren and developed the Fitzroy Square area (i.e. Cleveland Street, Grafton Way, Hertford Place, Conway Street and Warren Street) from about 1791, towards the end of his life.

His son Ferdinand, 2nd Lord Southampton, started to build northwards along Hampstead Road with Stanhope and Harrington Streets, and in 1821 Mornington Crescent was begun and named after a famous connection of the family: Ferdinand’s sister-in-law Anne Wellesley was the daughter of the Earl of Mornington and sister of the great Duke of Wellington. Nearby Arlington Road soon followed the building of Mornington Crescent, while in the south­east extremity of the estate Drummond Street and Crescent and the area around Easton Grove date from the same period.

By the 1840s Lord Southampton was pushing northward and covering his fields at Chalk Farm and Kentish Town with streets. Fitzroy Road at Chalk Farm, with Southampton, Malden and Grafton Roads and Ferdinand Street, Kentish Town, gradually spread outwards. By the time of the 3rd Baron’s death in 1872 almost all of this extensive estate had been sold off to builders, and only Fitzroy Park, in the extreme north of the manor, now survives as a relic of Tottenham Court’s rural days.

Flask Walk (Hampstead 1B) still contains the Flask tavern, built 1767, which gave it its name. In Hampstead’s heyday as a minor spa in the eighteenth century, the healthgiving waters from the well in Well Walk were prepared here to be sent all over London ‘carefully bottled up in flasks’. As a condition of sale, ‘The messengers that come for the waters must take care to return the flasks daily’.

Flaxman. Two streets in central London commemorate John Flaxman (1755-1826), sculptor. Flaxman Court, off Wardour Street, is close to the little house in Wardour Street which Flaxman moved into after his marriage in 1782, when he was a rising young designer making cameos for Messrs Wedgwood’s fashionable new porcelain ware. The last years of his life, when he produced the statues of Burns and Kemble in Westminster Abbey, were spent at a house near Fitzroy Square, and a neighbouring street behind Euston Road (4) has been named Flaxman Terrace after him.

Fleet. The River Fleet rises at the Hampstead and Highgate ponds, the only points where it is now visible. For the rest of its course it runs in underground pipes, and still drains rainwater from the streets which have covered the original catchment area. At Hampstead the name Fleet Road (8) indicates its former route. Nearer the Thames the natural river valley deepens, and below King’s Cross the stream was usually called the ‘Hole Bourne’ ­ ‘the stream in the hollow’. The best view of the valley is from Holbom Viaduct. Fleet Lane (5) sloped down to the river’s edge and crossed by a little bridge. Below that point was probably the Anglo­ Saxon fieot, the ‘creek’ or ‘tidal inlet’ which gave the Fleet its name. Fleet Street itself (5), already an important highway by Roman times, boasted a substantial bridge over the river: ‘a bridge of stone, fair coped on either side with iron pikes’ wrote the Elizabethan Stow.

Flitcroft Street (St Giles 4). Henry Flitcroft, carpenter, was working one day at Burlington House in Piccadilly when he fell from a scaffold and broke his leg. The accident brought him to the notice of Lord Burlington, whose influence helped him become one of the leading architects of his time. In 1731 ‘Burlington Harry’ was chosen to build the present church of St Giles-in-the-Fields, which is why his name is remembered in this alley beside the church.

Flood Street and Walk (Chelsea 7). in memory of Luke Thomas Flood, a resident of Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, who left £3000 to Chelsea Parish when he died in 1860.

Floral Street (Covent Garden 4). After Floral Hall near the east end of the street, which was designed as a ‘vast central flower market’ attached to Covent Garden and opened in 1860.

Foley Street (Marylebone 4). The 2nd Lord Foley purchased a plot of land in his cousin Edward Harley’s Marylebone estate (see Harley Street) in 1758, and inconsiderately built a mansion whose gardens cut right through the partly built Queen Anne Street, completely severing the two ends of the street. As a result the eastern portion of Queen Anne Street was eventually renamed, and is now Foley Street and Langham Street, while the remaining section still comes to an abrupt end where Foley’s garden wall used to stand. The 4th Lord Foley’s ‘debauchery, extravagance and gaming’ depleted the family fortunes, and in 1814 the house was sold. Most of the site went to Sir James Langham, and Langham Place was formed across it.

Folly Mews (Portobello Road, Notting Hill). The Folly was the first house built in Portobello Road and gained its name because it stood remote, unfinished and untenanted, for many years. Folly Mews and 223 Portobello Road (now a shoe-shop) occupy the site.

Fore Street (City 5). A medieval street running just outside, or before, the City wall (see Platen). Fore Street Avenue, a Victorian creation, does not, and never did, resemble an avenue.

Forset Road and Close (near Edgware Road 3). Edward Forset leased the manor of ‘Tyburn alias Marybone’ from Queen Elizabeth in 1583, and lived in its Manor House in Marylebone High Street. As an active Justice of the Peace, he helped convict the Gunpowder Plotters in 1605, and not long afterwards James I allowed him to purchase Marylebone Manor outright. Almost a century later Forset’s grandson sold the land to John Holies, father-in-law of Edward Harley: see Harley Street. But Forset Street, which was not named until 1920, was never part of Forset’s and Harley’s ]and: it stands in the neighbouring manor of Lisson.

Fortess Road and Walk (Kentish Town 8) were originally a cart-track through ‘the Forties’ or ‘Fortis Field’ (hence also the Forties, a nearby block of fiats in Islip Street). A manuscript dated 1666 mentions ‘a field called Fortis, near a place called Fortis Green’; in fact, Fortis Green in Hornsey is nearly three miles distant, but the writer clearly thought there was some connection, and the two places may have been in common ownership. Unfortunately, the origin of the name Fortis Green is not known.

Fortune Green Road (West Hampstead 1) leads to an open space known for centuries as Fortune Green. Not so far away are Temple Fortune Lane in Golders Green and Fortune Gate Road in Harlesden, but whether there is any connection nobody can say.

Fortune Street (Finsbury 5). The Fortune Playhouse, the most magni­ ficent theatre in London when it was built in 1599, was designed by actor Edward Alleyn in answer to the competition of Shakespeare’s Globe. Among other luxuries it boasted a roof equipped with gutters to protect the audience. It took its name from a statue of the Goddess of Fortune which stood outside. The theatre survived the Puritan rule only to be pulled down in 1661 soon after the Restoration in order that this street might be formed.

Fosbury Mews (Bayswater 3). Fosbury is a hamlet in Wiltshire. Connection with Bayswater unknown.

Foster Lane (City 5). Foster is a corruption of Vedast, whose church stands in this lane. St Vedast was a sixth-century French saint, probably introduced to London by the Normans.

Foubert’s Place (Soho 7) was at first ca11ed Major Foubert’s Passage, being the ailey beside Major Henry Foubert’s fashionable riding school. The Fouberts were French Hugue­ nots who came to England in 1679 after religious discrimination had forced them to close their riding academy in Paris. Henry’s father made a living teaching riding and fencing in Soho Fields; Henry succeeded him in 1696 and opened the school in Kingly Street, which was run by members of the family until it closed down in 1778.

Foulis Terrace (South Kensington 6) adjoins the Brompton Hospital. In 1848 the newly opened hospital advertised its ‘urgent want of a Chapel, in which the Patients and Inmates might assemble for Divine Worship’. In response the Reverend Sir Henry Foulis built the chapel at the back of the hospital at his own expense.

Founders’ Court (Lothbury, City). Here stood the hall of the Founders, the Company responsible for examining all brass weights used within three miles of London and confiscating any that were underweight.

Fountain Court (Temple, City). The fountain in this quiet court was first made in 1681.

Fox & Knot Street (Charterhouse Street 5) was formed in the late nineteenth century and presumably took its name from an inn, although there is no evidence of a Fox & Knot here. However, there was (and is) a Fox & Anchor just opposite in Charterhouse Street.

Fox Court (Gray’s Inn Road 5) was the alley beside the Fox Alehouse (now the Havelock) which stood here at least 300 years ago.

Frampton Street (Marylebone 3). Sir George Frampton (1860-1928), sculptor, whose best known works are the Edith Cavell memorial in St Martin’s Place and Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, lived in Marylebone at 90 Carlton Hill. The street was named after him in 1937.

Francis Street (Victoria 7) is first found in 1806 as Francis Place, a row of half a dozen little cottages belonging to one Francis Wilcox. The present Francis Street grew out of that, and the Franciscan Friary there now is quite coincidental.

Franklin’s Row (Chelsea 7) was so named because it led to Franklin’s Field, a 6·acre meadow where Walpole Street now stands. The field was held by a prosperous farmer called Thomas Franklin, who is mentioned in many old Chelsea records between about 1680 and 1717.

Frederick’s Place (Old Jewry, City). Here stood the mansion of the immensely wealthy Lord Mayor Sir John Frederick, merchant son of Christopher Frederick, sergeant­ surgeon to James 1. Sir John left much of his fortune to charity when he died in 1685, but enough remained in the family to establish the Fredericks as prosperous landed gentry. His grand­ son purchased the Manor of Paddington in 1741 (hence Frederick Close, Paddington) and later descendants have spread family names all over the Paddington district: see Southwick Street.

French Ordinary Conrt (Crutched Friars, City) is probably derived from a seventeenth-century tavern serving French ‘ordinaries’, public meals available at a fixed time and price.

Friar Street (Blackfriars, City). Once part of the Dominican friary.

Friday Street (City 5) was probably the market where medieval fishmongers sold their wares on Fridays, when meat was forbidden to Catholic England.

Frideswide Place (Kentish Town 8). St Frideswide, says the legend, was a Saxon princess who preferred virginity to marriage with Algar, King of Leicester. Fleeing from the king’s persecution she took refuge in Oxford, and with God’s help her lover was struck blind as he entered the city. She then founded a convent which was reconstituted as Christ Church Oxford after the dissolution of the monasteries, and this street is part of an estate bequeathed to Christ Church: see Islip Street, Kentish Town.

Friend Street (Finsbury 5). George Friend was a wealthy and benevolent Clerkenwell businessman. In 1780 he decided to found a free clinic for the sick poor of the neighbourhood and called it the Finsbury Dispensary. From 1870 until it closed down in 1961 the Dispensary was housed in Friend Street, so named in 1936. Many distinguished doctors gave their services to the Dispensary; among them was Sir James Paget, a Fellow of the Royal Society, after whom Paget Street, a turning out of Friend Street, was named in 1936.

Frith Street (Soho 7) owes its name to Richard Frith, a bricklayer and speculative builder. His initial success in erecting a few houses in the St James’s district in the early 1670s encouraged him to embark on the much more ambitious scheme of developing the 19-acre Soho Field in 1677. But a few months after he had laid out Frith Street, Soho Square and the surrounding streets, financial difficulties arose from the heavy loans he had to make in order to buy the building materials. By 1683 Frith was ruined and the following year, just as the houses were ready to yield a profit, he was forced to relinquish all his rights in Soho Field. He died, still in debt, in 1695.

Frognal (Hampstead 1). An old name whose origins are lost. Perhaps frogs abounded here at some early date, but it is more likely to derive from Thomas and Alexander Frogenhall, landowners here in 1542.

Frye’s Buildings (Islington High Street 5). A late nineteenth-century name. Origin unknown.

Fulham Road (Kensington 6). The fifteenth-century lane to Fulham village. In 705 AD the settlement was Fulanham, probably the ‘hamm’ or ‘bend in the river’ of a Saxon called Fulla.

Fulwood Place (High Holbom 4) was a Tudor cart-track which was used as the south entrance to Gray’s Inn until Sir George Fulwood acquired it by marriage along with some adjoining land in about 1580. He decided to stop up the old lane and line it with houses which were then known as Fulwood’s Rents, and

to compensate he sold to the Society of Gray’s Inn the even narrower entrance into South Square which is still used today. In 1589 Fulwood was admitted a member of Gray’s Inn, where his better known son Chris­ topher later became Treasurer. Chris­ topher was a magistrate renowned for his keen sense of justice, who aband­ oned law to lead Royalist forces at the outbreak of Civil War. Event­ ually the Roundheads closed in on him at his Derbyshire home, cornered him in a rock cleft and mortally wounded him. His estates were then confiscated, and his children grew up in poverty in Fulwood’s Rents. Refs: 67, 82, 330.

Furnival Street (Holborn 5). Furnival’s Inn stood for centuries on the site of the huge red Prudential Assurance offices in Holborn, at the end of this street. In about 1388 Sir William Furnival, said to be a descendant of the Fournyvals who rode to Palestine with Richard Coeur de Lion, built his mansion here. A few years later it was leased to the law students, and Lincoln’s Inn purchased it in 1547 from the then Lord Furnival for £140. When it was sold again in 1853 its value was £55,000.

Fynes Street (Regency Street, West­ minster). Part of the Chapter of Westminster’s land.

Gainsborough Gardens (Hampstead 1). Sir Baptist Hicks, who became Viscount Campden and ancestor of the Earls of Gainsborougb, was a successful city mercer whose main London home was at Kensington: see Campden Grove. In 1620 he purchased the Manor of Hampstead, simply as an additional source of income; he never intended to settle there. However, in true tradition of gracious Lords of the Manor, the family did not neglect its pauper tenants at Hampstead: in 1698 Lady Susanna, the mother of the 3rd Earl of Gainsborough, conveyed ‘six acres of waste land’-now Gainsborough Gardens and Well Walk-‘lying and being about certain medicinal waters called the Wells … for the sole use, benefit, and advantage of the poor of the parish of Hampstead for ever’. The 3rd Earl sold Hampstead shortly afterwards, but this land still belongs to the Wells and Campden Charity trustees.

Gaisford Street (Kentish Town 8) was built by Christ Church Oxford, the ground landlords here (see Islip Street) shortly after the death in 1855 of Thomas Gaisford, who had been Dean of Cluist Church for 24 years. A Gaisford prize is now awarded at the College in his memory.

Galen Place (Bloomsbury 4). The Pharmaceutical Society used to have its examination halls here. The Society’s coat of arms shows two ancient physicians: Avicenna on one side, and on the other the second­ century Greek Galen, the greatest physician of all time after Hippocrates.

Ganton Street (Soho 7). Ganton is a Yorkshire place name, bestowed on this street in 1886 for no discernible reason.

Garbutt Place (Marylebone 3) was so named in 1894. ‘William Garbutt’ wrote the Marylebone Mercury in 1896 ‘is the able and popular Clerk to the St Marylebone Vestry … He was born fifty-six years ago, and . . . is held in the greatest esteem and respect for his great kindness and good nature’. Four years later Garbutt was made the first Town Clerk when the Vestry was replaced by a Borough Council.

Gard Street (Finsbury 5) is named after a Vice-President of the Orphan Working School which used to stand just opposite, on the site of Pickard Street (q.v.).

Garden Court (Temple, City) fronts the Temple Garden, where Shakespeare has York and Lancaster pluck the white and red roses that became their symbol during the Civil Wars.

Garden Mews (Nolting Hill 2). A turning out of Linden Gardens.

Garden Road (St John’s Wood 3). The Great Garden Field, to which this road more or less led, was situated on the south side of what is now Grove End Road.

Gardner’s Lane (Upper Thames Street, City). Probably the name of the owner when this part of the City was rebuilt after the Great Fire. At the entrance to the alley was erected a carving dated 1670, now removed, showing a gardener leaning on a spade.

Gardnor Road (Hampstead 1). Thomas Gardnor, a successful City upholsterer, bought Gardner House, still standing in Flask Walk, in 1749. He and his heirs, all called Thomas, gradually enlarged the property until they owned Flask Walk, Streatley Place, and parts of New End, Heath Street and High Street, as well as some houses in Church Row on the site of Gardnor Mansions. Gardner Road was built after the death of the last Thomas Gardner in 1863.

Garlick Hill (City 5). In the middle ages, according to old writers, garlic was unshipped and sold here, presumably in considerable quantity since the whole parish was known as Garlickhythe. Strong seasoning was an essential ingredient of medieval cookery, both for the rich man whose table groaned with game and venison every day except Friday, and for the poor, with their monotonous diet of fish. Vegetables were scarce at any time and in winter fresh meat was virtually unobtainable, so cooks had recourse to exotic oriental spices to render salted meat more palatable. Even in summer, dead meat was often several days in transit before reaching the table, where it would be served mercifully coloured and seasoned beyond recognition.

Garnett Road (Hampstead 8) was named in 1934 in honour of Dr Richard Garnett, keeper of printed books at the British Museum and also President of the Hampstead Antiquarian and Historical Society. He died at his home at 27 Tanza Road, a few hundred yards from here, in 1906.

Garrett Street (Finsbury 5) was named after a member of the Parish Vestry Works Committee which selected this name in 1898.

Garrick Street (Covent Garden 4) was named at the request of the Garrick Club when it moved here in 1864. The Club had been founded some thirty years previously to provide ‘a rallying-point for the lovers of drama’ in the name of David Garrick, the actor (1717-1779).

Gate Street (Holborn 4) was named after one of the royal gates along James I’s private route from Whitehall to his favourite residence of Theobalds in Hertfordshire. The king used to proceed along Drury Lane and Great Queen Street, through the gates on either side of High Holborn, and so to Theobalds Road (q.v.). One year an embarassing incident occurred when the local scavenger failed to clear the roadway between the two gates, and their majesties were held up by a dung-cart blocking High Holborn. Agas’ map , published before James came to the throne in 1603, marks the king’s route but the Gate Street gate does not yet exist (it is first shown on a plan of about 1609) and the track is not yet a private way, to judge from the two men strolling along it. There was considerable ill-feeling about the loss of these ancient public paths, and the Surveyor of His Majesty’s Wayes and Passages had the problem of protecting the gates from ‘divers unruly coachmen, carters, and others’ who ‘used false keyes for opening the lockes’ and ‘with great hammers and other like tools did breake open the said gates’.

Gateforth Street (Marylebone 3) was part of Capland Street until the Great Central Coal Depot was built across it in about 1900, completely severing the two ends of the street. In 1914 this division was brought to the attention of the London County Council, who then changed the southern section to Gateforth Street. Gateforth is a village in Yorkshire, a county that has no discernible connection with this street other than the Duke of York pub.

Gatliff Road (Pimlico 7). The Gatliff Buildings here were erected in 1867 by the Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes, a pioneer among the Societies which misguidedly but sincerely provided the deserving poor with grim institutionalised Dwellings.

The Secretary of this worthy body was Charles Gatliff.

Gayton Crescent and Road (Hamp­ stead 1), laid out in 1867, seem to be an example of the ‘pretty but meaningless’ class of street names, so common in nineteenth-century Hampstead: see Broomsleigh Street.

Gee Street (Finsbury 5) was described in 1708 as garden ground belonging jointly to Joshua Gee, a London merchant, and Jobn Osgood of Essex. Their families intermarried and in 1784 Osgood Gee of the Inner Temple, their descendant and sole owner of the property, started to build the street.

George Court (Strand). After George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham: see Buckingham Street, Strand.

George Inn Yard (Borough High Street 5). The George Inn here was dedicated to Saint George in the middle ages and dropped the Saint at the Reformation. It was a major coaching inn, with stage coaches departing for the country every hour. Galleries of bedrooms surrounded three sides of this yard, and there was stabling accommodation below. The inn, and what remains of the galleries, date from the rebuilding after a disastrous fire in 1676.

George Street (Marylebone 3): The Hanoverians were less popular as sources of street names than the Stuarts, although they monopolise the names on their own estate: see Regent’s Park. However George Street, Hanover Square (now St George Street, q.v.) was a compliment to George I, and George Street, Marylebone, commemorates George III’s accession in 1760.

George Yard (Lombard Street, City). An important fourteenth-century hostelry dedicated to St George of England adjoined St Edmund’s Church in Lombard Street. When the inn was burnt down in the Great Fire of 1666 this yard was formed across the site.

George Yard (Mayfair 7). After John George, a Soho glazier, who took on building contracts from the Grosvenor family when they laid out Grosvenor Square and neighbouring streets for development in the 1720s.

Georgiana Street (Camden Town 8). After Lady Georgiana Camden.

Gerrard Place and Street and Macclesfield Street (Soho 7). These names are relics of the time when the Gerards, Earls of Macclesfield, owned a rectangular piece of ground here on the south side of Shaftesbury Avenue. The plot was a walled exercise ground marked ‘Millitary Yard’ on Faithorne and Newcourt’s map of 1658. It was used by the Military Company until the 1st Earl of Macclesfield seized it in 1661, proclaiming that he would ‘Cutt the Members of the said Millitary Company in peeces, if ever they came on the said Ground’ -no idle threat, as Macclesfield had a lawless band of Civil War veterans at his command. In about 1680 he started to build these streets, includ ing a fine house for himself, on the site of the post office in Gerrard Street, which stayed in the family until l725.

Gilbert Place (Bloomsbury 4) was built in about 1670 by William Lord Russell on the estate he had just acquired by marriage (see Bedford Square), and is named after his friend Gilbert Holies, Earl of Clare. Both were Whig statesmen who opposed Charles n’s favouring of Roman Catholics. Russell, slightly younger and more ardent, became involved in a plot to assassinate the king and was beheaded in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1683. On his way to execution he was taken past Gilbert’s home, Warwick House on the site of Warwick Court, High Holborn. Seeing that the house looked shut up and deserted, Russell devoted some of his last moments to enquiring after his friend, according to Bishop Burnet: ‘He asked if my Lord Clare was out of town. I told him he could not think any windows would be open there on this occasion’. Gilbert survived to die peacefully at Warwick House a few years later.

Gilbert Street (Oxford Street 7) began its existence in 1733 as James Street, then changed to its present name about a century later. No known explanation.

Gilden Road (Kentish Town 8). Probably from Gilden Field, which was situated not far from here and may once have been a field for geldings, like Golden Square.

Gillies Street (Kentish Town 8) was formed in 1862 on a plot of land belonging to St Pancras Church. Perhaps named after Margaret Gillies (1803-1887), a well known miniature and watercolour painter of the period, who was living in St Pancras Parish near Fitzroy Square at the time.

Giltspur Street (City 5) was one of the places where spurs were formerly made in the City. Spurs were an essential piece of equipment for every well-born medieval squire, especially for youths who had not yet inherited their estates, or those rich enough to pay others to look after their lands, who had nothing to do but ride around the country taking part in jousts and tourneys. In the early middle ages the tournaments were considered excellent war-training for the young, but later they became more like exercises in ritual chivalry, and various popes unsuccessfully banned them as ‘worthless pastimes’. Nevertheless there was a consider­ able element of danger in the sport, and at the great international tourneys whole fortunes or even realms were staked and lost on the thrust of a spur or the fall of a lance. The London venue was Smithfield, the scene of’great and royall justs, where many knightly feats of arms were done’, situated at the north end of Giltspur Street, and two or three streetsful of craftsmen in other parts of the city were employed simply meeting the demand for spurs. Gilt spurs were a highly coveted luxury; it may be that the spurriers in this particular street specialised in gilt spurs, or perhaps one of them hung a prominent sign showing golden spurs above his shop.

Gladys Road (West Hampstead 1). Origin unknown. Perhaps Gladys was the name of Mr Sherriff’s wife: see Sherriff Road.

Glasshouse. The seventeenth-century glass factory with its high chinmey and spacious yard was a common London landmark; in 1696 there were 24 glasshouses in London, and many of them gave their names to Glass­ house Yards and Alleys. The most important kind of English glass was ‘glass of lead’, white crystal glass; it was made at the Whitefriars Glass­ house in Glasshouse Alley, Tudor Street, which opened in 1709 and continued to produce fine table and ornamental glass unti1 1923.

An earlier skill was the making of green glass, used mainly for bottles, and it was probably this type that was manufactured at Glasshouse Street, Piccadilly Circus 7. The street was originally a Tudor cart-track winding through agricultural land, until the field on the north side was leased to an employee of the Glass Sellers’ Company in 1675. A manufacturing works was then established, rather too close for comfort for the wealthy neighbours in Piccadilly who lost no time in complaining about the smell and smoke from the furnace.

Another Glasshouse Yard, first recorded in 1677, survives off Aldersgate Street (5), outside the City boundary but as close to it as possible-there may have been early civic restrictions against noxious industries.

Glebe Place (Chelsea 6). The Latin gleba meant ‘earth’ or ‘soil’, and in English the meaning was extended to ‘ground belonging to a parish priest’. The land around St Luke’s Rectory in Old Church Street, Chelsea, including Glebe Place, has been part of the heritage of Chelsea clergymen since 1566 when it was given to the church in exchange for other fields near World’s End Passage. The glebe was arable land and the priest was expected to support himself on its produce like any other villager, often farming it personally between services, so it was to his advantage if the glebe adjoined the church.

Glenhurst Avenue (Gospel Oak 8) was completed in 1912, whereupon the estate agent asked the London County Council to suggest a suitable name. The LCC offered a choice of Glenhurst, Rosetree, Roseheath and Rockhurst. There was little to choose between these four equally meaningless names, each with blatant overtones of cosy rurality supposed to attract the prospective buyer, so the first of the list was selected.

Glenmore Road (Hampstead 8) was built in 1903. Glenloch and Glenilla Roads at either end already existed, so it was decided to make this one more Glen.

Glentworth Street (Marylebone Road 3) was named in 1897 after a former Marylebone resident, Baron Glentworth (1758-1845), an Irish politician described by the Dictionary of National Biography as ‘of overbearing manners and small talent’.

Gloucester.Gloucester Gate (Regent’s Park 4) is named after the Prince Regent’s cousin and brother-in law William, Duke of Gloucester and Earl of Connaught: see Regent’s Park. Gloucester Avenue and Crescent, built on the fields of Chalk Farm in about 1850, were so called because they led to the Gate. Gloucester Gardens, Square and Terrace (Paddington 3) indicate the Duke’s town house near Hyde Park: see Connaught Place, Paddington.

Gloucester Place (Marylebone 3) crosses George Street, named after George III, and commemorates his favourite brother, Prince William. The street was begun soon after the king had created him Duke of Gloucester in 1764.

Gloucester Road (South Kensington 6). After Maria, Duchess of Gloucester. She was of illegitimate birth and had ‘the most wanton Insolence’ to marry secretly the Duke of Gloucester, the brother of George III. At the Duke’s death in 1805 she retired to Kensington and built herself a villa, Later the home of George Canning: see Can ning Passage, Kensington. This ancient lane in which the house stood was named after her in 1807, the year of her death. Gloucester Lodge was demolished when this part of Kensington was developed in about 1850, and Stanhope Mews West is built on the site.

Gloucester Walk (Kensington 6) was once the drive leading to Campden House (see Campden Grove) where Princess (later Queen) Anne lived with her son the Duke of Gloucester. The little prince was delicate and hydrocephalic, like many of his brothers and sisters-all sixteen of whom died in babyhood­ but the healthy air of Kensington seemed to be good for him. However, at eight years old he was removed to St James’s to set up his own Court, and he died in 1700 aged just eleven, of a fever contracted on his birthday.

Godfrey Street (Chelsea 6) probably belonged to a Chelsea corn­ chandler called John Godfrey, who owned some land beside the King’s Road in the 1830s, when this street first appears.

Godliman Street (Queen Victoria Street 5) has no connection with the godly men at nearby St Paul’s-it is a corruption of ‘godalmin’, a kind of skin or leather originally prepared at Godalming in Surrey, and probably sold here in the eighteenth century.

Golborne Road (North Kensington 2), built in 1867, is thought to be named after Dean Goulborne, the vicar of St John”s, Paddington.

Golden Lane (City 5). In 1274 this was Goldeslane, probably connected with Richard son of Golda, who is recorded as a local landowner in 1245.

Golden Square (Soho 7) was built on Gelding Close, pasture land where presumably geldings were once kept. When the square was begun in 1674 it was designed with ‘such houses as might accomodate Gentry’, so the old vulgar name Gelding had to go. The present refined variant was in use by the time the first residents moved in.

Goldington Crescent and Street (Camden Town 4). Formerly part of the Duke of Bedford’s property.
Goldsmith Street (City 5). The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths has been established for six centuries at Goldsmiths’ Hall in Gutter Lane. The goldsmiths were always a rich company, and at an early date they started to acquire land around their Hall, by gift and purchase. By Elizabethan times they were the principal landowners in Gutter Lane and Wood Street, and Goldsmith Street was later formed to join the two.

Goodge Street (Tottenham Court Road 4) was once Crab Tree Field, a meadow belonging to Widow Beresford, who married a Maryle bone carpenter called John Goodge in about 1718. After John’s death in 1748 his nephews Francis and William Goodge developed most of the estate, employing John Colvill, a carpenter. Colvill started building in 1766 and began Colville Place, but the costs of large scale development were too great for him, and he was bankrupt before it was finished.

Goodman’s Yard (City 5) used to lead out to some fields belonging to the nuns of St Clare (see Minories) which were farmed by one Goodman. Stow in 1598 remembered being sent to Farmer Goodman as a child for a halfpennywortb of milk, and getting three pints fresh from the cows. But Goodman’s son decided to lease the pastures as garden plots, ‘and lived like a gentleman thereby’. Later Goodman’s fields were used as tenter ground, where cloth was stretched on tenterhooks and dried; hence East, West, North and South Tenter Streets now built there. Goodman Street lies on the far side of the farm.

Goods Way (King’s Cross 4) leads to a Goods Depot.

Goose Yard (St John Street, Clerken­ well) was the yard beside Goose Farm, where farmers bringing droves of geese to Smithfield Market and breaking their jonrney at the Angel, Islington, used to fold their birds overnight. Later the facilities were extended to cattle, mainly cows, and were in use as late as 1870. The collection of old low sheds in Goose Yard still has an almost rural air.

Gophir Lane (City 5) was Gofairelane in 1313. One Elias Gofaire owned some houses in the locality at that date.

Gordon House Road (Highgate 8). Gordon House was a Georgian mansion standing on the corner of this old lane and Highgate Road, where now there are blocks of flats. For many years it was a rather spartan Boarding Academy for Boys.

Gordon Place (Kensington 6) is first found named in 1848. Origin unknown.

Gorham Place (North Kensington 2). Probably named after the owner. There were several Gorhams living in Kensington in the 1840s when houses were first built here. Among them were James Gorham, watch and clock maker to Queen Victoria.

Goslett Yard (Charing Cross Road 7) is occupied by warehouses of Goslett’s, the plate glass merchants whose main premises are in Charing Cross Road. The firm was founded by Alfred Goslett, who learnt his trade as an agent to the Soho Plate Glass Factory and then opened his own shop here in the 1850s.

Gospel Oak (8). The Gospel Oak which stood here on the boundary of the parishes of Hampstead and St Pancras gained its name from the custom of Beating the Bounds: during Easter week the vicar led a procession of robed officials and charity boys on a perambulation of the parish boundary marks, where the boys were beaten to help them remember the spot. The ceremony culminated in the vicar reading from the Gospels under a large oak-a custom which may well be descended from pagan oak-worship. Beating the Bounds died out in the mid­ nineteenth century, at about the time the appearance of the first large-scale Ordnance Survey maps provided a more reliable means of ascertaining boundaries, but the custom has been revived in some parishes in the City.

The St Pancras Gospel Oak, cut down in the 1860s to make way for building development, was an imposing tree standing isolated in the fields. Its site is the west side of Southampton Road, beside the railway bridge. It has given its name to nearby Gospel Oak Grove and Oak Village.

Goswell Road (Finsbury). A fourteenth-century road probably built by the monks of the Charterhouse to lead from their monastery in Clerkenwell to Islington and points north, much as the Knights of St John made parallel St John Street. Named from an early medieval Gode Well; the district just north of the City wall was noted for its wells, many of them Holywells, God’s Wells and wells dedicated to saints­ the veneer of Christianity covering the pagan well-worship prohibited by the Saxon clergy.

Gough Square (City 5) and Gough Street (Gray’s Inn Road 4). Documents at County Hall show that these two properties both belonged to the Goughs, a family of successful London wool merchants. Richard Gough was knighted after making an enormous fortune trading with India and China, and by the time he died in 1728 he owned several estates, including three fields beside Gray’s Inn Road. His son Henry was created a baronet, and married into the rich Calthorpe family, thus acquiring the Suffolk manors of Ampton and Pakenham. In 1773 Sir Henry sold Acton Meadow, the northernmost field at Gray’s Inn Road, to James Swinton, a builder and surveyor, who built Swinton and Acton Streets. The rest of the estate was developed from 1814 on by Sir Henry’s grand­ son George, 3rd Lord Calthorpe, who laid out Calthorpe, Pakenham and Ampton Streets. Frederick Street was begun in 1826, the birth year of Frederick, 5th Lord Calthorpe.

Gower Conrt, Place and Street (Bloomsbury 4): see Bedford Square, Bloomsbury.

Gracechurch Street (City 5). The church was St Benet’s on the east side of the street, where a plaque marks its site. As long ago as 1054 St Benet’s was known as ‘Gerschereche’, i.e. ‘grass church’, thought to be named from a fodder market here.

Grafton. Grafton Crescent, Place, Road, Terrace, Way and Yard (in Kentish Town 8 and around Tottenham Court Road 4) all lie in the old Manor of Tottenham Court, which belonged to Charles Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton: see Fitzroy Square, Totten­ ham Court Road. The same duke had a town house in Mayfair, built for him in 1703 by Thomas Barlow, a local carpenter who was also responsible for adjacent Barlow Place.The house stood on the corner of New Bond Street and Grafton Street.

Graham Terrace (Belgravia 7). In 1822 William Graham esquire leased from the Grosvenor family a small field here close to his home in Ebury Street. He built the terrace a few years later.

Granby Terrace (Camden Town 4) once contained the Granby Arms, demolished 1889, dedicated to the Marquis of Granby who commanded the British forces during the Seven Years War. It is not known quite why he appears on so many inn signs; even today, two centuries after his death in 1770, there are six Marquis of Granby pubs in London alone.

Grand Avenue (City). There are two thoroughfares of this name in the City: one is the central arcade of Leadenhall Market, and the other the main road through Smithfield Market.

Grange Court (Lincoin’s Inn 4). A plan dated 1592 in the British Museum shows a cluster of five or six buildings marked ‘Lyncolnes Inn grange’ on this site. The grange was probably a farmhouse-cum-granary belonging to the Knights of St John, who owned the ground and the adjoining field until the Reformation. Crops and tithes from the property would have been stored here. Later it was rebuilt as the Grange Tavern, demolished in 1853.

Grangeway (West Hampstead 1). Here stood an old building called the Grange, said to have been the residence of Catherine of Aragon. It was demolished in 1910 and replaced by Kilburn Grange Cinema. Ref: 129.

Grant Street (Pentonville 5). Sir Robert Grant was the Member of Parliament elected for this borough, Finsbury, in December 1832 at the first election after the Reform Act. The Act bad abolished Rotten Boroughs and redistributed parliamentary seats in order to give fairer representation to densely populated urban areas, and also extended the vote to middle-class householders of the type living in Finsbury. The election was thus important as a symbol of the progress of freedom. Sir Roberts’ constituency was much larger than the present Sboreditch & Finsbury, extending northwards as far as Finsbury Park over two miles away. Grant gave up his seat in 1834 when he was appointed Governor of Bombay.

Grantham Place (Mayfair 7) occupies a plot of land which Thomas Grantham, a builder living in Wardour Street, acquired in 1722. The field lay in the valley of the River Tyburn, an area rich in brickearth (see Brick Street), and Thomas probably used it as a brickfield accessory to his trade. His son John however, who inherited the land in 1781, cashed in on the growing value of the Mayfair district as a residential quarter by building Grantham Place.

Unlike his father, John is described as ‘gentleman’ in contemporary documents, since income from the property raised him from a tradesman to a member of the leisured classes. The land passed out of his immediate family at his death in 1787.

Grantully Road (Paddington 2). A Perthshire place-name. Connection with Paddington unknown.

Granville Place (Marylebone 3) was built in 1864 and named after Earl Granville (1815-1891), Liberal foreign secretary and leader of the House of Lords.

Grape Street (High Holborn 4), formerly Vine Street. One of the possessions of St Giles Leper Hospital (see St Giles High Street) was a house called Le Vyne, which stood here on High Holborn by at least the time of Henry VIII and probably earlier. At an even remoter date the Hospital’s vineyard may have occupied the spot. Holborn was a fertile area, specially mentioned for its vines in the Domesday Book, and a foundation the size of St Giles Hospital almost certainly had its own vineyard close at hand in the middle ages.

Gravel Lane (City 5) and nearby Stoney Lane were probably complimentary names in an age when any kind of street surfacing was better than the usual rutted mud. The streets of London were not paved with gold; they were not paved at all. When Strype published his Survey of London in 1720, street paving was still so rare that he care· fully mentions each instance of it. Half a dozen seventeenth-century suburban lanes were actually named Paved Alley, which shows the importance attached to this uncommon luxury.

Gray’s Inn Road (Holborn 4). In 1294 Reginald de Grey, a member of the great legal family of Lords Grey of Wilton, acquired part of the Soke of Portpool (see Portpool Lane) and lived in its well-equipped manor house, complete with chantry, dove­ house, windmill and all the usual appurtenances. By 1370 the house was being leased out as a hostel, or inn, to students of law, who have never left it since. Gray’s Inn Road beside the Inn was the ancient route from Holborn to Highgate, ‘Greys ynne La’, leading through the fields to the isolated inn on Agas’s map of c. 1560.

Great … The prefix ‘Great” does not usually imply particular grandeur or importance in a street. It generally indicated the presence of a corresponding ‘Little’ street in the neighbourbood, although the latter has disappeared or been renamed in many cases. In the late 1930s the London County Council systematically attempted to eliminate all prefixed names from the London Directory, and hundreds of suburban ‘Greats’ were simply dropped, so that Great Coram Street for instance became plain Coram Street, and ‘Littles’ were completely renamed without any opposition. However the rule was sometimes waived when there were complaints that changing well-established names would be harmful to City businessmen or destructive of historical interest, and so the Great streets listed below can all lay claim to a certain antiquity.

Great Bell Alley (City 5) used to lead to the Bell inn in Coleman Street, first found mentioned in 1637 when Taylor, ‘the Water Poet’, relates that ‘the carriers of Cambridge doe lodge at the Bell in Coleman Street; they come every Thursday’.

Great Central Street (Marylebone Road 3). The Great Central Hotel, now the British Railways Board, was built here in the 1890s for the passengers of the new Great Central Railway terminus at Marylebone.

Great Chapel Street (Oxford Street 7). So called to distinguish it from adjacent Little Chapel Street, now Sheraton Street, which contained a French chapel used by the local Huguenot population. Thousands of French Huguenots started to emigrate to Britain in 1685 to escape the persecution which followed Louis
XIV’S Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and many of them settled in Soho, already acquiring a reputation as a place of refuge for foreigners: cf Greek Street. Their chapel was opened in 1694. It was demolished exactly 200 years later to make way for Novello’s printing works, which still occupy the site.

Great College Street (Westminster 7). Along the south side of Great College Street once ran the wall beside Westminster College. Novices had been taught at Westminster Abbey since very early times, and by the late fifteenth century the scholars were established in the premises near Great College Street which they have occupied ever since.

Great Cumberland Place (Marble Arch 3). Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland and a son of George II, crushed the Highlanders in the Jacobite uprising of 1746. His notorious brutality on the occasion gained him the nickname ‘Butcher of Culloden’ and great unpopularity both north and south of the Border. But officially he was a hero: Parliament granted him £25,000 a year, and the Tyburn Gate into Hyde Park was renamed Cumberland Gate. Great Cumberland Place, built in the 1760s, takes its name from the Gate.

Great George Street (Westminster 7) and Little George Street were approach roads created to give access to Westminster Bridge, which was opened in 1750. The streets replaced a maze of narrow slum alleys, among them George Yard attached to the George, a coaching inn which had stood there since at least 1536 and probably much earlier.

Great Guildford Street (Southwark 5). In Tudor times there was an extensive park here behind a ‘large and most sumptuous house’ with battlements, cupolas and many court­ yards, on the site of Borough under­ ground station. It belonged to Thomas Brandon, who left part of the property to Lady Jane Guildford, and part to his nephew Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, who married Henry VIII’s sister Mary in 1515. The Duke is remembered in Great Suffollt Street, on the other side of the park.

Great Ormond Street (Holborn 4). Probably after James Butler, Commander of the Royalist troops in Ireland during the Civil War. At the Restoration he was created Duke of Ormonde, Charles II’s ‘loyal duke’. He died in 1688, shortly before this street was laid out. Ormond Close was originally the mews serving the street, but is now blocks of flats.

Great Pulteney Street (Soho 7) is named after the family who have owned the property for centuries. The first Pulteney recorded in this area was called Thomas; by the year 1575 he was farming a number of scattered fields in what are now Mayfair, Soho and St James’s Park. He was succeeded in 1581 by another Thomas, probably his son, who was described simply as -‘fermour of St James’ but was quite a powerful man locally: he enclosed the old common lands ‘and now he threatens death to any that shall presume to open the same’. As the value of the fields increased with the development of the West End, the Pulteneys grew in wealth and power. In the 1720s the head of the family was William Pulteney, a prominent statesman who became Baron of Hedon (Heddon Street, Mayfair) and Earl of Bath; he leased out parts of the estate to Paul Dufour, Allen Hollen, and a carpenter called John Meard, who were responsible    for       Dufour’s P1ace, Hollen Street and Meard Street, Soho, on the Pulteney lands. In 1808 the property passed to a distant relative, Sir Richard Sutton, a descendant of Baron Lexington (Lex­ ington Street, Soho), and what re­ mains of the estate is now vested in Sir Robert Lexington Sutton, Bart.

Great Queen Street (Holborn 4) was a path across Aldwych Close at least as early as the time of Elizabeth 1: it is shown on the Agas map of c. 1560. James I adopted it as the route to his favourite residence of Theobalds (see Theobalds Road) whereupon it was called ‘the private way in Oldwitch Close for the King and Councell to passe through’. This attracted wealthy residents to the area; James came to the throne in 1603, and by 1612 the track had become ‘the first regular street in London’, wondrous to behold because all its houses were actually built of brick. About that year the ‘inhabitantes of the newe dwellinges neere Drewry Lane’ petitioned the Queen, Anne of Denmark, ‘to give a name unto that place’.

Great Russell Street (Bloomsbury 4) owes its name to the Russells, Dukes of Bedford, who inherited Bloomsbury in 1669 : see Bedford Square. The street was originally a cart­ track; the records of Bloomsbury Manor and St Giles’ Hospital indi­ cate that it existed as early as the thirteenth century as a lane along the boundary between these two estates.

Great St Helen’s (City 5) and nearby St Helen’s Place occupy the site of St Helen’s Priory, founded in about 1216.It was a favourite nunnery with rich city widows and unmarried daughters, who led gay and fashionable lives at St Helen’s even after they had taken their vows. When Henry VIII dissolved the convent it was sold to the Leathersellers’ Company, who converted the nuns’ hall into their own common hall and who still occupy the site. The medieval priory church of St Helen’s escaped the Great Fire of 1666 and is now a parish church.

Great St Thomas Apostle (Queen Street, City). The church of St Thomas Apostle was burnt down in the Great Fire of 1666, and Queen Street was then formed across the site.

Great Scotland Yard (Whitehall ). The origins of Scotland Yard are lost in legend. In 1440 it was described as ‘a parcel of land late of the King of Scotts’; the kings of Scotland were supposed to have stayed there ‘when they came to the parliament of England’. But when, and why, and for how long, they owned it, if at all, is not known. This ‘Scotland’ was a walled tract of land between Whitehall and the river. By Tudor times houses had sprawled across it, and the spaces between them were known as Little Scotland Yard (on the site of the War Office), Middle Scotland Yard (now widened and straightened and renamed Whitehall Place) and Great Scotland Yard. Scotland Place has also existed for centuries, originally as a passage and gateway linking Middle and Great Scotland Yards.

When Peel’s Police Act was passed in 1829, the Metropolitan Police Force’s first central office was set up in Scotland Yard, at 4 Whitehall Place. The force soon outgrew the premises, and in 1890 moved to new headquarters on the Victoria Embankment, known as New Scotland Yard, which is also the name of the street beside the building. But now the name is no longer appropriate, as in 1967 the Police moved again, to a larger building in Victoria Street, also known as New Scotland Yard-an odd chain of events which has taken the name ‘Scotland’ from a fifteenth century meadow beside the Thames to a concrete and glass edifice about half a mile from the original site.

Great Smith Street (Westminster 7). The Smith family owned two plots of land in Westminster. On one of them Sir James Smith built Great Smith Street in 1700. The houses in it were big and fashionable, and in the largest Sir James lived with Henry Smith, probably his son.

In 1713 Henry, who was Treasurer of the Church Commissioners, sold the other property to the Commissioners as the site for St John the Evangelist church and its churchyard, and a few years later Smith Square was built around the four sides of the churchyard.

Great Swan Alley (City 5). The White Swan inn, which occupied the corner of Coleman Street and Great Swan Alley for centuries, closed down in 1970.

Great Titchfield Street (Marylebone 4). The Dukes of Portland, once owners of the Harley estates in Marylebone, are also Marquesses of Titchfield.

Great Tower Street (City 5) leads to Tower Hill (q.v.) and the Tower of London.

Great Trinity Lane (City 5) contained the church of Holy Trinity-the-less (so called to distinguish it from Holy Trinity Priory at Aldgate), destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. A plaque in Little Trinity Lane records its site.

Great Western Road (Westbourne Park 2). This ancient track was formerly known as ‘the Green Lane’ because it wound through the fields from the Harrow Road to Westbourne Green. In 1837 the Great Western Railway Company concluded negotiations for a terminus at Paddington and purchased fields for rails and sidings on either side of the lane, which the Company widened and renamed.

Great Winchester Street (Old Broad Street 5) crosses the site of Winchester House, formerly the house, cloister and gardens of the Augustine Friars (see Austin Friars). When Henry VIII dissolved the Friary he granted it to his friend William Paulet, later 1st Marquis of Winchester and Lord High Treasurer of England. Winchester retained his office through the political oscillations of the reigns of Henry’s three children (‘by being a willow, not an oak’ as he put it) but the family fortunes were almost ruined when Elizabeth I stayed at their country home for a fortnight. Parts of Winchester House survived until the mid-nineteenth century, but it has now completely disappeared and a modern office block of the same name has taken its place.

Great Windmill Street (Soho 7) was a Tudor path leading across Windmill Field to a tall brick windmill on the site of Ham Yard, opposite the Windmill Theatre. It was probably built in about 1560, and with its long sails it is prominent on maps of the next hundred years. It disappeared in about 1690, when much of Windmill Field had been covered with houses.

Greek Street (Soho 7) took its name from the Greek Church which stood on the site of St Martin’s School of Art and the College for the Distributive Trades in Charing Cross Road, and probably had a back entrance in Greek Street. It was built for Greek refugees, who came to London during oppression by the Ottoman Turks under the Kiuprili viziers and were granted permission in 1675 ‘to Build a Church in any part of the City of London or Libertyes thereof, where they may freely exercise their Religion accord­ ing to the Greek Church’. Building began in 1677 but the Greeks abandoned the church only four years later as being ‘too remote from the abodes of most of the Grecians, (dwelling chiefly in the furthermost parts of the City)’.

Green Street (Mayfair 7). John Green, a local joiner, contracted with the Grosvenor family to build houses on a number of plots here in the 1720s, when the Grosvenor Square district was laid out for development.

Greenaway Gardens (Hampstead 1) commemorates Kate Greenaway, the children’s artist, who had a house built at 39 Frognal in 1885, when her success was established. She died there in 1901.

Greenberry Street (St John’s Wood 3). Greenberry Hill was the alternative medieval name for Barrow Hill (q.v.), and may be a corruption of Green Barrow Hill. In 1678 the body of Sir Edmund Godfrey was found in a ditch by Barrow Hill, and by a strange coincidence the three men convicted and executed for the murder – each protesting his innocence to the last were Green, Berry and Hill.

Greencoat Place and Row (Westmin­ ster 7). The Greencoat School was endowed in 1633 by the citizens of Westminster in order ‘to found an hospital where poor orphans might not only be furnished with all the necessaries of life, but instructed in manual arts’. Like other local charity institutions, the Blackcoat, Bluecoat and Greycoat Schools, the Greencoat gained its name from the colour of the orphans’ uniform, it being thought necessary that paupers should be clearly distinguished by special apparel from respectable members of society. The old building was closed in the 1870s-its site in Greencoat Row is now occupied by the Army & Navy Stores-and the school moved to its present premises nearby in Palace Street.

Greenhill (Hampstead High Street 1). Green Hill was the name of this part of the High Street in the days when fields still lined the road.

Greenhill’s Rents (Cowcross Street 5). John Greenhill and his wife Agnes owned the Castle tavern in Cowcross Street and various plots of land nearby by about 1735, when Greenhill’s Rents was built. The last of the property was sold by Edith Minnie Greenhill in 1920.

Greenwell Street (Cleveland Street 4). Early maps show a pond on this site, but no wells, green or otherwise: the name was given in 1937 to commemorate the Greenwell family, prominent in the parish of St Marylebone for over a hundred years, especially James Hugo Greenwell and his son Walpole Eyre Greenwell, who were Vestry Clerks in the nineteenth century.

Greenwood Place (Kentish Town 8). Thomas Greenwood was an eighteenth-century landlord of the Bull and Gate Inn, still standing in Kentish Town Road. He also held the adjoining meadow, and started to build this street on it in 1786.

Gregory Place (Kensington 6). In 1829 John Gregory esquire of Kensington Square bought the site of Gregory Place, along with three cottages in Kensington Church Street.

Grenville Place (Kensington 6). Part of the Holland family’s estate: see Holland Park, Kensington.

Grenville Street (Bloomsbury 4). Part of the grounds of Captain Coram’s Foundling Hospital.

Gresham Street (City 5) is dedicated to an Elizabethan merchant, Sir Thomas Gresham, politician, courtier and skilled financier, who has had a greater influence on the business life of the City than any other citizen: in

1565 he founded the Royal Exchange, whlch led to London becoming the financial centre of Europe. He also founded Gresham College, which moved here in 1843, whereupon the Street was named after him.

Gresse Street (near Tottenham Court Road 4) belonged to Peter Gaspard Gresse and his son John Alexander Gresse, the painter-known as Jack Grease because of his corpulence­ who was appointed drawing master to the royal princesses in 1777. The Gresses owned a mansion and gardens on this site, which they converted into Gresse Street and Stephen Street in 1767 in partnershlp with a neighbour, Stephen Caesar Lemaistre.

Greville Place and Road (Kilburn 1) were once the Abbey Field, formerly the grounds of Kilburn Priory. By the beginning of the nineteenth century Abbey Field belonged to Col­ onel Fulke Greville Howard, a son of Lord Templetown, who laid out the streets in 1820 in partnership with Thomas Hill Morthner of Albany, Piccadilly; hence also Mortimer Crescent and Place.

Greycoat Place and Street (Westminster 7). In Greycoat Place stands the charming Greycoat School, restored after bombing to the appearance it must have had when newly built in 1701. It was one of the Westminster charity schools founded ‘for the education of poor children in the principles of the Christian religion’, and was named from the colour of the uniform: cf Greencoat Place. The boys wore long grey coats and the girls dresses of dark grey, until the foundation was reorganised and became a girls’ school in the 1870s.

Greyfriars Passage (City 5) and the ground around it (now the General Post Office) became the home of the Franciscan Grey Friars soon after they crossed to England in 1224. The life of utter simplicity and poverty which they led so impressed the Londoners that wealthy citizens vied with each other in endowing the friary and leaving it generous gifts. As a result the Grey Friars were found to have great stores of treasure when the monastery was dissolved. Unlike most monastic hoards, the wealth did not go straight into the royal coffers. Edward VI decided to use it to found an orphanage called Christ’s Hospital, which occupied the friary site until moving to Horsham in 1897: hence King Edward Street. The Friary church-now a bombed shell -was opened to the public as Christ Church.

Greyhound Court (near the Strand 4), built about 1670, must have been named from a house or inn sign; there were several ‘Greyhounds’ in and near the Strand at different times.

Greystroke Place (Fetter Lane 5). Probably from an eighteenth-century property owner.

Grocers’ Hall Court (Poultry, City). The hall of the Grocers’ Company, the 2nd of the 12 Great Livery Companies, has stood here since 1427. Grocers were then powerful merchants dealing in the oriental spices and drugs essential for alleviating the medieval diet.

Groom Place (Belgravia 7) was named after the Horse & Groom pub here.

Grosvenor Square, Cottages, Crescent, Gardens, Gate, Hill, Place, Road and Street (Mayfair, Bel­ gravia and Pimlico). The story of the immensely valuable Grosvenor family estates in London starts with Hugh Audley, who was born in 1577 and died at the venerable age of 85 in 1662. He started his career as a law student of humble origin, but before long revealed a talent for making the utmost profit from all his transactions. He accumulated vast estates all over the country, including one manor which a lesser businessman would have dismissed as worthless. This was Ebury, an extensive flat rural holding, its fields inundated by the Thames, its few inhabitants shepherds and tenant farmers, its lanes infested with thieves and its main produce osiers. It is now Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico the most valuable single estate in Britain.

Audley outlived most of his family, and bequeathed his properties to remote relatives and friends. Ebury fell to his great-nephew Alexander Davies, whose only child was a daughter, Mary. As Audley’s heiress she was a considerable prize on the marriage market, and at the tender age of seven she was offered to the equally young son and heir of Lord Berkeley, whose property adjoined her own – for £5,000. When Lord Berkeley found himself unable to pay, her family considered the Grosvenors.

At that time, it is true, the Grosvenors were mere baronets, but they claimed descent from William the Conqueror’s nephew, the original ‘Gros Veneur’, Great Hunter, and they had considerable estates in Chester. So 12-year-old Mary was married off to Sir Thomas Grosvenor and moved to his family seat, Eaton Hall in Cheshire. There she found herself the mistress not only of Eaton itself but also of Halkin Castle, their neighbouring seat, and of local villages, Belgrave, Eccleston, Kinner­ ton, Minera, Waverton, Claverton, Balderton, Aldford, Churton and Beeston.

Sir Thomas and Mary had three sons, Sir Richard, Sir Thomas and Sir Robert, who each succeeded to the baronetcy and in the 1720s started to develop the Mayfair section of Ebury. In the centre they placed Grosvenor Square, entered by Grosvenor Street and Upper Grosvenor Street, and close by built Davies Street, named after their mother, and North and South Audley Streets. Also in Mayfair are Waverton Street, Aldford Street and Balderton Street.

Sir Robert’s son was created Earl Grosvenor, and his son, another Robert, was raised higher in the peerage as 1st Marquess of Westminster – the title chosen because Ebury lies inthe City of Westminster. He undertook the difficult feat of draining and developing the rest of the manor, beginning in the 1820s with Belgrave Square and streets radiating from it: Halkin and West Halkin Streets, and Kinnerton Street. Wilton Place, Crescent and Terrace are named after his wife, the daughter of the Earl of Wilton. Working southwards he laid out Eaton Square and Place, Eccleston Street and Place, Beeston Place and Minera Mews. By this time his son, the future 2nd Marquess, had married Elizabeth, daughter of the Duke of Sutherland (Elizabeth Street and Sutherland Street). Through the Sutherland family came properties in Dorset and Bucks which gave their names to Motcomb Street, Semley Place and Cliveden Place.

Last to be urbanised was Pimlico, begun in the 1830s, where Hugh Street and Lupus Street commemorate the infant Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, son of the 2nd Marquess and eventually 1st Duke of Westminster and father-in-law of Lady Lumley: hence Lumley Street. With the exception of Pimlico, auctioned in 1950, the estate remains the property of the Grosvenors. The present owner is Sir Robert Grosvenor, 5th Duke of Westminster, Viscount Belgrave and Baron Grosvenor of Eaton.

Grotto Passage (Marylebone 3). ‘At Marybon is to be seen, Castle’s great and inimitable GROTTO, or SHELL-WORK, SO much admir’d by the Curious’, ran a newspaper announce­ ment of 1748. The Grotto was on 1½ acres of field on the north side of Moxon Street, and Grotto Passage occupies part of the site. The shell exhibition was opened in 1738 ‘by Mr Castle, the Gentleman who presented his Majesty with his Arms in Shell-work, and who made the Grotto in the Garden belonging to Sir Robert Walpole at Chelsea’. Offering meals and various entertainments, the Grotto was a great success; it even attracted the royal princesses and their brother Cumberland. After their visit it became the Royal Grotto, and the entrance fee rose from a shilling to half a crown. John Castle died in 1757, and not long afterwards the Grotto was closed and built over.

Grove. A grove is defined as a small wood or group of trees. Eighteenth and early nineteenth-century maps of Highgate Village all indicate two or more rows of trees in front of the houses now called The Grove (8), and there are still limes and chestnuts there today. Grove Terrace, Highgate Road 8, takes its name from a plantation of chestnuts which faced it on the other side of Highgate Road until about a century ago, in what are now the grounds of the Parliament Hill and William Ellis schools. Grove Place Hampstead 1, must be named from the little grove of trees marked on the site on Rocque’s map of 1745: see Plate VII. This is confirmed by the Hampstead Manor records for 1805, which mention ‘a place called the Grove near Squire’s Mount’.

Grove End Road (St John’s Wood 3) is shown on early maps as St John’s Wood Lane, a winding country track to the old farm on the site of St John’s Wood Station. It is the continuation of Lisson Grove.

Guildhall Buildings and Yard (City 5). The Guildhall is the seat of government of the City of London. ‘Guild’ derives from ‘geld’, ‘money­payment’, and was a mutual aid society to which medieval citizens subscribed. Men of the same trade tended to join the same guild, and there are still 84 separate trade and craft guilds in the City. There was a Guildhall in London by about 1130, and parts of the present building date back as far as 1411.

Guildhouse Street (Pimlico 7). So named in 1936. There was a guildhouse in Eccleston Square, backing on to this street, from 1922 until 1949.

Guilford Place and Street (Blooms­ bury 4). Guilford Street was formed in 1792 on part of the old track from the windmill at Windmill Street to Captain Coram’s Foundling Hospital. It is named after ex-Prime Minister North, created Earl of Guilford, who died that year: see Coram Street, Bloomsbury. Guilford Place was begun a little earlier, to provide a dignified approach to the Hospital gates.

Guinness Court (St John’s Wood 3). Edward Cecil Guinness,Earl of Iveagh, once chairman of the famous Dublin brewery, is best remembered by Londoners for buying the 76-acre Kenwood in 1925 in order to make it a public open space. He also established the Guinness Trust for building working-class homes in London and Dublin. The Trust dwellings in Guinness Court were erected in 1965.

Gunter Grove (Earl’s Court 6). The founder of the Gunter family fortunes was James Gunter, who started to buy fields in Earl’s Court, Chelsea and Fulham in about 1803. Several street names recall places in his native Breconshire: Tregunter, Gwendwr, Talgarth, Gilston, and Glazbury Roads. His son Robert Gunter founded Gunter’s, the caterers, and the family house at Earl’s Court was nicknamed Currant Jelly Hall. It was Robert’s son, Colonel Sir Robert Gunter, who developed the lands in Earl’s Court and Chelsea in the mid-nineteenth century. Settling at Wetherby Grange, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, he was MP for Knaresborough and Barkston Ash. His wife came from Gledhow Hall, also in the West Riding of Yorkshire, which explains the number of West Riding street names on the estate: Westgate Terrace, Slaidburn Street, Laverton Place, Bramham Gardens, Collingbam Gardens, Place and Road, Harley Gardens, Netherton Grove and Wharfedale Street. Edith Grove and Terrace commemorate his little sister who died in infancy, and Priory Walk the family property at Abergavenny Priory in Monmouthshire.

Guthrie Street (Chelsea 6) was built not long after the death of George James Guthrie (1785-1856), the surgeon. As an army doctor during the Napoleonic wars he introduced new treatments for amputations and gunshot wounds, and after Waterloo worked without pay for the soldiers maimed in the battle, who were brought to a hospital near the site of this street.

Gutter Lane (City 5) was Godrun Lane in about 1180. Godrun was probably a Norse property owner here.

Gwynne Place (King’s Cross Road 4). Just opposite tills point in King’s Cross Road stood a seventeenth­century mansion called Bagnigge House, demolished about 1862 traditionally supposed to have been Nell Gwynne’s summer residence. It is said that she stayed there because it was conveniently close to the Cold Bath (see Coldbath Square) where she was wont to bathe.

Hadley Street (Kentish Town 8) was begun in 1859 on an unsightly brickfield. Origin of name unknown.

Half Moon Court (Bartholomew Close, City) led to the Half Moon in Aldersgate Street, demolished 1879, a favourite tavern of Sixteenth-century actors and writers. Ben Janson called for a glass of sack there one day, but finding the tavern closed he had to go to the Sun in Long Lane instead, and wrote:

Since the Half Moon is so unkind

To make me go about,

The Sun my money now shall have, And the Moon shall go without.

Half Moon Street (Piccadilly 7). John Strype, describing this end of Piccadily in 1720, wrote that ‘these Houses, for the generality, are Inns or publick Houses of Entertainment’; some were busy coaching llms for the West, others were low taverns serving the dubious clientele who flocked to Mayfair (q.v.) at fair time and finally stayed all year. One of the latter type was the ‘Halfmoone at May ffair’, besidr which this street was built a few years later. The Half Moon was still standing in 1780 but disappeared not long afterwards when the advance of the respectable West End swept away the old Piccadilly taverns.

Halkin Place and Street (Belgravia 7). After Halkin Castle, a seat of the Grosvenor family who also own Belgravia: see Grosvenor Square.

Hall Place (Paddington 3). The sizeable estate later known as Hall Park once belonged to heiress Elizabeth Crompton, last of a long-established family of Paddington landowners. In 1773 she married Edward Hall, Secretary of the Whig Club, and they lived in a house on the north side of Paddington Green, previously the home of Captain Alexander Campbell of the East India Company and now the Paddington Technical College. Their son Benjamin married Jane Brathwaite of Adpar at Newcastle Emlyn in Cardiganshire. The family lived at Paddington Green until the estate was developed in 1858 by Benjamin and Jane’s son Cuthbert Collingwood Hall, and his wife Sarah Howell. The streets built were Hall Place, Cuthbert Street, Campbell Street, Newcastle Place, Crompton Street, Howell Street, Braithwaite Place and Adpar Street.

Hall Road (Maida Vale 3). William Hall, a builder who lived nearby in Grove End Road, erected several fine houses in spacious grounds here in about 1820. But unfortunately he failed to attract the rich to this remote area; there was only the occasional farmhouse between here and Hampstead village, and the only road was Grove End Road, still very new, which degenerated into a farm track beyond this point. Hall is said to have died a bankrupt in Marylebone Poor House.

Hall Street (City Road 5). This land belonged to Joseph E. Hall of Goswell Road and James Charles Hall, a cornchandler, probably his son, who lived at Islington Green. They built the street in 1822.

Hallam Street (Marylebone 4). After Henry Hallam (1777-1859), the historian, who used to live close by at 67 Wimpole Street. His reputation was established by A View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, for which he has been hailed as the father of the modern historical method. He also wrote pamphlets and articles on Marylebone and its history.

Ham Yard (Great Windmill Street, Soho). The Ham & Windmill Inn (renamed the Lyric Tavern in 1892) stood here by about 1730. It occupies exactly the site of the Tudor mill which gave its name to Great Windmill Street.

Hamilton Place (Piccadilly 7). James Hamilton was Groom of the Bedchamber to Charles II, and the king’s ‘boon companion’. As a mark of friendship Charles gave him the honorary post of Ranger of Hyde Park and later the slice of land taken from the corner of Hyde Park on which Hamilton Place now stands. Hamilton was fatally injured in 1679 in a sea battle with the Dutch and is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Hammel Street (Minories, City) was the home of Benjamin Hammet, a haberdasher by trade, who built the street in 1771, the period when George Dance’s fine houses in adjacent Vine Street had just been completed. Hammet was an important figure locally, being elected Alderman of this ward, Portsoken, and also Master of the Haberdashers’ Company, in 1785. He was knighted the following year and elected Lord Mayor of London in 1797.

Hampden Gurney Street (Marylebone 3). John Hampden Gurney is described by the Dictionary of National Biography as ‘a most earnest and popular preacher’. He was the rector at nearby St Mary’s, Bryanston Square, from 1847 until his death in 1862, and this street was given his name shortly after he died.

Hampstead (I) was Hamsted in King Edgar’s Charter of 975, ‘a home place’; the pis a much later intrusion. Hampstead Lane was an early medieval track dividing Hampstead Manor from the Bishop of London’s park in Hornsey. The Bishops charged a toll from travellers using the lane, and erected a gate house at either end of it: one is now the Gatehouse Tavern at Highgate, the other the building which obstructs traffic outside the Spaniards Inn. Hampstead Road (4), the continuation of Tottenham Court Road, is equally old, and was the only route from Westminster to Hampstead village for centuries. Two miles further north the same track is called Hampstead High Street. Just outside the village is Hampstead Green, still overlooking the ancient Green. Hampstead Grove is described in the manorial-rolls for 1805 as ‘a piece or parcel of Ground called the Grove or Plantation of Trees’, These trees are shown on Rocque’s map of 1745 on Plate VII. Hampstead Square was so called by the 1740s. Hampstead Hill Gardens is relatively modern, datmg from about 1869.

Hand Court (High Holborn 4). ‘Hand Court for Hand Tailoring’ reads a modern sign at the entrance to the court, unconsciously reviving the advertising techniques of three hundred years ago, when this alley was first built: the Hand was then a common shop-sign, usually drawn with a trade article, such as Hand and Glove for a glover, or Hand and Shears, for a tailor.

Handel Street (Bloomsbury 4). After the musician: see Coram Street, Bloomsbury.

Hanging Sword Alley (Whitefriars Street, City). From a large Tudor house on the comer of Whitefriars Street and Fleet Street known by the sign of the Hanging Sword. It may have been a fencing school-White friars was the quarter of the fencing masters.

Hanover.The year 1714 was a time of triumph for the Whig party, as it saw the Hanoverian George I, whose favour the party had prudently been cultivating, safely installed on the throne of England. Lord Scar borough, a retired Whig general, went one better than his contemporaries in welcoming the king by building Hanover Square and Street, George Street (now St George Street) and Princes Street on a field which he owned on the south side of Oxford Street (4). Many of the early residents of Hanover Square were eminent Whigs. The Tory counterpart was Cavendish Square facing it on the other side of Oxford Street:
see Queen Anne Street.

Hanover Place (Long Acre) took its name from Hanover Street (now part of Endell Street) which was finished three years after the Hanoverian accession.

Hans Crescent, Place, Road and Street (Chelsea 7). After Sir Hans Sloane the famous physician and founder of the Chelsea Botanic Gardens. He was Lord of the Manor of Chelsea, which passed to his daughter Lady Cadogan: see Cadogan, Chelsea.

Hanson Street (Marylebone 4). During his year of office as Lord Mayor of London in 1887, Sir Reginald Hanson opened the nearby Cleveland Street extension of the Middlesex Hospital Medical School.

Hanway Place and Street (Oxford Street 4). Major John Hanway, known as ‘Justice Hanway’ the local magistrate to the inhabitants of Marylebone, had a house in Oxford Street in the early years of the eighteenth century behind which Hanway Street, one of the first streets north of Oxford Street, was built in about 1720. The Major’s other claim to fame is as the patron of his nephew Jonas. Jonas Hanway, besides being a famous traveller and philanthropist, was notorious as the first man to carry an umbrella in the streets of London; which made Dr Johnson remark that Hanway ‘acquired some reputation by travelling abroad, but lost it all by travelling at home’.

Harben Road (Hampstead 1). Sir Henry Harben (1823-1911), the actuary who pioneered life assurance for the working classes, is remembered in Hampstead as President of the Hampstead Heath Extension Scheme, which secured Parliament Hill and Golders Hill as public open spaces. He was elected Hampstead’s first mayor in 1900.

Harcourt. Harcourt Buildings in the Temple was begun in 1703, when Sir Simon Harcourt was Treasurer of the Inner Temple. Ten years later he was appointed Lord Chancellor although only very briefly: as a suspected Jacobite he was dismissed as soon as George I arrived in England. Nevertheless he remains the only Chancellor whose name is preserved in a Temple building.

Sir Simon’s great-great-nephew was John Simon Harcourt of Anderwycke in Berkshire, ‘an opulent gentleman’ and MP for Ilchester, who in 1791 bought the old manor house (now St Dunstan’s) at Lisson village near Marylebone, along with a few acres of farm land for intended development. Part of this building land was leased to his step-father Admiral Molyneux Lord Shuldham, a veteran of the Seven Years’ War and the American War of Independ­ ance. Other plots went to Edward Homer esquire of Marylebone and John Watson, a Pentonville carpen­ ter. Hence Harcourt Street, Molyneux Street, Shouldham Street, Homer Row and Watson’s Mews, near Lisson Grove (3).

Harcourt Terrace, Earl’s Court , probably commemorates the Reverend Leveson Vernon Harcourt (1788-1860) Chancellor of York and a great-great-grandson of Lord Chancellor Harcourt. He was a business associate of the Gunter family when they were developing their extensive estates here in the 1850s and 60s: see Gunter Grove, Earl’s Court.

Hare Court (Temple 5) was built at the expense of Sir Nicholas Hare, a prominent judge specialising in treason cases in the reign of Mary I; he tried Sir Nicholas Throgmorton (of Throgmorton Street) for the crime of imagining the queen’s death, and a number of conjurors for using black magic to try to kill the queen. He was buried in the Temple Church in 1557.

Harewood Avenue and Row (Marylebone 3) were on the Portman estate. In 1827 the 1st Viscount Portman married Emma, one of the daughters of the Earl of Harewood: see Portman Square, Marylebone.

Harewood Place (Oxford Street 7). From Harewood House, an Adam mansion which was the town residence of the Earls of Harewood for exactly a century from 1795. Harewood House has since been rebuilt and now belongs to the BBC.

Harley Street (Marylebone 4). Edward Harley, best remembered as the compiler of the Harleian Library now in the British Museum, was the son of Robert Harley, Tory Prime Minister from 1711 until Queen Anne on her deathbed dismissed him. In 1713 Edward married Lady Henrietta Cavendish, and thus acquired The Harley Estate, Marylebone
consisting of the ancient manor of Tyburn, or Marylebone, bounded roughly by Oxford Street, Marylebone Lane, Regent’s Park and Cleveland Street, with a detached portion north of Regent’s Park. It had been purchased in 1710 by John Holies, whose son-in-law Harley began the development of the land in 1717. He and his successors named almost every street after family connections.

Harroood Place and Street (Chalk Farm 8). The records of the Manor of Tottenham Court show that Henry and Mary Hannood were admitted tenants of the manor for a field here in about 1800. This street was built some 30 years later.

Harp Alley (Farringdon Street 5). From a seventeenth-century house with the sign of the Harp.

Harp Lane (City 5) took its name from a Tudor house here called Je Harpe.

Harpur Street (Holborn 4). After Sir William Harpur, founder of Bedford School: see Bedford Row.

Harrington Gardens and Road (South Kensington 6). The Stanhopes, Earls of Harrington and Viscounts Petersham, from Elvaston Castle in Derbyshire, owned considerable property in South Kensington. It is not known when they acquired it, but there was a field called ‘Stanhoppescrofte’ in the neighbourhood as early as 1535. The 11th Earl sold the estate, which included Harrington Road, Stanhope Gardens, Petersham Place and Elvaston Place, in 1957.

Harrington Square and Street (Hampstead Road 4). Although these two streets are only a few hundred yards apart, they have separate origins. The Street, on the west side of Hampstead Road, is situated on the Fitzroy family estate, while the Square on the other side of Hampstead Road, was part of the inqeritance ofthe Dukes of Bedford. The former was named after the marriage of the 2nd Earl of Harrington to Caroline Fitzroy in 1746, while the latter commemorates the union between their granddaughter Anna Maria and the 7th Duke of Bedford in 1808.

Harrow Place (Middlesex Street 5). From a seventeenth-century inn-sign showing a harrow, a memento of Middlesex Street’s rural days; an Elizabethan writer records that Middlesex Street, then called Hog Lane because of the local pig-farms, had ‘on both sides fair hedge rows of elm trees, with bridges and easy stiles to pass over into the pleasant fields’.

Harrow Road (Paddington 2-3). A very old track, thought to be pre­ Roman by some experts, winding from Paddington to Harrow.

Hart Street (City 5), recorded as Herthstrete in 1348, was probably the street where hearthstones, large flat slabs on which the household fire was carefully tended, were made and sold.

Harvey’s Buildings (Strand). The John Harvey who gave his name to this alley was a fairly important personage since the parish ratebooks describe him as ‘Esq’, a rare honour in the 1670s, and one year even as ‘Right Honourable’. He owned a large house in the Strand, probably built around a central courtyard, which he subdivided in about 1679 and let as three or four smaller houses. Two years afterwards the courtyard became known as Harvey’s Court, and when the memory of the original courtyard was lost the name changed to Harvey’s Buildings.

Hasker Street (Chelsea 7). Thomas Hasker ‘of the General Post Office London esquire’ started to buy up plots ofiand in Chelsea in 1813. Later he leased the property to John Bull, a builder: hence Bull’s Gardens. His son, the Reverend George Hasker, built Hasker Street in about 1845.

Hat & Mitre Court (St John Street (5) A Mitre Tavern, later called the Hat & Mitre, is listed here in eighteenth century Licensed Victuallers records and stood on the north corner with St John Street. A Mitre is the hat worn by an abbot, and is often found as an inn-sign in localities with ecclesiastical associations; this site was close to both the Charterhouse Monastery and St John’s Priory. The change of name is interesting. It indicates that the clientele knew through oral tradition that their inn was called the Mitre, but being ignorant of the meaning of the word tried to reconcile the name with an inn-sign which clearly depicted a hat.

Hatfield Street (Golden Lane 5) was built in about 1722 and is probably named after the builder.

Hatfields (Southwark 5) is said to be the site of the fields where beaver skins were prepared for the manufacture of hats.

Hatherley Grove (Paddington 2) occupies a 1-acre plot which was bequeathed to the poor of the parish along with two other neighbouring fields by two maiden gentlewomen of Paddington. The ground was known as the Bread and Cheese Lands, because the income provided bread and cheese which was thrown to the local paupers from Paddington church steeple on the Sunday before Christmas. In 1870 this site was leased to Charles Hatherley, a Pirnlico surgeon, who began to build the Grove the following year. Since then the custom of devoting the profits from the estate to the deserving poor of the neighbourhood has been lost.

Hatherley Street (Westminster 7). Named in honour of Lord Chancellor Hatherley, ‘a sound lawyer and a high-minded Christian’, known as ‘the lay Bishop of Westminster’ be­ cause he was a resident of George Street, Westminster (where he died in 1881) and took a great interest in local affairs.

Hatton Garden, Place and Wall (Holborn 5). Sir Christopher Hatton, ‘Elizabeth’s dancing chancellor’, first came to the Queen’s notice when he was Master of the Game at the Inner Temple and produced a grand students’ entertainment for the Court:

Sir Christopher Hatton he danced with grace,

He’d a very fine form, and a very fine face

and these were the qualifications that made him Lord Chancellor. Sir Christopher wanted a town mansion befitting his importance, and decided on Ely House in Holborn. The Bishop of Ely already lived there, but no matter. The Queen demanded part of it for Sir Christopher, whosoon took over most of the house and all of the beautiful gardens, leaving the Bishop only the area now called Ely Place (q.v.).

Hatton House passed down through the family to a third Christopher Hatton, who was created Baron Hatton of Kirby in 1643 and followed Charles II into exile. But exile was expensive, and Hatton House and the grounds had to be sold. By 1659 the Bishop of Ely’s famous garden had become Hatton Garden, Hatton Wall had replaced the high thatched north wall of the property shown on Plate I, and Kirby Street was begun. Hatton Plitce was originally Hat & Tun Yard, from the Hat & Tun pub still standing on the comer, whose signboard was a rebus on the name of Hatton.

Hatton Row and Street (Marylebone 3) date from about 1830, and are probably named after the builder.

Haunch of Venison Yard (Mayfair 7). A Haunch of Venison tavern was built at the entrance to the yard in the 1720s when Mayfair was first developed, and survived until 1910.

Haven Street (Kentish Town 8). An abbreviation of Castlehaven Road, its parent street.

Haverstock Hill and Road (South Hampstead 8). Haverstock is one of the earliest names in the district, so old that its origin cannot now be traced.It may have beenintrcduced by Saxon wanderers from the north or east of Britain, since ‘stock’ is not a suffix generally found in this part of England.

Hawley Road, Crescent and Street (Kentish Town 8). The Hawley estate at Kentish Town was a 40-acre meadow watered by two tributaries of the Fleet, ‘adjoining ye sign of ye Castle’ (see Castle Road). It was held by Dr James Hawley of Leybourne Grange, Kent, in 1761. His son Sir Henry Hawley went into partnership with Lewis Buck of Hartland Abbey in Devon, and laid the land out as picturesque gardens in 1815. This labour was doomed to complete obliteration when their respective descendants, Sir Joseph Hawley and George Stucley Buck, built Leybourne Road, Lewis Street, Buck Street, Hartland Road and Stucley Place in about
1850. Torbay Street, also on the estate, was given a Devon placename in 1879 by analogy with Hartland Road.

Hay Hill (Mayfair 7). An ancient local name. In 1531 it was Ayehille, referring to the ridge of hill between Hyde Park and the Aye Brook, otherwise known as the Tyburn: see Aybrook Street. By the 1690s it was Hay Hill Farm, the property of Lord Berkeley. The modern Hay Hill was then a track leading to the farm, along which Lord Berkeley’s carts had right of way; at the bottom of the hill was probably a wooden bridge over the Tyburn, which had to be crossed to reach the farm. Most of the streets on Hay Hill Farm now bear Berkeley family names (see Berkeley Square), but Hay’s Mews, Hill Street and Farm Street, all built about 1750, are mementos of its rural days.

Hay’s Lane (Bermondsey 5) was part of the grounds of the Abbot of Battle’s medieval inn (see Battle Bridge Lane). After the dissolution of the monasteries, lay buildings spread over the site, and in 1651 Alexander Hay took over the lease of a brew­ house there. His sons became wharfingers as well as brewers, and founded the giant Hay’s Wharf complex of companies. The seventh and last of the family to own it was Francis Theodore Hay, an eccentric who resided at Hayes in Middlesex because of its name, and commuted daily all the way to Hay’s Lane. He died in 1838.

Hayden’s Place (North Kensington 2) was the yard built in 1863 by William Hayden, who was employed by the parish to keep the then newly-built streets of North Kensington cleansed and watered.

Hayes Place (Marylebone 3). This little alley belonged to Francis Theodore Hay of Hayes, in Middlesex, who also owned Hay’s Lane, Bermondsey (q.v.). Hay purchased the plot of land from the Portman family of Portman Square in 1819, when it was still open field, and soon laid it out for building.

Haymarket (7). A Tudor or perhaps even medieval track, so called because of ‘The Market for Hay and Straw, here kept every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.’ Congestion was severe on those days-in one month in 1774 over 1300 carts attended – but the market was allowed to continue here, with ever­increasing trade, until 1830. By that time a new market place, Cumberland Market near Regent’s Park, had been built to replace it.

Hayne Street (Long Lane 5) was so named in 1871 after Hayne’s the mahogany merchants, formerly on the corner of Long Lane and Hayne Street. Several generations of Haynes, carpenters and timber merchants, lived and worked here.

Hayward’s Place (Clerkenwell 5) was built in about 1845 and belonged to James Hayward, an ironmonger whose business premises in Aylesbury Street backed onto Hayward’s Place. He was also a churchwarden at nearby St James’s Church.

Headfort Place (Belgravia 7). Originally Pembroke Mews; renamed by the London County Council in 1931 to stop confusion with Pembroke Mews in Kensington. The renamers must have consulted Wheatley and Cunningham’s invaluable London Past and Present published in 1891, found the Marquis of Headfort listed among the then residents of nearby Belgrave Square, and decided to name the street after him.

Healey Street (Kentish Town 8) was crammed onto an ex-brickfield in the 1860s and named after Francis Healey JP of Euston Grove. Healey represented this district on the Parish Vestry and the Metropolitan Board of Works, a predecessor of the Greater London Council.

Heath Brow, Drive, Side, Street and Heath Hurst Road (Hampstead 1) all obviously take their names from Hampstead’s most famous feature, although Heath Drive is a little distant from the open spaces now. Heath Brow, behind Jack Straw’s Castle, is on the highest point of tbe heath. Heath Street was Hampstead’s main road, leading from the village out on to the heath. Sir Spencer Maryon Wilson, the Lord of Hampstead Manor,- intended to turn the heath over to the builders at the end of the nineteenth century, but Londoners opposed him strenuously and finally won its 800 acres for the public for ever.

Heathcock Court (off the Strand). There used to be a carved stone heathcock at the entrance to this narrow court, but it was removed in 1844. Ultimately the name must
derive from an inn sign, perhaps indicating that these game-birds were a speciality of the house.

Heathcote Street (Gray’s Inn Road 4) is built on the grounds of Captain Coram’s Foundling Hospital.

Heathfleld Street (North Kensington 2) was built in the 1840s, during the earliest wave of development north of Holland Park Avenue. It belonged to William Heathfield and Son of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a family of solicitors who probably decided to invest in land here at the first signs of its future value as a building site.

Helmet Court (Wormwood Street 5) was bequeathed in 1729 to the Curriers’ Company, on condition that the profits should go to aged curriers Oeatherdxessers) and their widows. The houses were rebuilt in 1760 and a stone carving of the Curriers’ coat of arms, which includes a helmet, can still be seen.

Hemstal Road (West Hampstead I) crosses the site of a field called the Hemstal, a local dialect word mean ing ‘farm stead’. There is no known record of the farmhouse that provided the source of the name. The Hemstal is first mentioned in the Hampstead Manor Rolls in the mid­ eighteenth century, but there is no sign of any building remaining on the site of Rocque’s Survey, which was made at the same period.

Hen & Chickens Court (Fleet Street 5) takes its name from one of the many inns which used to line Fleet Street.

Henniker Mews (Chelsea 6). After the Henniker Wilsons of Chelsea Park.

Henrietta Place (Marylebone 4). Lady Henrietta Cavendish was heiress to the Marylebone Manor lands, and the wife of Edward Harley: see Harley Street.

Henrietta Street (Covent Garden 4). After Queen Henrietta Maria: see King Street, Covent Garden.

Henry Dickens Court (North Ken­ sington 2). Henry Dickens was the Chairman of the local Housing Committee when this estate was begun in 1950. He was the grandson of Charles Dickens and the father of Monica Dickens; hence the Dickensian names of the blocks of flats: Copperfield, Dombey, Pickwick, Carton, Marley, Estella, Agnes, Dora, Florence and Dorrit.

Herbal Hill and Place (Holborn 5). Tudor Holborn was a notedly fertile area, famous for its gardens, vines and herbs: see Ely Place, Vine Hill, and Saffron Hill. It was near here that John Gerard, an Elizabethan herbalist, carefully cultivated a garden which he catalogued minutely in 1596–the first known catalogue of this sort. A year later came his Herbal/, after which the Hill and Place were named in 1936 and 1938.

Herbert Crescent (Chelsea 7) was named in 1886 after Sir Herbert Stewart, who was involved in re building this part of Chelsea for the Cadogan (q.v.) family at that period.

Herbert Street (Kentish Town 8) takes its name from Vincent Herbert, a Hoxton builder who acquired sites for development all along the west side of Queen’s Crescent when the area was divided into building lots in the 1850s.

Herbrand Street (Bloomsbury 4) follows the course of a ditch dividing the Duke of Bedford’s land from the grounds of the Foundling Hospital.

Hereford Square (South Kensington 6) covered the gardens behind Hereford Lodge, one of the country villas which used to line Old Brompton Road. The building of Brechin Place in the 1880s obliterated all traces of the lodge.

Heriot Place (Kentish Town 8). Joseph Jennings Heriot, the owner of an ironmonger’s store in Long Acre, -retired from business in 1857 and probably invested his savings in plots of building laod in this newly developing part of Kentish Town, near his home in Kentish Town Road.

Hermes Street (Pentonville 5). Dr Francis Pahuo de Valangin was an eccentric physician born in Berne in about 1719, who came to live in England in 1772 and bought a plot of land on the rural heights of Pentonville. He built an odd but pleasant house there on a mound he called Hermes Hill, after the fabled discoverer of chemistry, Hermes Trismegistus. The site of the house is now a dismal patch cleared for development beside St Silas Church.

Hermit Place (Kilburn 1). After Godwyn, the hermit who founded Kilburn Priory (q.v.).

Hermit Street (Clerkenwell (5) was once Hermitage Field: see Owen Street, Clerkenwell.

Herrick Street (Westminster 7) was named in memory of Robert Herrick (1591-1674), the poet, who was deeply attached to London and Westminster but had to spend most of his life as a rural parson. He was released from this ‘long and dreary banishment’ as he called it, when he was deprived of his living during Cromwell’s rule and could at last ‘make way to my beloved Westminster’ where he lived happily until the Restoration.

Hertford Street (Mayfair 7), formed in 1764, probably took its name from an inn-sign: a Hertford Arms and also a Lord Hertford Arms had been built close by some twenty years previously. Charles Lord Hertford, Duke of Somerset (1662-1748), known as ‘the proud Duke’, ‘a man in whom the pride of birth and rank amounted almost to disease’, was one of George II’s Councillors.

Hesketh Place (North Kensington 2) probably belonged to, or was named in honour of, Sir Thomas Hesketh, MP for Preston, who lived in Kensington at 7 Roland Gardens during the 1870s.

Hesper Mews (South Kensington 6) was named in 1882. Origin unknown.

Hewer Street (North Kensington 2). Alfred Hewer was the Secretary of the Land and House Investment Society, which developed the fields of Portobello Farm into rows of featureless streets in the 1860s.

High Holborn (4) was the higher part of the Roman road which led up from the valley of the Bourne in the Hollow. A misnomer now, since ‘Low Holborn’ or Holborn Hill, the steep hill descending into the hollow, has been replaced by Holborn Viaduct, carrying the roadway above the old stream-bed.

High Timber Street (Broken Wharf, City) is a corruption of the name Timberhithe, found as early as King John’s reign (1199-1216). This was the hithe, or harbour, for timber cargoes.

Highgate (8) rises to 400 feet above sea level and is the highest point for miles around. The gate was a tollgate erected by fourteenth-century Bishops of London in their capacity as Lords of the Manor of Hornsey. On entering the Manor all travellers were charged at one of three check­ points : the first was the Gatehouse Tavern at Highgate, the second was the tollhouse outside the Spaniards Inn in Hampstead Lane, and the third lay at the far end of the Bishop’s Avenue, near East Finchley Station. The Highgate toll was very profitable, since it commanded Highgate Hill and Highgate High Street, then the main route to the north. Highgate Road and its continuation Highgate West Hill are comparatively modern, dating from about 1700.

Hilgrove Road (South Hampstead 1). Just a ‘pretty’ name, chosen in 1875 to replace Adelaide Road North. There is certainly a hill here, but there cannot have been a grove at that date.

Hill Farm Road (North Kensington (2) was once part of Notting Hill Farm. The farmhouse stood where Bassett Road crosses St Mark’s Road and survived until the 1870s, when William St Quintin, the owner (see St Quintin Avenue), started to develop the land.

Hill Road (St John’s Wood 3), like several streets in this area, is named from an old local field. The Great Hill Field was on the north side of Marlborough Place, and Finchley Road is now built across it.

Hill Street (Mayfair 7). Once part of Hay Hill Farm: see Hay Hill, Mayfair.

Hill’s Place (Oxford Street 7) was called Queen Street until 1866, when it was altered ‘on the application of Mr T. H. Hills’. Hills lived in Queen Anne Street, and may have been objecting to a street of similar name being near his own abode; or possibly he owned some property here.

Hillfield Court (Belsize 8) fills the site of Hillfield, a Victorian mansion on Haverstock Hill demolished about 1933.

Hillfield Road (West Hampstead 1). A Survey of Hampstead made in 1838 shows Hill Field just on the site of this street. Not surprisingly, this was a common name in Hampstead: the same Survey shows no less than seven Hill Fields and two Hilly Fields in the parish.

Hillgate Place and Street (Notting Hill 2). An abbreviation of Notting Hill Gate.

Hillsleigh Road (Kensington 6), built in the 1840s, was formerly New Road. When the Council changed it in 1910 to Hillsleigh, a Devon place name, to distinguish it from all the other New Roads in the metropolis, irate letters from the residents complained that the name was meaningless and had no local connections.

Hilltop Road (West Hampstead 1) is at the top of the slope which descends from West End Lane. The River Westbourne ran at the bottom of the valley below.

Hillway (Highgate 8) is a way made in 1924 up the slopes of Highgate Hill.

Hinde Street (Marylebone 3). Jacob Hinde may have been a tenant farmer, since he leased part of Marylebone (now Regent’s) Park from 1765 until 1803, when the Park was still agricultural land. But more probably he was a gentleman, who sub-leased the farm and simply drew the income, since in 1755 he married a Soho heiress, Anne Thayer, with a dowry of £40,000. Her father Thomas also left her four acres of ‘wasteland’ containing a tavern and three cattle sheds on the bank of the River Tyburn beside Marylebone Lane. The field was probably badly drained and of little agricultural value. But twenty years later the development around Cavendish Square turned it into valuable building land, and Hinde Street was begun. Thayer Street and Jacob’s Well Mews were built on the same field a few years later.

Hippodrome Place (Portland Road, North Kensington) is part of the Ladbroke estate, which flared briefly as the Hippodrome Racecourse: see Ladbroke Grove.

Hobart Place (Grosvenor Place 7). The family of Robert Lord Hobart, the Colonial Secretary after whom the capital of Tasmania was named in 1804, lived in Grosvenor Place a few years before this street was begun in 1836.

Hobury Street (Chelsea 6) was built in about 1855. Origin of name lost.

Hogarth Court (Fenchurch Street 5) was named as a tribute to Wi11iam Hogarth (1697-1764), ‘London’s own painter’. Many of his satirical prints, A Rake’s Progress, A Harlot’s Progress, The March to Finchley and others, include scenes of London and London life.

Hogarth Road (Earl’s Court 6). Probably named after its builder in 1873.

Holbein Place (Chelsea 7) was originally known as The Ditch, because it follows the course of the River Westbourne. Hans Holbein (1497-1543) the painter often came to this district to visit Sir Thomas More in Cheyne Walk.

Holborn (5) takes its name from the ‘bourne in the hollow’, otherwise known as the River Fleet. The river is covered over by Farringdon Street now, but the hollow is still extremely marked. Holborn was the main road to the west, dipping sharply to the level of the stream, which it crossed by a stone bridge shown on the Agas map of c. 1560. Nowadays the valley is bridged by the Holborn Viaduct, opened by Queen Victoria in 1869. Holborn Circus was formed at the same time to connect the Viaduct with Holborn.

Holford Road (Hampstead 1). The Holfords settled in Hampstead in the early eighteenth century and were one of the leading families of the village. Major Charles Holford trained a Volunteer Corps of loyal Hampstead patriots dnring the Napoleonic wars, a tradition continued by his son George in times of national crisis. George’s sister Mary married Charles Henry Pilgrim, scion of another eminent local family: see Pilgrim’s Lane. Holford House (now Ladywell Court, near the comer of Holford Road and East Heath Road) was the family home until about 1859; after that the houses on the east side of Holford Road were erected on part of the Holford House grounds, and George Holford lived at No 3 until 1900.

Holland Park (Kensington 6). Holland House in Holland Park was originally called Cope’s Castle. It was built by Sir Walter Cope, Lord of the Manor of Kensington, in 1605. Cope and his wife Dorothy Grenville, whose ancestors held Kensington at the time of Hemy vnr, had an only child, a daughter Isabel, who married Henry Rich, Earl Holland. Their son Robert, later the Earl of Warwick, had two surviving children: Lord Edward, whose widow married the author and statesman Joseph Addi son, and Lady Elizabeth, eventual heiress of Holland House and the Kensington property: see end-map for the extent of her lands.

Elizabeth had married into the old Welsh family of Edwardes, said to be descended from the Lords of Radnor but by then settled in Pembroke. Many of the streets on the estate are named from Pembrokeshire and Cardiganshire villages: Longridge, Marloes, Nevern, Pennant, Penywern, Philbeach, Templeton and Trebovir.

Then in 1768 Elizabeth’s son William Edwardes sold Holland House to Stephen Fox, Secretary of War and Baron Holland, the father of politician Charles James Fox.

From that time the Holland estate was split into two: while the southern part descended in the Edwardes family (created Barons Kensington) down to the twentieth century, Holland House, and the fields around it, remained with the Foxes and was the scene of the 3rd Baron Holland’s influential Whig gatherings in the nineteenth century. The Napier family and Prime Minister Lord John Russell (the grandfather of philosopher Bertrand Russell) were entertained here. When the 4th Lord Holland died in 1859 the property passed to his distant cousin Henry Fox-Strangways, Earl of Ilchester and Baron of Woodsford Strangways, whose country seats were Abbotsbury Castle and Melbury in Dorset. His descendants finally sold Holland House and Park to the London County Council in 1951.

Hence Holland Park, Park Avenue, Park Gardens, Park Road, Gardens, Place, Road, Street, Villas Road and Walk; Cope Place; Grenville Place; Warwick Gardens and Road; Addison Crescent, Gardens, Place and Road; Edwardes Place and Square; Radnor Terrace; Pembroke Gardens, Gardens Close, Place, Road, Square, Villas and Walk;Longridge and Marloes Roads; Nevern Place, Road and Square; Pennant Mews; Penywern Road; Philbeach Gardens; Templeton Place; Trebovir Road; Napier Place and Road; Russell Gardens and Road; Strangways Terrace; Ilchester Place; Woodford Square; Abbotsbury Close and Road, and Melbury Court and Road.

Holies Street (Oxford Street 4). John Holies, 4th Earl of Clare and Baron Houghton (who also owned Clare Market and Houghton Street, off Aldwych) purchased in 1710 Wimpole Park in Cambridgeshire and the manor of Marylebone. Both passed to his son in-law Harley, who built this street: see Harley Street, Marylebone.

Holly Lodge Gardens (Highgate 8). Holly Lodge, a large mansion on Highgate West Hill, was part of an extensive property purchased in 1770 by Thomas Bromwich: hence Bromwich Avenue. Bromwich, a paper merchant of Ludgate Hill, had made a fortune with his invention of wallpaper imitating stucco, which found immediate success with the public. The Highgate estate descended to his nephew-in-law, whose grand­daughter Anna Maria Chester was responsible for Chester Road.

Meanwhile, Holly Lodge itself, along with Holly Terrace and spacious grounds, had been leased in 1809 to Harriet Mellon, a successful actress. She later married Thomas Coutts the banker, who being eighty at the time of his wedding soon died and left her an immensely wealthy widow. Harriet married again, this time into the peerage in the shape of the young Duke of St Albans. (She was by now fifty; he was 26). At her death in 1837 Holly Lodge passed to Thomas Coutts’ granddaughter, the philanthropist Angela Burdell­ Coutts. Miss Burdett-Coutts annexed Brook Field, now Brookfield Park and St Alban’s Road, to the property, and built Holly Village as a model housing estate for her tenants. Later she was created Baroness Burdett­ Coutts of Highgate and Brookfield. After her death in 1906 the Holly Lodge estate was sold by auction, the house demolished, and Holly Lodge Gardens and the adjacent streets built across the grounds.

Hollybush Hill and Vale and Holly Hill, Mount and Walk (Hampstead I) are derived from the Holly Bush Tavern on Holly Mount, a remarkably unspoilt Georgian inn.

Hollywood Road (Earl’s Court 6) takes its name from the Hollywood Scotch Ale Brewery which stood on the corner. The brewery closed in about 1880, but was not demolished: much of the old structure now functions to distribute a milder liquid, having become the United Dairies depot in Fulham Road.

Holmes Place (Fulham Road). One Jeffrey Holmes of Young Street, Kensington, leased this land in 1790 and built three or four houses on it the following year.

Holmes Road (Kentish Town 8). In 1788 farmer Richard Holmes owned several meadows here, known as the Spring Fields because the River Fleet flowed across the land: hence Spring Place off Holmes Road. When he built Holmes Road two years later, it was the first street to cut into the fields of Kentish Town. The Old Farm House tavern at the corner of the road was originally Holmes’s farm house.

Holyrood Street (Bermondsey 5). Named in memory of the Holy Rood, or Holy Cross, of Bermondsey: see Crucifix Lane, Bermondsey.

Homer Row and Street (Marylebone 3). Homer the Greek poet is accompanied by two nearby Romans, in Virgil Place and Cato Street. All three were inspired by Edward Homer, a friend and neighbour of John Hatcourt, the ground landlord: see Harcourt Street.

Honey Lane (Cheapside, City). Here the twelfth-century housewife could buy her honey for sweetening, an important commodity since sugar was scarce and only available to the very rich.

Hooper’s Court (Knightsbridge 7). John Hooper was a Knightsbridge gardener who bought a 5-acre field here in 1763. Within five years the field was covered with this court and other houses, which later provided a steady income for John’s widow Sarah.

Hop Gardens (St Martin’s Lane 7) was probably so called from a hop garden belonging to Sir Hugh Platt, an Elizabethan horticulturalist. Sir Hugh, the son of Richard Platt (see Platt Street), had a nursery in St Martin’s Lane where he carried out various agricultural experiments including no doubt the cultivation of hops.

Hopton Street (Southwark 5). Named after the Hopton Almshouses here, founded by Charles Hopton for ‘twenty-six decayed house-keepers’. They were erected in 1752.

Horbury Crescent (Nolting Hill 2) gained its name because the Kensington Temple, which backs on to the Crescent, was founded in 1849 by Mr William Walker from Horbury in Yorkshire.

Hornton Street (Kensington 6) first appears in the parish ratebooks in 1795 and is probably named after the original builder.

Horse & Dolphin Yard (Macclesfield Street, Soho). From the Horse & Dolphin tavern (called the Macclesfield Arms since rebuilding in 1890), which :first opened at the same time as Macclesfield Street was formed, about 1690.

Horse Guards Avenue (Whitehall 7) leads from the Embankment to the Horse Guards in Whitehall. Some disturbances in 1641 led to the first Guards being stationed in Whitehall, opposite the king’s palace, and permanent quarters were soon established. The present Horse Guards buildings date from 1761.

Horse Shoe Alley (Bankside, South­ wark) was the lane beside the Horseshoe, one of the Bank:side taverns which stood here in the reign of Elizabeth 1. ‘The whole street is a continual alehouse’, Dekker the playwright exclaimed about Bankside.

Horseferry Road (Westminster 7). A very old road which wound through the marshes of Tothill Fields and down to the riverside, to the ‘Ferry over from Westminster to Lambeth and the contrary for Passengers, Horses, Coaches, &c’. It was the only London ferry across the Thames, and according to legend dated back to one black and stormy night in the seventh century when St Peter was ferried across to consecrate Westminster Abbey in person. The ferryman’s trade dropped off considerably after 1750 when Westminster Bridge was opened to provide a free crossing, but the ferry seems to have continued more or less until the building of Lambeth Bridge in 1862.

Hortensia Road (Chelsea 6) was built in 1903 across the site of Veitch’s Exotic Nursery, one of many nurseries along the King’s Road, where three generations of Veitches nurtured plants brought from as far away as China and Tibet. They issued Hortus Veitchii, a sumptuous catalogue of their plants, including one of their specialities, the Hydrangea Hortensia.

Hosier Lane (Smithfield 5). The lane where the makers of hose lived and worked in the fourteenth century. The tight-fitting ‘hosen’, fore­ runners of modern trousers, first came into fashion at that time among young men who discarded the plain monkish gowns worn by older generations. The hose were dyed in the brightest hues, with the two legs often in contrasting colours.

Houghton Place (off Hampstead Road). Part of the Duke of Bedford’s estate.

Houghton Street (Aldwych 4). The story of Houghton Street begins in about 1528, when Sir William Holies, Sheriff of London and later Lord Mayor, bought a plot of land on this site, then called St Clement’s Field. Almost a century afterwards, by judicious use of bribes, Sir William’s great-grandson John Holies acquired the titles Baron Houghton (after the family home at Haughton in Nottingshamshire) and 1st Earl of Clare (hence Clare Market). His son, the 2nd Earl, a business man intent on making his estates pay, decided to develop St Clement’s Field. A contemporary wrote disapprovingly in 1657:

‘Then is there towards Drury Lane a new market called Clare Market; then is there a street and palace of the same names, built by the Earl of Clare, who lives there in a princely manner, having a house, a street and a market both for flesh and fish, all bearing his name’. Houghton Street dates from the same period.

Gilbert, the 3rd Earl of Clare, and John Holies, 4th Earl, are remembered in Gilbert Street and Holies Street (q.v.) in other parts of London. By the time the 4th and last Earl died in I711 Clare House had been divided into tenements and the property had sunk into the squalid backwater it was to remain until the formation of Kingsway and Aldwych in 1905.

Houndsditch (City 5) lay alongside part of the great ditch running outside the city wall, so called because ‘much filth (conveyed forth of the city), especially dead dogs, were there laid or cast’, according to the Elizabethan Stow. The ditch was part of the city defences, and origin­ ally flowed all round the walls. But for want of better refuse disposal arrangements, the citizens naturally emptied sewage and rubbish into it, and no amount of official ordinances and cleansings could keep it clear. By Tudor times the ditch was blocked completely in some places, and was just a narrow fetid channel in others, which gave Stow grave anxieties about the security risk involved.

Howitt Road (Hampstead 8). William Howitt (1792-1879) and his wife Mary, well known writers in their day, lived in this part of London and were prominent members of the Hampstead community.

Howland Street (Tottenham Court Road 4). Part of the Duke of Bedford’s estate.

Howley Place (Paddington 3). After William Howley, Bishop of London: see Bishop’s Bridge Road, Paddington.

Hudson’s Place (Victoria 7) is largely occupied by Hudson’s furniture depositories. The business was founded by William Hudson, a household furniture remover, who had premises at London Bridge, Cannon Street and Brighton Stations, and in 1874 opened this branch beside Victoria Station.

Huggin Hill (City 5) was the fourteenth-century Hoggenelane, lane where hogs were kept.

Hugh Street (Pimlico 7). After Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster.

Hull Street (Finsbury 5) was originally Hulls Street, and belonged to a Shoreditch builder called William Hulls in the 1790s.

Hungerford Bridge and Lane (Strand). The infamous Barons Hungerford owned a town house in the Strand by 1422. The family was notorious for vice and violence, and came to a degenerate end with Sir Edward Hungerford, who gambled and spent his way through the family estates and fortunes, and died in 1711. In a desperate attempt to meet his debts Sir Edward demolished his mansion and opened Hungerford Market on the site, but it never really prospered, even though the Hungerford Foot Bridge was opened in 1845 to encourage South Bank housewives to shop there. Finally the Charing Cross Railway Company bought the market and built its terminus there.

Hunter Street (Bloomsbury 4) was part of Captain Coram’s Foundling Hospital grounds.

Huntley Street (Bloomsbury 4). On the Duke of Bedford’s estate.

Hyde Park (6–7). Hida, as it is spelt in a document dated 1204, was part of the manor of Ebury (q.v.), and must have consisted of one bide of that manor, i.e. the amount of land which could be tilled with one plough in a year, about 120 acres. Henry VIII enclosed it as a royal hunting park, which James I opened to the public. Hyde Park Corner, now rather a vague location, used to be the point of the park where Piccadilly met Old Park Lane. The names Hyde Park Place, Street, Gardens, Square and Crescent have been unimaginatively bestowed on streets on the north side of the park. Hyde Park Gate, Kensington, inappropriately faces a gate into Kensington Gardens, not Hyde Park.

Idol Lane (Eastcheap 5) is spell Idle Lane on a map of 1677, indicating that no craftsmen or traders worked there, or that it was a passage where idlers might loiter. There was also a Dolittle Lane in the City, with the same meaning.

Ifield Road (West Brompton 6) dates from 1870. Origin unknown.

Ilchester Gardens (Bayswater 2) was built in 1878. Origin unknown; perhaps the site belonged to a native of Ilchester in Somerset.

Imperial Institute Road (South Kensington 6) was formed as an approach to the Imperial Institute,

‘built with the twofold object of celebrating the Queen’s Jubilee and cementing the British Empire’ according to a Victorian panegyrist;

‘The Architect was inspired by Tennyson’s words: “Raise a stately memorial, Make it really gorgeous, Some Imperial Institute, Rich in symbol, in ornament, Which may speak to the centuries”.’ The Commonwealth Institute, as it is now called, moved to Kensington High Street in 1962, leaving the site in Imperial Institute Road to Imperial College of Science and Technology.

Ingestre. Ingestre Place (Soho 7) takes its name from Ingestre Buildings, erected here in 1853 by the Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes, on the initiative of Charles Chetwynd, Viscount Ingestre. Grim and outdated as they now seem, the Buildings were then model dwellings, a pioneer attempt to tackle the problem of the working-class slums in a benevolent and practical way. Lord lngestre was also involved in developing a larger estate at Kentish Town, which includes lngestre Road: see Cbetwynd Road, Kentish Town.

Ingham Road (Hampstead 1). Ed­ward Ingham was the Secretary and Manager of the National Standard Land Mortgage and Investment Company Limited, one of the dozens of Victorian Land Building Societies engaged in suburban devel­ opment: see Burlington Mews. He founded his Company in 1885 and the same year purchased this plot of land in Hampstead and started to form the street.

Inigo Place (Bedford Street, Covent Garden) is a path leading to St Paul’s, Covent Garden, designed by architect Inigo Jones. In about 1630 the Earl of Bedford commissioned Jones to develop his estate at Covent Garden; the story goes that the Earl asked for reasons of economy that the church for the estate should be quite plain-‘not much better than a barn’. Jones answered: ‘You shall have the handsomest barn in Europe’ -a fair description of the finished St Paul’s.

lnkerman Road (Kentish Town 8) and the neighbouring streets were all begun in 1856, at the end of the Crimean War. lnkerman Road and Alma Street commemorate the Franco-British victories over the Russians in 1854. Lord Raglan (Raglan Street) was Commander-in-Chief of the Crimean campaign, and General Sir George Cathcart (Cathcart Street) his second-in-command. These four names were popular with Victorian builders all over the country. Willes Road honours Lieutenant-General James Willes, Commander of the Royal Marines during the War. Hence also the Crimea Tavern in Inkerman Road.

Inner Temple Lane (Temple 5). The medieval entrance to the Inner Temple: see Temple Avenue, City.

Insurance Street (Clerkenwell 5). Compulsory insurance against unemployment and sickness was first introduced in England in 1912. Insurance House in this street, which was so named in 1916, used to be the headquarters of the Insurance Committee for the County of London, and is now occupied by its post-war successor, the London Executive Council of the National Health Service.

Inverforth Close (Hampstead 1n) contains Inverforth House, formerly the home of shipping magnate Andrew Weir, who was created Lord Inverforth in 1919. Since his death in 1955 the house has been used as a hospital.

Inverness. Inverness Gardens (Vicar­ age Gate, Kensington) and Inver­ ness Place and Terrace (Bayswater 6) were begun in the 1850s in the neighbourhood ofKensington Palace, and probably commemorate the Duchess of Inverness, who lived at the Palace until her death in 1873. She had married Prince Augustus, Earl of Inverness, ecclesiastically but not legally since he was a son of George IIIand the previous consent of Parliament was required to make the union valid. In recompense for this non-recognition of her marital status, she was later created Duchess of Inverness in her own right.

Inverness Street (Camden Town 8) was so named in 1867. Origin unknown.

Inwood Place (Euston Road 4) honours William and Henry Inwood, the architects of nearby St Pancras Church. It was the most expensive parish church in London when built in 1819 at a cost of £77,000. Its originality and attractiveness are due to Henry, the son, then still in his early twenties and just returned from Greece, where the Erechtheum and the Tower of the Winds at Athens clearly inspired the church’s design.

Ireland Yard (City 5). In 1612 William Shakespeare bought a house in Ireland Yard, conveniently close to Burbage’s theatre in Playhouse Yard. The building is described in the deed of conveyance as ‘now or late in the occupation of one William Ireland’.

Irongate Wharf Road (Paddington 3). The Irongate was one of the wharfs built alongside the Paddington Basin of the Grand Union Canal not long after its opening in 1801. All signs of the original iron gate have long disappeared.

Ironmonger. lronmonger Lane in the City (5) was Ysmongerelane (Old English isern iron) as early as 1190, and was ‘so called of ironmongers dwel1ing there’ according to Stow. The Ironmongers’ Company had their original Hall here until 1517.

In 1527 Thomas Michellcitizen and ironmonger, bequeathed to his Company ‘a crofte of Iande, yt is by estimacon tenne acres, now divided into gardens and builded with tenements, situate in Old Streete’. Two hundred years later this ‘crofte’ on the north side of Old Street was developed, and Mitchell Street, Iron­ monger Row, Lizard Street and Helmet Row (5) were built. The last two names refer to the helmet and ‘two scaly lizards erect’ on the Company’s coat of arms. The few remaining old houses in Mitchell Street still show the Company’s shield on the walls. Now mainly demolished is Lewen’s Court in Mitchell Street, named after Thomas Lewen, Master of the lronmongers’ Company in Michell’s time. He bequeathed a sum of money to build four almshouses, which were erected in this court. In 1759 the Ironmongers leased a large garden at Old Street to William Norman, a bricklayer, who built Norman’s Buildings and Norman Street, off Ironmonger Row.

Irving Street (Charing Cross Road (7) was named in 1938 to mark the centenary of the birth of Sir Henry Irving (1838-1905), actor. There is now a statue of him at the east end of the street, behind the National Portrait Gallery.

Islington High Street (5) was the nucleus of the ancient village of Iseldon, as it was written in the Domesday Book. Even earlier its name was Gislandune, ‘the hill of Gisla’.

Islip Street (Kentish Town 8). Dr Robert South of Caversharn (Caversham Road), the rector of Islip in Oxfordshire, bought an estate at Kentish Town in 1689. At his death he bequeathed it to Christ Church Oxford, who developed the fields in 1858, selecting street names connected with the College: Frideswide Place commemorates the legendary Saxon princess St Frideswide, who founded a convent on the site of Christ Church and is the patron saint of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. When the convent was dissolved along with all other monasteries by Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey (Wolsey Mews) refounded it as Cardinal College (now Christ Church), and the king enriched it with the ex-Abbey of Oseney and its lands (Oseney Crescent).

Hammond Street, Gaisford Street and Busby Place are named after three famous men produced by Christ Church: Henry Hammond (1605-1660) was chaplain to Charles I and Dean of Christ Church during the Civil War, when he had many narrow escapes and was finally captured and imprisoned for his loyalty to the King; Thomas Gaisford was Dean for 24 years and had just died when Gaisford Street was begnn; Richard Busby, a friend of Dr South, came from Christ Church to be headmaster of Westminster School. He was a severe disciplinarian, and his name has become a byword for harshness.

Peckwater Street is derived from the Peckwater Quadrangle at Christ Church, named after a former inn on the site.

The Christ Church estate now belongs to the London Borough of Camden.

Ives Street (Chelsea 6). So named in about 1868, probably after the builder.

Ivor Place (Marylebone 3), used to be Upper Park Place, from its proximity to Regent’s Park. Ivor Street, Camden Town (8), was originally Priory Street, after Brecknock Priory in Wales, the home of the Camden (q.v.) family. The London County Council changed the names in 1935 and 1937 respectively, but can give no explanation for the choice of ‘Ivor’.

Iyybridge Lane (Strand). An early medieval descriptive name, dating from the time when the Strand bridged a number of small streams running down to the Thames. According to tradition the Ivy Bridge brook flowed from a large pond in the middle of the Convent Garden, i.e. present-day Covent Garden. By the time of Elizabeth 1the stream had been diverted, leaving its ancient bed to be used as a lane.

Jacob’s Well Mews (Marylebone 3). The original Jacob was probably Jacob Hinde of Hinde Street (q.v.), the owner of this mews. The well would have had some connection with the River Tyburn which flowed a few yards away beside Marylebone Lane: see end-map. There was a Jacob’s Well tavern at the entrance to the mews until l893.

James Street (Covent Garden 4). In honour of the infant Prince James, later James II: see King Street, Covent Garden.

James Street (Oxford Street 7) was begun in 1729. Origin unknown.

Jameson Street (Kensington 6). An adaption of St James Street. It lay in the former Ward of St John and St James, North Kensington.

Jermyn Street (St James’s 7). Henry Jermyn, ‘the founder of London’s West End’, began his career as a wealthy young courtier who soon found favour with Queen Henrietta Maria, Charles I’s consort. He fol­ lowed the royal family into exile in France in 1643, and ‘kept an excellent Table for those who courted him’. At the Restoration, Charles II rewarded Jermyn’s loyalty with the Earldom of St Albans and the grant of a field behind St James’s Palace.

‘It is incredible how easy a life this Gent: has Jived, and in what plenty abroad, whilst his Majestie was a sufferer’, grumbled Evelyn the dia­ rist; ‘a prudent old courtier, and much inrich’d since his Majestie’s retume’.

Jermyn quickly transformed his field into the elegant and aflluent court suburb now known as St James’s, naming Jermyn Street and St Albans Street after himself, and Bury Street after his country seat of Bury St Edmunds.

Jewry Street (Aldgate 5) was formerly Poor Jewry (‘pauperum Judaismum’ in 1349). There must have been something of a class distinction between the Jews settled here by the City gate and their more fortunate brethren living in the middle of the town, at what is now Old Jewry (q.v.).

Jockey’s Fields (Holborn 4). The Jockey’s Field was the slip of land between Gray’s Inn and Bedford Row. It was quite probably connected with the horses used by the Lord Mayor and his Aldermen on their ceremonial ride to inspect the City Conduit beside the River Tyburn: see Stratford Place. The procession would leave town by the country road of Holborn, then take to the open fields here on the north. The annual inspection of the conduit head developed into a grand mayoral hunt. The year Sir William Harpur was Mayor, 1562, ‘after Dinner, they went to Hunting the Fox. There was a great Cry for a Mile; and, at length, the Hounds killed him at the end of St Giles’s.’ That same year Sir William donated a 13-acre field beside the Jockey’s Field to Bedford grammar school: see Bedford Row.

John Adam Street, W1 John Adam was one of the Adelphi brothers

John Carpenter Street (City 5). Here stands the City of London School, founded with the money that John Carpenter, Town Clerk of London, bequeathed in 1438 ‘for the finding and bringing up of four poor men’s children with meat, drink, apparel and learning’.

John Prince’s Street (Oxford Street 4). John Prince was employed by Edward Harley in 1717 to lay out Harley’s extensive lands in Marylebone (see Harley Street). The Morning Advertiser condemned Prince as a vain and arrogant man who styled himself the ‘Prince of Builders’, but his was the design largely responsible for the present arrangement of streets on the Harley estate. This street named after him was one of the first to be built on the property.

Johnson’s Court (City 5) was the home of Doctor Johnson from 1765 until 1776, but in fact it was named after an Elizabethan merchant tailor called Thomas Johnson, who once owned the court.

Johnson’s Place (Pimlico 7). When the Grosvenor family of Grosvenor Square started to develop their Pimlico estate in the 1830s they employed John and William John­ son paviours of Millbank, to lay the new streets.

Jubilee Place (Chelsea 6) dates from 1810, the year the country celebrated 50 years of ‘Farmer George’s’ reign.

Judges Walk (Hampstead 1). When the Great Plague of 1665 was raging in London, the judges fled to Hampstead and held their assizes here beneath the elm trees. Recent historical research has provided evidence that this old legend has some foundation on fact.

Julia Street (Gospel Oak 8) was built in 1859 by John Purnell, a Kentish Town carpenter, who erected a house for himself on the corner. Julia may have been the name of his wife or daughter.

Junction Mews (Paddington 3). The ground landlords, the Grand Junction Canal Company (now the British Waterways Board), opened their canal to Paddington in 1801.

Kean Street (Drury Lane 4) was named in memory of the actors Edmund and Charles Kean, who were closely associated with Drury Lane Theatre almost opposite the end of this street. Edmund, the father, was a strolling player who finally found success when he appeared at Drury Lane in 1814 as Shylock. His son Charles (1811-1868) made his stage d6but at the same theatre at the age of about 18.

Keats Grove (Hampstead 8) leads to Keats House, now open to the public, where John Keats spent the most creative period of his short life. The house is a museum of relics of his stay, and the spot where he wrote Ode to a Nightingale is marked in the garden.

Keeley Street (Holborn 4). Robert Keeley (1792-1869) was famous in his day as a short, solemn, poker-faced comedian. He was born in Grange Court not far from here, and was closely associated with nearby Drury Lane Theatre.

Kelly Street (Kentish Town 8) was formed by one John Kelly, who built dozens of houses along Kentish Town Road, and in the new streets beginning to cover the fields behind it, during the 1840s and 1850s.

Kelso Place (Kensington 6) is first recorded in about 1863. Origin of name unknown.

Kelson Street (Hampstead 1) was laid out in 1869 by the United Land Company, one of the many Land Companies which developed large stretches of Hampstead at around that period: see Broomsleigh Street. Charles Kelson, a retired City East India merchant, was one of the Company shareholders.

Kemble Street (Drury Lane 4) Named after a family of eighteenth­ century actors. The father, Roger Kemble, was a strolling player and never settled in London, but his children Sarah (Mrs Siddons), John, Stephen and Charles all found great success at the nearby Covent Garden and Drury Lane Theatres.

Kempsford Gardens (Earl’s Court 6). A Gloucestershire place-name. Connection with Earl’s Court unknown.

Ken Wood (Highgate 8). This name is first found in the form Cane Wood, recorded in a document drawn up on the appointment of a new woodward in 1525, and exhort­ ing him to capture anybody who might ‘hew, cut, fell or carry away any woods, underwoods, boughs or poles’. The origin of the name is not certain. The most probable derivation is Anglo-Norman ‘keyne’ (modern French ‘chene’) meaning ‘oak’, but there have been attempts to link it with the name Kentish Town by postulating that the upper reaches of the River Fleet, which flows from Ken Wood down through Kentish Town, were called the Ken or Kent in about the thirteenth century.

Kendal Street (Edgware Road 3). From the Duke of Kendal pub on the corner, opened in the 1820s and dedicated to young Prince Leopold, Duke of Kendal, who married the tragic Crown Princess Charlotte of England: see Cobourg Street. He became King of the Belgians and Victoria’s beloved ‘Uncle Leopold’.

Kendall Place (Marylebone 3) was the back entrance to William Kendall’s house and timber-yard in Manchester Street. Kendall was an ambitious tradesman, describing him­ self as timber-merchant, builder, dealer and ‘chapman’ (pedlar), but he ended up as a bankrupt in 1795.

Kenrick Place (Marylebone 3). Dr William Kenrick was an eighteenth­ century forerunner of the soap-box orators. He used to lecture in Marylebone Gardens, near the site of this street (see Beaumont Street), on any subject from Shakespeare to perpetual motion, which he believed he had discovered.

Kensal Green and Road (2). ‘Kensal’ can be traced back to the year 1253, when the name appears as Kingis­ holte, ‘King’s Wood’. It was so called to distinguish it from neigh­ bouring Wormeholte, the ‘Snakes’ Wood’, now Wormwood Scrubs. The original royal owner’s identity is unknown.Gradually’Kingisholte’ be­ came ‘Kynsale’, then ‘Kensell’ and finally ‘Kensal’.

Kensington (6). The name of this Saxon village is found in the Domes­ day Book as Chenesitun, ‘Cynesige’s farm’. The original settlement grew up beside the Roman-or even pre­ Roman-highway now called Ken­ sington High Street. The earliest village track must have been Kensington Church Street, leading to the church of St Mary which dates back to at least the twelfth century. In 1690 royalty came to Kensington in the shape of William III, who found the country air beneficial to his asthma. He bought an old mansion in extensive grounds and converted it into Kensington Palace and Gardens; hence Kensington Palace Gardens and Kensington Gardeus Square. The village found itself raised socially thereby, and the nobility started to settle in Kensington Square, then under construction.

Kensington Gore is derived from ‘gara’, an Old English word meaning a triangular piece of land: it refe-rs to the wedge of ground bounded by Kensington Gore-Knightsbridge and Queen’s Gate, coming to a point where Brompton Road meets Knightsbridge. For centuries this triangle has belonged to the City of Westminster, although geographic­ ally it is in Kensington.

Kensington Park Road (Nolting Hill 2) crosses an area which was euphemistically christened Kensing­ ton Park at the time of its develop­ ment in the 1840s, in order to attract genteel buyers to the district.

Kent Terrace (Regent’s Park 3). After Edward Duke of Kent, brother of the Prince Regent and father of Queen Victoria: see Regent’s Park.

Kentish Town Road (8). Kentish Town was Kentisston by 1208, and the name may be of Saxon origin. Probably its first owner came from Kent. It is significant that the medieval Manor of Kentish Town followed the ancient Kentish custom of gavelkind, whereby a dead man’s land was divided equally between all his sons or daughters, and lots were drawn to decide the ownership of each.

Kenton Street (Bloomsbury 4) is built on the grounds of Captain Coram’s Foundling Hospital: see Coram Street, Bloomsbury.

Kenway Road (Earl’s Court 6) was part of a country track linking the Manor House at Earl’s Court with Kensington village, via what are now Wright’s Lane and Marloes Road. Probably an abbreviation of ‘the Way to Kensington’.

Kilburn (1) is derived from the Kyne Burn, probably meaning ‘cows stream’, which rises at Hampstead and flows througb Kilburn, then under Kilburn Park Road and down to the Thames, changing its name to ‘Westbourne’ (q.v.) and then ‘Ser­ pentine’. The bourne is now encased in sewer pipes, but its valley is still easily traceable through Kilburn and Hampstead except where railway lines have obscured natural contours.

Kilburn village grew up at the point where the stream crossed the Roman highway now called Kilburn High Road. There Godwyn, a medieval hermit (hence Hermit Place), founded a holy cell, which Westminster Abbey (Abbey Road) acquired and converted into a little priory for nuns in about 1130. After the dissolution of the monasteries the priory crumbled into picturesque ruins which were completely removed when the first streets were begun at Kilburn in the early nineteenth century, but the old track liuking the priory with Hampstead village is still called Kilburn Priory and Priory Road. Another old road is Kilburn Lane (2), so called in Tudor times, which once connected the priory with the nearby village of Kensal. The Kilburn end of the winding lane vanished beneathagrid of nineteenth century streets.

Kildare Gardens and Terrace (Paddington 2) and Leinster Gardens and Terrace were built in about 1850 on scattered fields belonging to one Thomas Fitzgerald. The Marquesses of Kildare, who are also Dukes of Leinster, have the sur­ name Fitzgerald, and Thomas may have been a scion of the noble family.

Kiln Place (Lambie Street, Kentish Town) was built in 1960 on a disused kiln yard. The kiln itself was demolished to make way for the playground at Kiln Place.

King Charles Street (Whitehall 7) was opened in 1682 and named in honour of the reigning monarch, Charles II.

King Henry’s Road (South Hampstead 8). After Henry VI, who donated this land to Eton College: see Eton Avenue, South Hampstead.

King Square (Finsbury 5). The twentieth century King Square housing scheme roughly covers the site of an earlier King Square, begun in 1820, the year George IV finally acceded to the throne after nine years as Prince Regent.

King Street has always been a very popular street name, with its implications of patriotism and regality. It was also a convenient label for streets with no official name, and almost every medieval City thorough­ fare was known as Via Regia (King’s Way), Vicus Regius (King’s Lane) or ‘ye kinges hie way’ at some stage in its history. There are still three King Streets in central London: King Street (Covent Garden 4) commemorates Charles I, an unpopular monarch who left few marks on his capital, since as soon as he came to the throne he prohibited new building. However, the Earl of Bedford managed to get special dispensation to develop his Covent Garden estate, on which he tactfully dedicated King Street to the monarch, Henrietta Street to the Queen, and Charles (now Wellington) and James Streets to the infant princes, who both later ascended the throne.

A similar preoccupation with the royal family was shown by Henry Jermyn (see Jermyn Street) building on St James’s Field, which he had received from Charles II as a reward for loyalty during the king’s exile; to show his gratitude Jermyn named four streets leading into St James’s Square after the king and his brother, the Duke of York: King Street, Charles II Street, Duke Street St James’s and Duke of York Street.

King Street (Cheapside 5), cut through the ruined City after the Great Fire of 1666, is also named after Charles II. Queen Street and Princes Street were formed at the same time.

King William Street (City 5) was built as an approach road to new London Bridge, formally opened by King William IV in 1831.

King’s Arms Yard (Moorgate 5) is derived from an inn on the corner with Coleman Street, probably dedicated to Charles II, since the name is first found on a map dated 1677.

King’s Bench Walk (Temple, City) was once the shady walk in front of the Office of the Court of King’s Bench, burnt down in 1677.

King’s Cross (4) takes its name from the ‘cross’ erected in memory of King George IV in 1830. A tastew Jess square building, bristling with columns and symbolic figures, and topped like a wedding cake with a statue of the king, the cross stood in the middle of the road intersection in front of what is now King’s Cross Station. From the start it was an object of ribaldry. After grandiose but shortwlived schemes for using it as a place of exhibition and a police station, it soon degenerated into a low-class alehouse. Only fifteen years after its unveiling it was decreed a public nuisance and a danger to traffic and was demolished. King’s Cross Road, a very old lane leading to King’s Cross, is on a plate shown winding through the fields beside the River Fleet.

King’s Head Court (Pudding Lane, City) marks the site of an old King’s Head tavern, whose wine was recommended by Ben Jonson.

King’s Head Yard (Borough High Street 5) was the stable yard behind the ancient inn knmvn as the ‘Pope’s Head’ in medieval times and loyally changed to the ‘Kynges Hed’ at the Reformation. In 1720 it was ‘well built, handsome and enjoying a good trade’, and it was noted for its genial host: ‘Welcome gentlemen; a crust, and what wine will you drink?’

The inn stood on the south side of the entrance to the yard, with tap rooms and galleries of bedrooms behind. Inn and galleries were demolished in 1885, and the present Ye Olde King’s Head was then erected.

King’s Mews (Holborn 4) opens into the King’s Way, now called Theobalds Road (q.v.), part of the royal route to Theobalds in Hertfordshire.

King’s Road (Chelsea 6-7) is shown on the earliest maps of this district as a cart-track, used by the local farmers and gardeners. The king who appropriated it was Charles II, officially as his route to Hampton Court, but according to local tradition as a short cut to Nell Gwynn’s home in Fulham. To protect his majesty from robbers lurking in the desolate fields through which King’s Road passed-the future Belgravia- 29 royal guardsmen patrolled nightly to ensure that only the sovereign and his privileged guests approached the road. Passage was restricted to bearers of a special ticket marked with a crown on one side and “The King’s Private Road” on the other; this practice continued until King’s Road was opened to the public in 1830.

King’s Scholars’ Passage (Francis Street, Westminster): see Chapter Street, Westminster.

King’s Terrace (Camden Town 8) is unimaginatively dedicated to George III, in whose reign it was built.

Kingdon Road (West Hampstead 1) was begun in 1881. Miss Emmeline Maria Kingdon of Bath was a speculator in several Hampstead building schemes at that period.

Kinghorn Street (City 5) was formerly King Street; a meaningless horn was added in 1885 to distinguish it from the many other London King Streets.

Kingly Court and Street (Soho 7). The earliest knowledge of King Street-‘ly’ was added in 1906 simply to distinguish it from other King Streets–comes from a plan dated 1585 of the present Soho area. King Street was then a footpath across Six Acre Close, and is shown with a stile at one end and a wooden gate at the other. The plan also shows that the Six Acre Close had belonged to Henry V1II, who acquired it from the Church. It remained in the hands of the royal family and is still largely Crown property, as is attested by notices in Kingly Court. This may be the reason the path was named King Street when it was widened into a street in 1686; or it may have been in compliment to James II, who had recently come to the throne.

Kingscote Street (Tudor Street, City) was originally King Edward Street, built on the site of Edward VI’s Palace of Bridewell (see Bridewell Place). Adapted to Kingscote in 1885 to distinguish it from the other King Edward Street in the City.

Kingscroft Road (West Hampstead 1) was built in 1912 on the site of an old house called King’s Gate, but that name could not be used as there was already a Kingsgate Road in the vicinity.

Kingsmill Terrace (St John’s Wood 1). Kingsmill Eyre was the younger brother of Henry Samuel Eyre: see Eyre Court, StJohn’s Wood.

Kingstown Street (Chalk Farm 8) was so named in 1872, the year Kingston was proclaimed capital of Jamaica.

Kingsway (Holborn 4) was begun in 1901 to clear the slums of this area and to link Holborn with the Strand, and was ceremoniously opened by Edward VII four years later. There was some controversy over the name: King Edward VII Street, Empire Avenue and Imperial Avenue were patriotically put forward, but finally Kingsway was chosen for its simplicity. This was probably the final flowering of nationalism as a source of London street names.

Kingswear Street (Highgate 8) was named after a village just outside Dartmouth because of its proximity to Dartmouth Park Road.

Kinnerton Street and Yard (Belgravia 7). A name connected with the Grosvenor family, owners of Belgravia: see Grosvenor Square.

Kirkby Street (Holborn 5) was once part of Sir Christopher Hatton’s gar­ dens: see Hatton Gardens, Holborn.

Kirkman Place (Tottenham Court Road) was built in about 1785, probably by Joseph Kirkman, who ran a brewery in Tottenham Court Road and was also involved in several profitable development schemes for the new streets spreading over the neighbourhood at that time.

Knightrider Street (City 5) was derived by Stow from ‘Knights well armed and mounted at the Tower Royal (q.v.), riding from thence through that street . . . towards Smithfield, when they were there to tourney, joust, or otherwise to show activities before the King’. Splendid jousts and tournaments were held at Smithfield, but whether the combatants really used this route remains unknown.

Knightsbridge (7) is the road which for centuries-perhaps since pre­ Roman times-has provided a bridge over the River Westbourne for travellers from London to Hammer­ smith. This is the stream which formed the Serpentine and still flows under Knightsbridge at Albert Gate, now buried deep in a sewer pipe. The identity of the knights is less easy to determine; the earliest known form of the name is the eleventh-century Cnihtebricge, ‘bridge of the young men’. Legend tells of a band of knights who were travelling this way to Fulham to gain the blessing of the Bishop before they rode to war, when a quarrel broke out between two of them. They fought a duel on the bridge, from which both fell mortally wounded.

Knightsbridge Green now boasts a single tree, but was once a real village green with its own maypole until 1800, and was much bigger than at present. It seems fairly certain that this spot was a burial ground for local lepers or those who died of plague, which would explain why it remained green for so long.

Kylemore Road (Kilburn I) was probably named after a trustee of the London Permanent Bullding Society: see Sherriff Road, Kilburn.

Kynance Place (Kensington 6). After a place in Cornwall; it adjoins Cornwall Gardens.

Lackington Street (off Finsbury Pavement 5). James Lacldngton (1746-1815) was a country boy with a passion for books. He came to London in 1773 with  hardly a penny, but the next year he managed to open a small bookstall in Featherstone Street, Finsbury. Finally he owned the largest bookshop in London, ‘The Temple of the Muses’, situated just behind this street on the corner of Finsbury Square and Finsbury Pavement.

Ladbroke Grove, Crescent, Gardens, Road, Square, Terrace and Walk (North Kensington 2) all cover the farm that belonged in 1760 to Sir Robert Ladbroke, a rich City goldsmith and Lord Mayor of London. His descendant, James Weller Ladbroke from Arundel in Sussex, decided to turn the land into an extensive racecourse called the Hippodrome. It opened with much publicity in 1837, but for some reason was not a success and closed four years later. The only souvenir is a little alley called Hippodrome Place. After that, streets were laid out on the estate. Apart from the Ladbroke names and Arundel Gardens, the plan was apparently to name them after prominent members of the House of Lords: Lord Clarendon, the Lord Privy Seal; Lord Stanley, the Colonial Secretary; Lord Lansdowne, Lord President of the Council; and Lord Portland, a former Lord President of the Council.

Lady Somerset Road (Kentish Town 8) and the surrounding district were the property of the Platt family of Highgate Hill. The land belonged to Richard Platt, a rich Elizabethan brewer (see Aldenham Street), his son Sir Hugh (see Hop Gardens), and then Sir Hugh’s son William, a graduate of St John’s College Cambridge. William was unwilling to let the property pass to his brother and heir Robert, who would ‘consume it all away to nothing in satisfying of his pleasures in gaming’, so instead he bequeathed it to his alma mater. The College developed the fields in the 1860s and named the streets appropriately: The College of St John the Evangelist was founded in 1511 by the Countess of Richmond and Derby, Lady Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII. It was endowed by the rich and the influential, and among the early benefactors who founded Scholarships and Exhibitions were Lord Burghley, the statesman and courtier, Roger Lupton, Provost of Eton, and Sarah Lady Somerset, who donated land in Wiltshire and Cambridge to the College in 1692. Two former students at St John’s are also remembered on the Kentish Town estate: Roger Ascham, sixteenth-century scholar and tutor to Queen Elizabeth, and Viscount Falkland, who fell at the Battle of Newbury in 1643. Falkland’s statue is among those on the buttresses of the College Chapel. One of the first gifts to the College was a medieval hospital at Ospringe in Kent, granted to St John’s in 1516. The College still holds a farm and some lands there. It also owned an estate at Little Raveley in Hunting­ don, which had been donated in 1650. Hence College Lane, Evangelist, Countess, Lady 1\fargaret and Burgh­ ley Roads, Lupton Street, Lady Somerset Road, Ascham Street, Falkland Road, Ospringe Road and Raveley Street.

Lamb’s Buildings and Passage (Fins­ bury 5). Lamb’s Buildings dates from about 1765, and belonged to Thomas Lamb, a local overseer of the poor. Until 1813 Mr Lamb lived just round the corner in Great Swordbearers Alley, which was then renamed Lamb’s Passage.

Lamb’s Conduit Street (Holborn 4). ‘Lambs Conduit the Property of the City of London: “this pump is erected for the benefit of the Publick” reads an ancient stone set in a modern building at the entrance to Long Yard, Lamb’s Conduit Street, just a few yards from the original site of the conduit head. William Lamb, a chorister of the Chapel Royal at the time of Henry VIII, restored the old decayed conduit, which piped water from a spring near here to Snow Hill in the City. In addition, Lamb thoughtfully provided 120 pails for poor women. See also Conduit.

Lambeth (4) was ‘Lamhithe’, either a Saxon ‘hithe’ or harbour where lambs were loaded or unloaded, or more probably a loamy, muddy harbour. Lambeth Palace Road passes the palace of the Archbishops of Canterbury, begun in about 1200, with much of its medieval structure still intact. Lambeth Bridge (7) linked Lambeth Road with Horseferry Road in 1862, thus finally killing the old horse-ferrying business.

Lambeth Hill (City 5) was probably named after one Lambertus who lived here in about 1200. Once he had been forgotten, the corrupting processes of popular etymology set to work on the name and gradually brought it into line with the better known Lambeth on the other side of the river.

Lambie Street (Kentish Town 8). Named in 1887 after Samuel Lambie, ‘a much esteemed member of the Borough Council’, who lived in Kentish Town.

Lamont Road (Chelsea 6) probably takes its name from John Lamont, a retired City wine merchant, who started to buy up land around Edith Grove, Chelsea, in 1869. The street was named eight years later.

Lanark Place and Road (Paddington 3) date from about 1855. Origin unknown.

Lancaster Gate (Bayswater 3) faces the Lancaster Gate into Hyde Park, perhaps so named in compliment to Queen Victoria in her capacity as Duchess of Lancaster. Several of the Hyde Park gates commemorate members of the royal family.

Lancaster Place (Strand 4) is part of the precinct of the Savoy, which has belonged to the Duchy of Lancaster since about 1284: see Savoy. The Duchy was created by Henry III in favour of his heir, and consists mainly of land in Lancashire and Yorkshire. It is now the personal property of the present Queen, who is Duchess of Lancaster. The office of the Duchy of Lancaster is in this street.

Lancing Street (Euston 4). A dozen streets in the old parish of St Pancras had new names bestowed by St Pancras Vestry in the year 1865 because their former names were common ones, duplicated elsewhere in the parish-one was a Queen’s Road, two were called William Street, another was Albert Street, and so on. The new names have no apparent significance, local or national-it seems that the unimaginative Victorian vestrymen chose them quite randomly. They are Lancing, Leeke, Longford.,- Lyme, Netley, Penryn, Redhill, Rhyl, Seaford and Wicklow Street, Powlett Place and Wrotham Road, most of which are place names. Perhaps they evoked fond memories in the breasts of the worthy gentlemen.

Langbourne Avenue (Highgate 8) was built and named in 1924. Origin unknown.

Langford Place and Close (St John’s Wood 3). The manor of Lileston, or Lisson, which once included all the land between South Hampstead and Oxford Street, was the property of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem (hence St John’s Wood) through the middle ages. Around the year 1330 William Langford held the manor. He may have been one of the Knights, or a lay tenant who presumably enjoyed some of the privileges of lordship of the manor. The Place was named in 1867, and the Close in 1937.

Langland Gardens (Hampstead I) dates from 1881. Origin unknown.

Langley Street (Long Acre 4). A property deed dated 1718 records that ‘Sir Roger Langley of the Inner Temple bart’ and Dame Mary his wife owned land abutting south on Long Acre, north on Castle (now Shelton) Street, and including houses in Langley Street. Probably the Langley town house had previously stood in once-fashionable Long Acre, and was demolished to make way for the street.

Langton Close (Gray’s Inn Road 4) was named in 1950 after the Arthur Langton Nurses Home on the west side of the street.

Langton Street (Chelsea 6) owes its name to Thomas Langton, a Lambeth timber-merchant, who started to lease building plots on the north side of the King’s Road in 1854, when development was just beginning in this area.

Langtry Road (South Hampstead I) was part of Alexandra Road until 1967; an ironic change, since Princess Alexandra was Edward VII’s virtuous consort, while actress Lily Langtry, ‘the darling of the naughty nineties’, was his scandalous chere amie. Leighton House, Lily’s home in Alexandra Road, was distinguished by a high brick wall ensuring discretion when Teddy called for afternoon tea. It was scheduled for demolition in 1967 along with a large surrounding area, to make way for Camden Council’s multi-storey housing scheme which blocked off the Kilburn end of Alexandra Road hence the renaming of the western section.

Lansdowne Crescent, Rise, Road and Walk (North Kensington 2) form part of the Ladbroke estate: see Ladbroke Grove, North Kensington.

Lansdowne Row (Mayfair 7) and Fitzmaurice Place cover the site of Lansdowne House, the town residence of William Petty, Viscount Fitzmaurice. In 1784 Petty was created Marquess of Lansdowne, following his arrangement of peace terms with the U.S.A. Successive Marquesses of Lansdowne lived here nntil 1921. Shortly afterwards part of the house was converted into the present Lansdowne Club, while the rest was demolished to make way for these streets.

Lansdowne Terrace (Bloomsbury 4), built on the grounds of Captain Coram’s Foundling Hospital, is also named after the 1st Marquess of Lansdowne.

Lascelles Street (Marylebone 3): Lady Emma Lascelles married the 1st Viscount Portman.

Latimer Road (North Kensington). Edward Latymer, who died in 1626, bequeathed 35 acres of land lying either side of this road to support the Hammersmith Latymer Schools which he fonnded.

Lauderdale Road (Paddington 3) was built in 1875 and probably named after a distinguished Paddington resident: Admiral Lord Lauderdale, then living at Lancaster Gate, had joined the navy as a young boy and while still in his twenties commanded the Sparrow hawk, which brought home half a million Mexican dollars and other booty. He later rose to be Adnllral of the Fleet and First Naval ADC to the Queen.

Launceston Place (Kensington 6). Named after a place in Cornwall because it leads into Cornwall Gardens.

Laundry Yard (Westminster 7). An old alley which has managed to survive the topographical changes of the last three centuries; it is so called on a map of 1682, which also shows a stream or ditch running alongside it, apparently a little tributary of the Tyburn. Laundresses at work beside the stream probably inspired the name.

Laurence Poultney Lane (City 5) contained an old church of St Laurence, of which only the grave yard and a plaque marking the site remain. The church took its cognomen from Sir John Poultney, four times Lord Mayor of London in the 1330s, a wealthy and influential citizen. Sir John lived in a mansion near the bottom of the lane, over looking the Thames, and he built a chantry chapel and a college for St Laurence’s.

Laurier Road (Highgate 8). Originally Lewisham Road, from one of Lord Dartmouth’s titles (see Dartmouth Park). But as there were other Lewisham Roads in London, it was officially renamed in 1937 after Sir Wilfred Laurier, Prime Minister of Canada 1896-1911. Sir Wilfred had few connections with England, far less Highgate, and the name seems to have been chosen simply for the coincidence of the initial.

Lawn Road (Hampstead 8) dates from the 1860s. ‘Lawn’ was a common name in this district; there were several Lawn Cottages and Lawn Villas, relics of Hampstead’s rural village days.

Lawrence Lane (City 5) leads to St Lawrence Jewry Church, dedicated to a third century saint roasted by the Romans on a gridiron hence the church’s weathervane, shaped like a gridiron.

Lawrence Street (Chelsea 6). Thomas Lawrence, a wealthy goldsmith, bought the ex-Manor House at Chelsea after the new Manor was built in Cheyne Walk (see Chelsea Manor Street). He was buried at Chelsea Old Church ten years later in 1593. His great-grandson, Sir Thomas Lawrence, the Secretary for Maryland, demolished the house in about 1704 and formed this street through the site.

Laxton Place (Regent’s Park 4). George Laxton, a baker from Cursitar Street, invested in several properties in this newly developing neighbourhood as a successful side­ line in 1806.

Laystall Street (Mount Pleasant 5) led to the laystall, or refuse heap, known ironically as Mount Pleasant.

Leadenhall Market, Place and Street (City 5). ‘La Ledenehalle’ is first found mentioned in 1296; it was a large manor house that must have had a leaden roof, a feature certainly remarkable enough to give name to the place, especially since it was a secular building. The City authorities acquired Leadenhall soon after that date, and opened it as a market for poultry brought in to London from the country. All poulterers who were not freemen of the City were required to sell their wares here ‘and no where else, on pain of forfeiting the poultry and going bodily to prison’, according to a proclamation of 1345. This regulation aimed to protect native traders at Poultry (q.v.) and their customers, because ‘heretofore folks bringing poultry to the City have sold their poultry in lanes, in the hostels of their hosts, and elsewhere in secret, to the great loss and grievance of the citizens, and at extortionate prices’. After a while the ‘foreigners’ were permitted to offer other goods for sale, but were still kept strictly segregated from City-born merchants. In time however the quantity of farm goods produced within the City boundary diminished to zero, and Leadenhall acquired its present position as the City’s main general provisions market.

Leage Street (Finsbury 5) was named in 1899 in compliment to Richard Leage, a Vestryman at the local church of St Luke.

Leather Lane (Holborn 5). This lane has had about as many scholarly interpretations as it has had different spellings in the past. The earliest known form was Le Vrunelane, recorded in 1233, of which the most plausible explanation is ‘Soke Lane’, i.e. ‘the lane leading to the Sake of Portpool’ (see Portpool Lane), from Flemish ‘Vroon’, a Soke or Manor. At that period the land here was held by a man of Flemish origin, and it seems that the lane was formed and named during his occupation. Le Vrune evolved through the forms Lyverune, Lyver and Lither before settling as Leather Lane in the seventeenth century.

Lecky Street (South Kensington 6). After William Lecky, historian and essayist (1838-1903), who lived and died near here at 38 Onslow Gardens. The house is marked with a plaque in his memory.

Lees Place (Shepherd’s Place, Mayfair 7). An old property deed kept at Westminster Library records that in 1743 Thomas Barrett esquire of Lee, in Kent, leased for building a plot ‘on the North side of a certain new street called Brook Street . . . adjoining Ground and Buildings heretofore leased to John Shepherd’.

Leicester Square (7) and the surrounding streets-Leicester Place and Street, Lisle Street and Bear Street-were once Leicester Fields, where the 2nd Earl of Leicester, a descendant of Sir Philip Sidney, built his family mansion in 1631. “When Leicester sought a licence to erect this house, which was to occupy the whole north side of the future Leicester Square, he was told to reserve part of the ground as tree-lined walks and open spaces where the local peasants could dry their clothes, because until then the field had been parish common land. The walks survive as the Leicester Square green, but whether the public is still allowed to dry washing here might be a matter for experiment.

Lisle Street was named after Leicester’s son, Viscount Lisle. Bear Street, and the Bear & Staff pub, are probably derived from the Bear and Ragged Staff, the armorial crest of the House of Leicester. Leicester House was demolished after the 2nd  Earl’s   great-great-grand­daughter died in 1733.

Leigh Street (King’s Cross 4). Leigh is a small town near Tonbridge: see Tonbridge Street, King’s Cross.

Leighton Road, Crescent, Grove and Place (Kentish Town 8) cross an estate which belonged to Joshua Prole Torriano of Thames Ditton in the eighteenth century. He inherited the land from his great­ grandfather, and bequeathed it to his niece, Dame Isabella Leighton of Charlton Kings, Gloucestershire. The estate was developed in the 1860s by the Leighton family’s land-agent, Professor Thomas Leverton Donaldson (1795-1885), a well-known architect descended from the Levertons who had been builders and architects in Kentish Town for generations and are mentioned in the Dictionary of National Biography. Hence Torriano Avenue and Cottages, Charlton Kings Road and Leverton Street.

Leo Yard (St John Street, Clerken­ well) used to be Red Lion Yard (Latin leo, ‘lion’) attached to a Red Lion Inn on the south side of the yard.

Leonard Street (City Road 5). The name was originally applied only to the eastern section of the street lying within the parish of St Leonard’s, Shoreditch.

Lever Street (Finsbury 5). Once an old country path known by various names. In 1861 the local parish vestry decided to adopt a single, official name for its whole length and finally selected Lever Street. Unfortunately no record remains of the reason for the choice.

Leverett Street (Chelsea 7). In memory of James Leverett of Chelsea, who died in 1660 leaving £10 a year to be divided among the poor of the parish.

Lewisbam Street (Dartmouth Street, Westminster). From Viscount Lewisham, Lord Dartmouth: see Dartmouth Street.

Lexham Gardens (South Kensington 6). A Norfolk place-name. Connection with South Kensington unknown.

Lime Street (City 5) was Limstrate in 1170, the street where lime for building was burnt and sold.

Limerston Street (Chelsea 6) and Shalcomb Street were built in the 1850s on a field called the Ten Acres, and named after villages on the Isle of Wight.

Lincoln’s Inn Fields (Holborn 4). The earliest known inhabitants of the future Lincoln’s Inn were the Black Friars, who settled here on arrival in England in 1221. Tradition has it that when they moved to the present Blackfriars district of the City some fifty years later, Edward I granted the former Friary to Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, ‘being a person well affected to the study of laws’. Modern research has revealed that Lincoln was a close friend of the King and was appointed by him to inquire into the scandalously corrupt state of the courts. The Friary probably became an Inn or hostelry for law students in about 1300.

Lincoln’s Inn Fields consisted of three small fields of common wasteground close to the Inn. In about 1376 they were ‘a common walking and sporting place, for the clerks of the chancery, apprentices, and students of the law, and citizens of London’ – as indeed they still are 600 years later. The square of houses called Lincoln’s Inn Fields was planned in 1618 and finished in about 1682.

Linden Gardens (Nolting Hill Gate 6). A Georgian mansion called Linden Lodge stood here until the late nineteenth century. It was presumably named from linden trees in its spacious wooded grounds.

Linstead Street (West Hampstead 1), Kelson Street and Netherwood Street were built in 1869 by the United Land Company, and are probably named after three of its trustees or directors. That year the same company also developed an estate in Hammersmith, where there is another Netherwood Road.

Lion Passage (Goswell Road, Clerk· enwell), formerly Red Lion Passage, leads to the back of the Old Red Lion in St John Street. The inn existed as long ago as 1415. It is said that Thomas Paine wrote The Rights of Man here.

Lisburne Road (Hampstead 8) was so named in 1887. Origin unknown.

Lisle Street (Soho 7). A family name of the Earls of Leicester : see Leicester Square.

Lismore Circus and Road (Gospel Oak 8) cover Gospel Oak Field, a meadow beside the Gospel Oak, once farmed by Richard Mortimer and Mortimer Terrace. When Mortimer’s lease expired in 1806, Lord Ferdinand Fitzroy, Lord of Tottenham Court Manor (see Fitzroy Square), transferred the land to Cornelius Viscount Lismore, an Irish peer. Forty years later, in his old age, Lismore laid out the Circus and its spoke roads and then auctioned the estate in small lots to builders and developers in 1849.

Lissenden Gardens (Kentish Town 8), dating from 1899, is probably a pretty but meaningless name.

Lisson (Marylebone 3), formerly known as Lileston, was probably the tun, or farm, of a Saxon named Lille. Lisson Grove is part of a track to Kilburn which was ‘the earliest way to the north from Lisson Village along the edge of the higher ground above Edgware Road, and gradually sinking till it reached the level ground where that road was crossed by the Westbourne or Kilbourn. In medieval times, with the formation of Kilburn Priory, it must have been most popular’. Lisson Street, two or three centuries ago, was a row of cottages overlooking Lisson Village Green.

Litchfield Street (Charing Cross Road 7) was a turning out of Grafton Street (now demolished). Both were built in 1685 and named after two of Charles II’s illegitimate children by Barbara Villiers: the popular young Duke of Grafton and his beautiful sister Lady Lichfield.

Lithos Road (Finchley Road I) was given the Greek name for ‘stone’ because originally (about 1880) it led to the parish stone-yard.

Little Britain (City 5). In 1274 one Robert le Bretonn, probably a native of Brittany, inherited a number of tenements and houses in the parish of St Botolph’s Aldersgate, the church standing at the end of Little Britain, and the street was named Brettonestrete after him. However, Tudor Londoners assumed that ‘Brettonestrete’ must have been the ‘street inhabited by people from Brittany’. There were several such foreign enclaves in London: Petty Burgundy was a settlement of Burgundians in Southwark; Petty Calais on the site of Bridge Street in Westminster provided lodgings for woolstaplers from Calais, the town which held a monopoly of the control of the English wool trade in the middle ages; there was a Petty Wales near the Tower and a Petty France, now New Broad Street, at Bishopsgate; another Petty France, a fifteenth century resort of French merchants, still exists in Westminster. Little was therefore prefixed to the name as a native translation of the Anglo­ Norman ‘Petty’.

Little Russell Street (Bloomsbury 4) was built in about 1670, soon after the Russells, Dukes of Bedford, inherited Bloomsbury Manor: see Bedford Square, Bloomsbury.

Little Turnstile (High Holborn 4). Little and Great Turnstiles are mentioned in Tudor times as Tunpyklane, Turngatlane and Turningstile Lane. The revolving stiles set up at each corner of Lincoln’s Inn Fields originally prevented the grazing cattle from straying out of the fields onto the highway. Later, when Lincoln’s Inn Fields became a select residential area, they probably served to keep out the animals being driven along High Holborn to Smithfield Market.

Liverpool. Liverpool Road (Islington 5) is a very old route, known for centuries as Islington Back Road, being the track behind Islington village. Back roads often arose where the main street through a village-Upper Street, in this case­ was in such bad repair that it was easier for the traffic to take to the fields, and so gradually form a new road. It was renamed in 1826 after Lord Liverpool (1770-1828), the then Prime Minister. Liverpool Street in the City (5) is also named in his honour, being built just after his death. It crosses the site of the thirteenth-century Priory of the Star of Bethlehem, later a lunatic asylum, better known as Bedlam.

Livonia Street (Soho 7). Named in 1894 by association with nearby Poland Street: Livonia was a Baltic province once ruled by Poland.

Lloyd Baker Street (Clerkenwell 5). The Reverend William Baker owned extensive fields in Clerkenwell by 1738. He and his wife Mary Lloyd were the parents of
Thomas Lloyd-Baker of Hardwicke Court, Gloucester, who married Mary Sharpe. She was the niece of philanthropist Granville Sharpe (1735-1813), whose anti slavery agitations secured the law that “as soon as any slave sets foot on English territory he becomes free’. Granville has been a common name in the Lloyd Baker family since then.

Part of the Clerkenwell land was leased by the Lloyd-Bakers to the New River Company (the Metropolitan Water Board): hence Hardwick Street and Gloucester Way in
front of the MWB headquarters.

The rest of the estate, including Lloyd Baker Street, Lloyd Street and Square and Granville Street and Square, all built in the 1820s, remained in the family and now belongs to Olive Lloyd-Baker CBE, who still occupies Hardwicke Court.

Lloyd’s Avenue (City 5) adjoins the head office of Lloyd’s Register of Shipping. The original Lloyd, Edward, ran a coffee house where mariners and ship owners used to gather. In 1696 he started to issue bulletins of information for them and these finally grew into the present world-wide service.

Lodge Road (St John’s Wood 3). Hanover Lodge in Regent’s Park stands near the east end of the street. Both Lodge and street were built in the late 1820s. The Lodge, now part of Bedford College, has been the home of Lord Cochrane (see Cochrane Terrace) and Joseph Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon, who reigned briefly as King of Naples and King of Spain and later fled from his erstwhile subjects to England.

Logan Place (South Kensington 6) probably takes its name from William George Logan, a Victorian businessman who shrewdly took on leases of a large number of building plots in South Kensington when large scale development of the area began in the 1850s. Logan Mews dates from 1876, about the time Logan retired from business and settled at Little Boltons, South Kensington. The Place was named after the Mews a few years later.

Lombard Lane (Fleet Street 5) was originally a slang name used by the inhabitants to mean that everything there had been pledged to the Lombards, the moneylenders . The lane passed through a dangerous slum area, the precinct of the pre-Reformation White Friars. Since the Friary’s privilege of granting sanctuary had not been repealed at the dissolution of the monastery, fraudulent debtors and fugitives from the law crammed the Friary site for centuries. The slum has now been cleared, and the name Lombard Lane is the only relic of the neighbourhood’s former notor iety.

Lombard Street (City 5). Lombards, from Lombardy in North Italy, rivalled the Jews in the skills of moneylending and banking in the middle ages. Less than thirty years after the Jews were expelled from England on various pretexts in 1290, this street had gained its name from the Lombards who moved here to replace them. They worked under the heraldic sign of their native land, the Three Balls, the emblem of pawnbrokers ever since. Lombard Street is still the City banking centre.

Lombardy Place (Bayswater 2) was built and named in 1958. Origin of name unknown.

London. The attempted explanations of the name London have been too many and varied to list. The only point of agreement is that it must be Celtic in origin, but there is no conclusive evidence of a Celtic settlement on the site of the City.

London Bridge (City 5). The first London bridge, probably made of wood, was built by the Romans slightly east of the present site. It was followed by several fortified Saxon bridges which were stormed by the invading Danes-a blood­thirsty Norse saga has come down to us as the nursery rhyme London Bridge is broken down. A stone bridge was begun in 1176; it took thirty years to build and lasted nearly seven centuries, a masterpiece of medieval engineering. Its successor, opened in 1831, lasted only until 1969, when it was sold to the Americans and transported piece by piece to Arizona.

London Bridge Street, Southwark, takes its name from London Bridge railway station, opened in 1841.

London Wall (City 5) follows the line of the great Roman wall which ringed London until the eighteenth century (see end-map). Bomb damage in the second World War and subsequent clearance re­ vealed several lost stretches of wall here in surprisingly good condition, and redevelopment has been designed to display the relics to the public. Other long stretches of the wall are visible between Aldgate and the Tower. It runs through the foundations of buildings between Aldgate and Bishopsgate and can also be seen in the basements of the Old Bailey Court and the GPO in Newgate Street.

London Street (City 5) was named after John London, Warden of the Ironmongers’ Company in 1724. Ironmongers’ Hall stood opposite the end of the street until it was bombed in 1917.

London Street (Paddington 3). Named not to welcome West Country travellers emerging from Paddington Station, but after the Bishops of London, who have owned this district for centuries: see Bishop’s Bridge Road, Paddington.

Long Acre (7) was the name of a Tudor pasture, ‘acre’ being used in its earlier sense of ‘field’ (cf Latin :ager’, ‘field’). As the name suggests, It was a long narrow plot, and lay between the wall around the Covent Garden and the street, then a lane, called Long Acre.

Long Lane (City 5). ‘The lane’ wrote Stow in 1598, ‘truly called long, which reacheth from Smith­ field to Aldersgate Street’. It was unusually long by City standards.

Long Meadow (Kentish Town 8) and Barn Close, two adjoining housing developments dating from 1948, are both named after fields at Kentish Town shown on a Survey taken in 1803, when the district was still completely rural.

Long Yard (Holborn 4) was a mid­ eighteenth-century stable yard, containing mews cottages attached to the houses in Great Ormond Street. It was longer then than it is now, opening into Millman Street.

Longmoore Street (Pimlico 7). Long Moor was a long, narrow, marshy field shown on the site of modern Carlisle Place, Victoria Street, on a plan dated 1614.

Lonsdale Road and Yard (Nolting Hill 2). From the Earl of Lonsdale pub, now one of the Henekey Inns, on the comer of Portobello Road and Westbourne Grove. It was opened in the 1850s and dedicated to a prominent statesman of the time.

Lord Hills Bridge (Westbourne Park 3). General Lord Hill, one of Wellington’s ablest generals, retired from his victories in the Peninsula to Westbourne House, the principal residence at Westbourne village. William IV and Queen Adelaide came to visit him there. Lord Hill had to leave in about 1836, when the Great Western Railway purchased the spacious grounds and demolished the house, which stood just west of this bridge where the rails now run.

Lord North Street (Westminster 7) was built in 1725 and named North Street, being the north entry into Smith Square. ‘Lord’ was added in 1936 to distinguish it from other North Streets in London, although Lord North had no apparent association with this area. However, there are several London
streets genuinely named after Frederick Lord North (1732-1792), Prime Minister at the time of the War of American    Independence: North Court, near Tottenham Court Road, dates from his term as Premier; North Mews, Gray’s Inn Road, was begun about the year he died, and Guilford Street recalls his other title, Earl of Guilford.

Lordship Place (Chelsea 6). ‘Lordship’ here has the meaning ‘Manor’, referring to the local seigniorial rights exercised on the spot. It was the yard in front of the old Manor House belonging to the Lawrence family (see Lawrence Street) and the scene of the Manor Court, whose instruments of judgement and punishment were kept here: the duckingstoolstocks, whip ping-post and lock-up.

Lorenzo Street (Pentonville Road 4). So named in 1895; until then it was Yark Street. Origin unknown.

Lorne.Princess Louise, fourth daughter of Queen Victoria, won great popularity in 1871 when she married one of her mother’s subjects, the young Marquis of Lorne, instead of a Prussian prince as her sisters had done. Lome Close, Marylebone 3, was immediately named after her. The princess and her husband moved into Kensington Palace, and she is still remembered in Kensington in Lorne Gardens (6) and the Princess Louise Children’s Hospital.

Lothbury (City 5) was the bury, or manor, of a Saxon family whose name must have been something like Lotha.

Lots Road (Chelsea 6). The Lots was a strip of pasture land between the Thames and this old lane. It was mentioned in a Survey dated 1544 as ‘prat voc lez lotte . . . in occiden campo de Chelsey’: ‘a meadow named The Lots in Chelsea West Field’. It was so called because the Lord of the Manor of Chelsea allotted it to his tenants to graze their cattle each year from August until February. This privilege con tinued until 1825.

Loudoun Road (St John’s Wood 1). The urbanisation of St John’s Wood from the 1820s onward marked a breakthrough in town development: detached and semi detached villas appeared in place of the usual terraced rows. This innovation owed much to the new interest in landscaping, a movement led by John Claudius Loudoun (1783-1843). He was considered the leading authority on this subject, about which he produced many periodicals and encyclopedias.

Lovat Lane (City 5) was Love Lane in the middle ages, probably from prostitutes plying their trade. A company of City fishmongers had it adapted in 1939 because it was confused with the other Love Lane in the City; they suggested Lovat since ‘great quantities of salmon arrive daily in Billingsgate from the famous fishings owned by Lord Lovat’.

Love Lane (City 5) was ‘so called of wantons’ according to Stow in 1598, and modern scholars agree.

Lower Adam Street (Adelphi). After the Adam brothers, desigoers of the Adelphi area: see Adelphi Terrace, Strand.

Lower Belgrave Street (Belgravia 7). Part of the Grosvenor estate: see Grosvenor Square.

Lower Robert Street (Adelphi). After Robert Adam, one of the designers of the Adelphi area: see Adelphi Terrace, Strand.

Lower Sloane Street (Chelsea 7). After Sir Hans Sloane, the father of Lady Cadogan.

Lower Terrace and Upper Terrace (Hampstead 1) are two short terraces of Georgian houses, built one above the other on the hillside.

Lower Thames Street (City 5), like the Strand, was probably the actual bank of the Thames in the Saxon period. Gradually the shore was covered with wharfs and houses, finally leaving Thames Street about 100 yards from the river’s edge. It was the longest of_the medieval city roads, divided for convenience into Lower Thames Street (below London Bridge) and Upper Thames Street.

Lowfield Road (West Hampstead 1) was formerly the field in the valley of the River Westbourne. The slope of the valley is still apparent, but the river is now carried in sewer pipes beneath the course of the street.

Lowndes. William Lowndes (1652-1724), a skilled financier and politician from Buckinghamshire, gained a place in the Treasury while still a young man and amassed a considerable fortune. He invested his money in estates near London and in his native county. The first London purchase was a small field in Soho, the site of Lowndes Court off Carnaby Street. The other consisted of two fields at Knightsbridge beside the River Westbourne. They were developed by his great-great-grandson with the help of a friend called Charles Lyall, who between them built Lowndes Square, Street, Place and Close (7) and Lyall Street in the 1830s. Lowndes also commemorated his mother in Harriet Street and Walk; the family home at Chesham, Bucks, in Chesham Street, Place and Close; and the family name in William Street: the property descended from one William Lowndes to another down to the twentieth century.

Lucerne Mews (Kensington 6). So named in 1866. Origin unknown.

Ludgate (City 5) probably derives from the Old English word ‘ludgeat’, meaning ‘back gate’ or ‘postern’. The gate through the City wall stood about halfway up Ludgate Hill: see end map. There was an old tradition that the gate was built by Lud, a mythical king of the Ancient Britons, and a statue of him therefore adorned it from Tudor times until its demoli tion in 1760. Ludgate Hill is the higher of the City’s twin hills, exceeding Cornhill by a few feet, and is fittingly crowned by St Paul’s Cathedral. Ludgate Broadway was a relatively broad path winding through the precinct of the Black­ friars (q.v.). Ludgate Circus was completed in 1875.

Lumley Street (Mayfair 7). Part of the Grosvenor estate.

Lupus Street (Pimlico 7). After Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster.

Luton Street (Marylebone 3). Built and named in the mid 1820s. Origin unknown.

Lymington Road (Hampstead 1) and parallel Fawley Road were built in 1897, probably by a native of Hampshire; Lymington is a Hampshire town nine miles west of Fawley.

Lyon’s Place (Marylebone 3). John Lyon, a wealthy yeoman from Preston in Harrow, was one of the Elizabethan gentlemen who endowed grammar schools in place of the dissolved monastic schools: see also Rugby Street, Tonbridge Street and Bedford Row. In 1571 he founded Harrow School to give free education to the parish boys, although fee-paying pupils were to be admitted if space allowed. Lyon also purchased a 40-acre farm here in Lisson Manor to be held by the Governors of the School. Its proceeds were to maintain a road-the Harrow Road-from the School to London.

The farm is now streets, begun in 1823, appropriately named after Lyon himself and current Governors of the School: the Duke of Abercorn; the Earl of Aberdeen, the ex Harrow schoolboy who served a term as Prime Minister at the beginning of the Crimean War; Lord John Northwick, a Governor for over fifty years, from 1801 until his death in 1859; Charles Hamilton of Sudbury; and the Reverend John William Cunningham, vicar of Harrow, ‘distinguished for courtesy and kindness of heart’ according to the Dictionary of National Biography.

Macclesfield Road (City Road 5). In 1820 the Regent’s Canal Company purchased land here for their City Road Basin, which is now filled in at this point. The Company built this street beside the basin and named it after the Chairman, the 4th Earl of Macclesfield. Hence also Macclesfield Bridge over the same canal in Regent’s Park.

Macclesfield Street (Gerrard Street, Soho) belonged to the Gerrards, Earls of Macclesfield.

Macfarren Place (Marylebone Road). Sir George Macfarren (1813-1887) was pupil, professor, and finally principal at the adjacent Royal Academy of Music.

Mackennal Street (St John’s Wood 3). Sir Bertram Mackennal (1863-1931), the Australian sculptor who designed the English currency for the reign of George V, lived in St John’s Wood, at 87a Clifton Hill and later at 38 Marlborough Hill.

Mackeson Road (Gospel Oak 8) was named in 1887 after the Reverend Charles Mackeson, editor of an annual Guide to the Churches of London, who founded the nearby church of All Hallows, Savernake Road in 1885 and was vicar there until 1899.

Macklin Street (Drury Lane 4) originated as Lewkenor’s Lane, built in about 1620 beside the house of Sir Lewis Lewkenor, Master of Ceremonies to James I, in Drury Lane. As the Quality later moved westwards, the poor filled thevacuum, and this street in particular became so unsavoury that it was given a new name in order to try to destroy its bad reputation, and called Charles Street. But it was still known as ‘a rendezvous and nursery of lewd women’ and so was renamed in 1878 as Macklin Street. Charles Macklin was born about 1697 in Ireland, but ran away to England to join a company of strolling players. He acted in all the London play­ houses-his violent temper and fre­ quent quarrels forced him to keep changing theatres-and was seen most often in this locality, at Covent Garden and Drury Lane Theatres.

He is buried close by at St Paul’s Covent Garden.

Mackworth Street (Camden Town 4) was originally Rutland Street, a companion name to parallel Granby Terrace (the Marquis of Granby being also Duke of Rutland), but it was renamed in 1938 to end confusion with the other four Rutland Streets in inner London. The new name was unimaginatively chosen from the gravestones of the local parish church of St Pancras, where Sir Thomas Mackworth, a former Kentish Town landowner, was buried in 1744.

Macroom Road (Paddington 2). The name of a market town in County Cork, which has no apparent connection with this area.

Maddox Street (Mayfair 7). In 1622 William Maddox,a wealthy merchant tailor from the City, purchased Millfield (see Mill Street) and adjoining fields on either side of the future Regent Street. The land passed to his grandson, Sir Benjamin Maddox, who died in 1716 bequeathing it to his daughter’s infant son, Benjamin Pollen: hence Pollen Street off Maddox Street. Part of the property still belongs to the trustees of the Pollen estate.

Magdalen Street (Bermondsey 5). The church of St Mary Magdalen in Bermondsey Street was originally (about 1290) built by the monks of Bermondsey Abbey as a lay chapel, next door to their own abbey church but serving the needs of the local villagers. After the dissolution of the monasteries it became Bermondsey parish church.

Magpie Alley (City 5) must take its name from a vanished inn dedicated to the magpie, a bird of good omen.

Maida (3). At Maida in Spain the French troops of General Regnier were crushingly defeated in 1806 by the British force under Sir John Stuart. The victory was commemorated in the name Maida Hill, now called Maida Avenue, off Edgware Road. The houses then being built along the Edgware Road at the foot of the hill were consequently known as Maida Vale.

Maiden Lane (Covent Garden 4) originated as a trackway across the Covent Garden (q.v.). The Victorians tried to explain the name by postulating a statue of the Virgin here; a less genteel but more probable explanation would be midden heaps.

Maitland Park Road and Villas (Hampstead 8) fill an estate which was purchased in 1847 as a site for the Orphan Working School (now moved to Reigate). Ebenezer Maitland was Treasurer of the orphanage in the 1820s. The school was first established by the Reverend Pickard at Haxton in 1754, then transferred 15 years later to larger premises on the site of Pickard Street in the City Road, where it remained until the removal to the country air of Hampstead. At first the only education provided was a little reading; the rest of the time was spent making shoes, nets, carpets and similar items. The school disposed of the orphans in their early teens by binding them apprentice to a_ master.

Makepeace Avenue (Highgate 8). This name was chosen in 1924 for reasons unknown.

Makins Street (Chelsea 6) was named in 1906. Origin unknown.

Malden Crescent, Place and Road (Kentish Town 8). Malden in Surrey was one of the properties of the Fitzroy family, who owned this area: see Fitzroy Square, Tottenham Court Road.

The Mall (St James’s Park 7) was the second of the two royal pall mall alleys.

Mallord Street (Chelsea 6). In honour of Joseph Mallord William Turner, the great painter, who came to live nearby in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, in his weary old age. He died there in 1851.

Mallow Street (Old Street 5) was named in 1908 after one of the three large fields that comprised Finsbury Manor in a survey taken in 1567; the other two were Bonhill Field (see Bunhill Row) and the ‘High Field, or Meadow Ground, where the three windmills stand’ (see Tabernacle Street). In fact, this site was part of Bonhill Field, not Mallow Field; the latter, taking its name from the mallow-flowers growing in the marshy ground, later became Upper Moorfields and is now Finsbury Square.

Malta Street (Clerkenwell 5). Named in 1890, probably by association with the nearby Priory of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem (see St John, Clerkenwell): after about 1530 the monks were known as the Knights of Malta.

Manchester Square and Street (Marylebone 3). The first building in Manchester Square was Manchester House on the north side, begun in 1776 for the 4th Duke of Manchester. As an active politician he needed a town house in keeping with his ambitions. The Dukes of Manchester are also Viscounts Mandeville: hence nearby Mandeville Place. At the duke’s death in 1788 the house became the Spanish Embassy: see Spanish Place. It is now Hertford House, the home of the Wallace Collection.

Manette Street (Soho 7). No 1 Greek Street, known as the House of St Barnabas, which has a back entrance in this street, is thought to be the house Dickens had in mind as the home of Dr Manette and his daughter, where much of the action of A Tale of Two Cities takes place. Many of Dickens’ details tally exactly with this house.

Manley Street (Chalk Farm 8). Much of the Chalk Farm area was developed in the 1860s by Messrs Manley and Rogers, builders, whose workshops were nearby at 6-8 Chalcot Road.

Manresa Road (Chelsea 6) led to Trafalgar Square (now Chelsea Square). Manresa and Trafalgar are both Spanish place names.

Mansell Street (City 5), Leman Street and Alie Street are said to derive from a local property-owner called Mansel Leman, who married Lucy Alie of St Dunstan’s-in-the­ East in the seventeenth century.

Mansfield Road (Gospel Oak 8). The fields, farms and woods from Mansfield Road to Hampstead Lane were purchased in 1754 by William Murray, a brilliant and accomplished advocate who two years later became Lord Chief Justice of England and Baron Mansfield. In 1914 his descendant the 6th Lord Mansfield decided to sell his estate for building development, but thanks largely to the generosity of Lord Iveagh the open spaces were saved and given to the public as Ken Wood and Parliament Hill.

Mansion House Place and Street (City 5). The Mansion House, the official residence of the Lord Mayor of London, was erected by the City Aldermen in 1739. Before that the Mayor was lodged in one or other of the Company Halls, an inconvenient arrangement since his civic activities tended to disrupt the regular business at the Hall.

Manson Place (South Kensington 6). A mid Victorian name of unknown origin.

Mantell Street (Pentonville 5). The area now called Pentonville belonged at the time of the Domesday survey to Geoffrey de Mandeville, a Norman knight and companion of the Conqueror at Hastings: hence the Mandeville Houses in Mantell Street. Later it passed to Gilbert Foliot, a descendant of Jordan de Briset, who had founded the Priory of the Knights of St John at Clerkenwell. Following the family tradition, Gilbert bequeathed his estate, whose name was by then corrupted to Mantell, to the Knights. It became known as the Commandry Mantells, being a manor held by a Commander of the Knights of StJohn. This name for the area lingered on after the dissolution of the Priory by Henry VIII and was not replaced by that of Pentonville until some time after Henry Penton developed the land in the 1780s.

Since 1951 part of the Mantells has been Priory Green Estate, blocks of flats named after Gilbert Foliot and five Grand Priors of the Order of St John: Folio!, Kendal, Tomay, Redington, Paveley and Grendon Houses.

Maple Place and Street (Tottenham Court Road 4) are connected indirectly with the nearby furnishing firm: they were named in honour of Sir John Blundell Maple MP, son of John Maple who founded Maple’s in 1842, in recognition of his charitable works in the district, especially in the rebuilding of University College Hospital, just behind Maple’s, at his own expense.

Marban Road (Maida Hill 2). Marban is a Bolivian province which has no known connection with this late Victorian street.

Marble Arch (7). Nash’s triumphal arch of Seravezza marble was origin­ ally the gateway into Buckingham Palace. It was moved in 1851 to serve as the main entrance to Hyde Park, but by 1908 it was found too narrow. So now an elaborate roundabout system routes traffic around instead of through it, and the arch stands on an island site like its Parisian counterpart, the Arc de Triomphe.

Marclunont Street (King’s Cross 4) is built on the grounds of Captain Coram’s Foundling Hospital: see Coram Street, Bloomsbury.

Margaret Street (Marylebone 4). Lady Margaret Cavendish Harley, the subject of Matthew Prior’s poem to ‘My noble, lovely little Peggy’ was the heiress to the Harley estates at Marylebone. In 1734 she married the 2nd Duke of Portland, and the street name first appears the same year. See Harley Street, Marylebone.

Margaretta Terrace (Chelsea 6). After Margaretta Phene.

Marigold Alley (Southwark 5). An early name, perhaps derived from an inn- or house-sign displayed here during the reign of Mary I, whose emblem was a marigold.

Mark Lane (City 5) was spell Marthe Lane in about the year 1200, and probably belonged to a lady named Martha.

Market Place (Marylebone 4). When Edward Harley (Harley Street) started to build up his Marylebone estate, he planned a complete little town, with its own church and market. The market was ready by 1724, but the opposition of the owners of Camaby Market, who feared competition, prevented it from opening. Finally in 1731 the King gave permission for a market to be held on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays here in Marylebone Fields. But it was never very profitable, and finally closed down in 1882.

Markham Square and Street (Chelsea 7) fill the site of Box Farm, held by the Markham Evans family from 1588. The old farmhouse was demolished in 1900, and is now re­placed by the Classic Cinema in the King’s Road. The last owner of the farm was Pullam Markham Evans.

Marlborough. The earliest street to honour the 1st Duke of Marlborough was Great Marlborough Street (Soho 7), begun in 1704, the year of his victory at Blenheim. ‘Great’ not only to distinguish it from Little Marlborough Street, Soho, but also because of the ‘Magnificence of its Buildings and Gardens, and all inhabited by prime Quality’.

Five years after Blenheim, Queen Anne granted a ‘piece of ground taken out of St James’s Park’ to build Marlborough House, beside Marlborough Road (7), as a town house for the Duke and his wife. At that time the Queen was still dominated by her termagant friend Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, with whom she liked to pretend to be an ordinary private lady, ‘Mrs Morley’, while the duchess was ‘Mrs Freeman’. The house was described in 1722 as ‘in every way answerable to the grandeur of its master’. It has belonged to the Crown since 1817, and is now used by visiting Commonwealth Prime Ministers.

The Duke died in 1722, but he and his battles are found in street names all over London, even in the newest suburbs. Blenheim Street, off New Bond Street, was named some thirty years after Marlborough’s death. Blenheim Passage, Road and Terrace, St John’s Wood, near Marlborough Hill and Place (1), were not built until the 1830s, and Blenheim Crescent, North Kensington, dates only from 1863. In the London suburbs of Chiswick, Harrow, Croydon, Sutton and Leytonstone, as well as in countless provincial towns, Blenheims are situated close to Marlboroughs.

The Battle of Ramillies (1706) has been less popular; Ramillies Street and Place, Soho, were called Blenheim Street until 1885. But in Sidcup, SE London, there is a Ramillies Road not far from Marlborough Park Avenue. Over a dozen London pubs still commemorate Marlborough and his battles.

Marlborough Street (Chelsea 6), built on Chelsea Common, probably commemorates the 3rd Duke of Marlborough (1706-1758), who lived beside the Common during the last two years of his life.

The Marlowes (St John’s Wood 3) was built by Bernard Sunley and Sons of Hemel Hempstead, in 1965. Marlowes is the central shopping street in Hemel Hempstead.

Marquis Road (Camden Town 8). After the landowner, the Marquis of Camden.

Marsden Street (Kentish Town 8). Thomas Marsden was a successful City wholesale druggist, who invested in a number of building plots in and around Marsden Street in 1852. This part of Kentish Town had already been laid out for development at that time, and was being offered in small lots to businessmen who undertook to erect the houses.

Marshall Street (Soho 7) is built on a field called Pesthouse Close, which took its name from a plague-pit and hospital provided by the Earl of Craven during the Great Plague of Craven during the Great Plague of 1665. At his death, Craven left the land in trust for the public in case of a new epidemic. By the 1720s the plague had not recurred and Soho had become valuable as building ground, so Lord Craven’s heirs ob­ tained Parliamentary permission to transfer the trust to more isolated land in Paddington (now Craven Hill, q.v.) and then built this street named after the Craven family seat of Hampstead Marshall in Berkshire. Hence also Craven Hall at the end of Marshall Street.

Marsham Street (Westminster 7) crosses a fairly extensive estate which belonged in Charles II’s time to Sir Richard Tufton, the original builder of Turton Street. He bequeathed the land to hls friend and distant kinsman Sir Robert Marsham, who began Marsham Street in 1688, during the building boom which followed the Great Fire of 1666. The property passed to Sir Robert’s son, Baron Romney (hence Romney Street on the same estate) and to his descendantsthe Earls of Romney.

Mart Street (Covent Garden) leads to Covent Garden Mart, or Market.

Martin Lane (City 5). St Martin’s Church, burnt down in the Great Fire of 1666, occupied the little garden on the east side of Martin Lane.

Martlett Court (Drury Lane 4) first appears in the rate books in 1677, under the form “Martin’s Alley’, which was probably derived from the name of the parish, St Martin’s­ in-the-Fields. Within seven years Martin’s Alley had been adapted to the present name. ‘Martin’ to ‘Martlett’ may be a simple case of corruption, or the change may have been a deliberate one to avoid confusion with the two other streets called St Martin’s Court in the same parish. Just possibly, this was an alley where birds were offered for sale, since martins and martlets are both birds resembling swallows.

Mary Place (North Kensington 2) grew up in the 1830s with the coming of the North Kensington pig-keepers to this spot. They built clusters of cottages here, mostly shacks partitioned inside to keep the pigs from the people. This street, according to Florence Gladstone’s Notting Hill in Bygone Days, was not dedicated to Our Lady but to a Mary who kept pigs. At one time ‘The Piggeries’ crowded 3000 pigs and 1000 humans into 260 hovels, but now blocks of flats have replaced the slums.

Mary Terrace (Camden High Street 8) was described in 1828 as ‘a new intended street’ to be built on land leased by Mr William Maryon.

Marylands Road (Paddington 2) is near -the site of the ‘Seynt Mary Landes, lying and being in West bourne, in the parish of Paddington’, formerly the area between Malvern and Shirland Roads. In the eleventh century Aubrey de Vere, Lord of the Manor of Kensington, granted the Marylands along with a sizeable estate in Kensington to the Abbot of St Mary’s Abbey, Abingdon (see St Mary Abbot’s Place), who had miraculously cured his eldest son of a sickness.

Marylebone (3) is not, by toponymical standards, a very old name. The district was originally known as Tyburn (q.v.), after the stream which flowed through the future Regent’s Park, wound beside Marylebone Lane and crossed Oxford Street at what is now Stratford Place, where stood the local church of St John Tyburn.

But the gallows on the site of Marble Arch was also called Tyburn, and was so notorious that a ‘tyburn’ became a synonym for ‘gibbet’, and even scholars thought that the stream was named after the noose, instead of the reverse. Tyburn Road, now Oxford Street, the main route to the gallows, became a haunt of undesirable characters, either from some kind of fatal fascination or because pickings were good among the crowds who gathered to watch the executions. Robbers broke into the church and disturbed the peace of the countryside. So in the year 1400 a fresh start was made. The church beside Oxford Street was abandoned and the community moved half a mile up the bourne, probably forming Marylebone High Street to link the two settlements. A new church was erected near the top of the High Street and called St Mary Bourne, the name which quickly became applied to the area, replacing the disreputable Tyburn. The ‘le’ seems to have been added about four centuries later, as a result of popular etymology inter­ preting ‘Mary Bourne’ as ‘Marie Ia Bonne’.

An ancient path which crossed the fields from St Mary’s to St Giles­in-the-Fields still makes two brief appearances: at its Oxford Street end, as a little alley now called Perry’s Place, and again a little further north-west as Marylebone Passage, off Wells Street. Eighteenth­ century maps show the path gradually being submerged by an expanding grid of streets; the fact that any of it was allowed to survive shows how well-established was its use among the villagers.

Marylebone Street was built in about 1758 by the descendants of Edward Harley (see Harley Street) when for once they chose a name that did not refer to themselves.

Marylebone Road was made in 1757 as part of the ‘New Road from Paddington to Islington’ under an Act of Parliament which required a wide strip of empty land to be left on either side. This was not a prophetic concession to future road­widening needs, although it has been used as such, but an attempt to reduce the risk of squatters and ribbon development. The road was ‘built’ by the simple process of filling in ditches and removing any hedges encountered en route. Less simple was the construction of Marylebone Flyover at its western end, named in 1968. See also Old Marylebone Road.

Mason’s Arms Mews (Mayfair 7). The Mason’s Arms tavern in Maddox Street dates back to the 1720s.

Mason’s Avenue (City 5) contained the Masons’ Company Hall. Since the Company declined in importance the Hall has been a restaurant called Ye Olde Dr Butler’s Head. Dr Butler, Physician to James 1, was the inventor of a medicated rejuvenating ale formerly sold in several taverns at the sign of the Butler’s Head.

Mason’s Place (Finsbury 5) was Grove Place until 1836, when it was suddenly renamed. As there was no resident called Mason there at the time, the name may refer to a mason’s workshop in the street.

Mason’s Yard (St James’s 7) lies behind the Chequers, originally the Mason’s Arms, in Duke Street. The pub took its name from Henry Mason, who lived there and opened his house as a tavern in 1732.

Matthew Parker Street (Westminster 7) was originally Bennett Street, the freehold of the site being the property of Bennett (Corpus Christi) College Cambridge. It is now named after the eminent Elizabethan churchman Archbishop Parker, who was educated at Corpus Christi and endowed the college with many generous benefactions, including his valuable library.

Maunsel Street (Westminster 7) was once part of Tothill Fields, and is now named after a former Lord of Tothill Manor: Stow relates how in 1256 ‘John Mansell, the king’s councillor and priest, did invite to a stately dinner the kings and queens of England and Scotland … whereby his guests did grow to such a number, that his house at Totehill could not receive them, but that he was forced to set up tents and pavilions to receive his guests, whereof there was such a multitude that seven hundred messes of meat did not serve for the first dinner’.

May’s Conrt (St Martin’s Lane 7). Henry May Esquire owned a house in St Martin’s Lane (no. 43) and a little court yard behind it. After his death in 1738 his kinsmen Thomas and Richard May obtained an Act of Parliament permitting them to rebuild the property. May’s Court, finished the following year, was the result.

Mayfair (7) now a byword for respectable elegance, owes its name to a ‘riotous and tumultuous assembly’, ‘a place of lewdness’, ‘a public nuisance and inconvenience’ in other words the notorious annual fair held during the first two weeks of May at Brook Field (now roughly Curzon Street) on the bank of the River Tyburn. The original goods and cattle market, first held in 1688, soon degenerated into an excuse for an uninhibited good time. The refined residents of nearby Piccadilly were horrified:

can any rational man imagine,’ wrote one indignant citizen, ‘that Her Majesty would permit so much lewdness as is committed at May Fair, for so many days together, so near to her royal palace, if she knew anything of the matter?’ The fair was banned in 1708, but continued furtively until Brook Field was built up, in the 1750s.

Maze Pond (Bermondsey 5) was part of the spacious gardens attached to the Abbot of Battle’s riverside Inn (see Battle Bridge Lane), containing a pond and watercourses- and evidently a maze. After the dissolution of the monasteries the grounds eventually passed to the Weston family of Woking. Melior May Weston, dying unmarried in 1782, left the Manor of the Maze to her distant kinsman John Webbe Weston (1753-1840), who built Melior Place and Street and Weston Street.

Mazenod Avenue (West Hampstead 1) contains Quex Road Roman Catholic Church and School run by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a society founded by the French Bishop Eugene de Mazenod in His priests started the West Hampstead congregation in 1866, when the area was being developed.

McCrone Mews (Belsize 1) was named in 1967 at the request of McCrone Research Associates Ltd., whose premises are in this yard.

Mecklenburgh Place, Square and Street (Bloomsbury 4) were once the grounds of Captain Coram’s Foundling Hospital.

Medcalf Place (Pentonville Road 5) was a small field belonging to Thomas Medcalf of Seward Street, Goswell Road. In 1818 he leased it to Robert Medcalf, probably his brother, who built a double row of houses here within a year.

Medley Road (West Hampstead 1). In 1872 John Edward Medley esquire of St John’s Wood bought the little plot on which this street was built seven years later.

Melbourne Place (Aldwych 4). So named from its situation behind Australia House, built at the beginning of this century. The corresponding passage at the other end of Aldwych was named after another Commonwealth city a few years later: Montreal Place.

Melina Place (St John’s Wood 3) dates from about 1830, when St John’s Wood was first developed. Origin of name unknown; possibly the builder’s wife or daughter.

Mercer Street (Long Acre 7). The southern half of this street was once a field called Elm Close, which has belonged to the Mercers Company since at least 1391. Elm Close was bounded by Long Acre, St Martin’s Lane, Shelton Street and Drury Lane, all very old thoroughfares. There were no houses on it until the time of James I, when Sir William Slingsby, the lessee of the field, was in trouble for forming a side street out of Long Acre contrary to Royal Proclamations forbidding urban expansion. Sir William has given his name to Slingsby Place, Long Acre.

Merlin Street (Clerkenwell 5). Mer­ lin, the magician of the Arthurian stories and other early legends, gave his name to the Merlin’s Cave tavern, ‘in which place’, say Larwood and Hatten in The History of Signboards, ‘he doubtless still plays his old pranks of changing men into beasts.’ The Cave existed long before there were streets in this area, and was linked by a footpath to Sadler’s medicinal Wells – both establishments probably profiting from the connection. The original Cave stood on the site of this street, but the present New Merlin’s Cave is slightly further north, in Margery Street.

Merton Lane (Highgate 8) was a narrow path to Hampstead, widened and given this name after the building of Merton Lodge (now Holly Court School) in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Methwold Road (North Kensington 2). In 1652 William Methwold, a Kensington landowner, founded an almshouse for six local women ‘aged fifty, free from vice, and of good report’. The almshouse lay in the path of the Circle Line between South Kensington and Gloucester Road Stations, and was demolished to make way for the railway in 1873.

Middle Field (St John’s Wood 1). This spot was the Middle Field of St John’s Wood Farm in the eighteenth century. The name was revived when the present houses were built in 1957.

Middle Street (City 5) lies in the centre of a network of little alleys which grew up in St Bartholomew’s Priory Close once the priory was dissolved.

Middle Temple Lane (Temple 5). A medieval lane dividing the Middle Temple from the Inner Temple. See Temple Avenue, City.

Middlesex Street (City 5). A Tudor lane forming the boundary between the City of London and the obsolete County of Middlesex, the ‘land of the Middle Saxons’ which vanished when Greater London came into being in 1965. The official name Middlesex Street has never really succeeded in ousting its old name, Petticoat Lane.

Midford Place (Tottenharn Court Road 4) was built in 1777, perhaps by a native of Midford in Somerset.

Midland Road (Euston 4) adjoins St Pancras Station, the terminus of the former Midland Railway Com­ pany. For many years the Company had no London terminus, and shared King’s Cross Station with the Great Northern. When the Great Northern decided to end this arrangement in 1862, the Midland quickly bought up acres of land for tracks and goods yards, demolishing in the process hundreds of slum houses that had comprised Somers Town, and opened its magnificent Gothic hotel and station in 1867. This old lane was widened and renamed Midland Road at the same period.

Milborne Grove (West Brompton 6) dates from 1851. Origin unknown.

Miles Lane (City 5). An abbreviation of St Michael’s Lane. St Michael’s Church was removed to make way for King William Street.

Milford Lane (Strand 5). Until Tudor times Milford Lane, like Strand Lane and Ivybridge Lane, must have been a stream bed carrying one of the many rivulets which drained the higher land above the Strand. No known records mention the mill on the stream, but the ford was certainly at the point where it crossed the Strand.

Milk Street (City 5), so called as early as 1140, was the section of Cheapside market where milk was sold. See Cheapside.

Mill Hill Place (Wimpole Street, Marylebone). Mill Hill Field, on the east bank of the Tyburn, covered the site of present-day Mill Hill Place, Vere Street, Henrietta Place and part of Wigmore Street. The mill itself, presumably a watermill powered by the Tyburn, must have disappeared at an early date; there is no trace of it on the plan dated 1708 where the field is first found named.

Mill Lane (West Hampstead 1) led to the local windmill at the end of the lane on top of Shoot Up Hill. The mill is prominently shown on old maps, and continued in use until 1861, when it caught fire owing to the friction of the sails during a gale.

Mill Street (Mayfair 7) was built on ‘that Close called Millfield, in the Parish of Saint Martin in the Fields, lying near unto a certain Windmill called Tyburn Mill’, land which William Maddox (see Maddox Street) purchased in 1622. Tyburn Mill may have stood near the Tyburn stream which flowed near the bottom of Maddox Street, or more probably, since a river valley is an unlikely site for a windmill, beside the Tyburn Road, now Oxford Street.

Millbank (Westminster 7). Like every Benedictine monastery, Westminster had its own mill, a fourteenth century Thames-side watermill built by Abbot Littlington at the end of what is now Great College Street but was then a stream known as the Mill Ditch, one of the mouths of the Tyburn. The mill is still mentioned in the parish rate books in 1647, and may have continued to work until the stream was covered over towards the end of the century. Millbank was so called by Tudor times, and was probably an artificial embankment raised against flooding in the low lying Tothill Fields.

Miller Street (Camden High Street 8). John Miller was a builder living in Warren Street, who erected this and neighbouring streets from 1811 on.

Millfield Lane (Highgate 8). The Mill Field, lying to the southeast of Ken Wood, and this lane leading to it, are mentioned in a survey of Ken Wood dating from the time of Henry VIII. Since the mill itself is not described, it had probably disappeared at an earlier date.

Millmam Street (Holborn 4). Sir William Millman developed the Rugby School estate: see Rugby Street, Holborn.

Millwood Street (North Kensington 2) dates from 1868 and is probably named after William Millwood, a publican by trade, who ran an inn in Kensington Place but was also involved in a number of building schemes in rapidly developing areas of Kensington in the 1850s and 60s.

Milman’s Street (Chelsea 6). Sir William Milman, the son of a coffee house-keeper in the Strand, was an Attorney at Law of the Inner Temple who ‘haveing got a little money entred into the trade of Stock jobbing and lived to increase his estate to £20000’. Much of his fortune was made in speculative building on the Rugby School’s estate at Holborn, where he built Millman Street and a town house for hhnself in Great Ormond Street in the 1680s. His country house on this site in Chelsea was purchased in about 1697, a few years before Milman was knighted on the strength of his wealth. He was buried in Chelsea Old Church in 1713, ‘a worthless person by the Generall character of him’ according to Le Neve’s Pedigrees of the Knights. The Chelsea house was inherited by his four poverty-stricken nieces, who demolished it to make way for ‘a new row of buildings intended to be called Milman’s Row’ about a dozen years after his death.

Milner Street (Chelsea 7) crosses the site of a field which belonged for generations to a family called Tate. The last of the line, Miss Mary Tate, conveyed the land to her stepbrother Richard Moore of Hampton Court Palace, who in 1829 divided it among his five children: the Reverend John Fitz Moore (who changed his name to Halsey on his marriage to a wealthy widow), Mary Bridget, Charlotte, Mary Jane (who married Colonel    Charles Milner) and Edmund. They built Moore Street, Halsey Street and Milner Street in about 1850.

Milton Street (Barbican 5) was the medieval Grub Street, perhaps meaning ‘street infested by caterpillars or worms’, or referring to a ‘grube’ or drain, or deriving from a thirteenth century inhabitant. Whatever the origin, it was later noted for hack writers living there, and ‘Grub Street’ became a by word for a mean literary production. So in 1829 the residents decided to change the name, and chose Milton, they said, ‘to show that while the Inhabitants of the greatest City in the world are attentive to their own interests, they are not unmindful of the claims of Literature and Science’. John Milton lived the last twelve years of his life at nearby Bunhill Row, where he wrote Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.

Mincing Lane (City 5). Old English ‘mynecen’ was the feminine of ‘munuc’, monk. There must have been a little community of nuns here in 1189, when the name is first recorded.

Minories (City 5) was the track in front of the convent of the Sorores Minores, the Little Sisters of St Clare, established here in 1294. The nunnery stood on the site of St Clare House, between St Clare Street and Haydon Street, and the foundations still exist beneath Hay­ don Square. After Henry vu dissolved the convent in 1539 the precinct was used by the govern­ ment department of the Ordnance:

‘In place of this house of nuns is now built divers fair and large storehouses for armour and habili­ ments of war’ wrote Stow in 1598. Among the Masters of the Ordnance who lived at the Minories were Sir William Haydon, who died in action at sea in 1627, and his brother Captain John Haydon, the builder of Haydon Square and Street.

Mitre. The inn-sign of the Mitre an abbot’s cap, was often found in localities with ecclesiastical associations. Mitre Square and Street were both part of the Priory of Holy Trinity Christ Church (see Creechurch Lane). The Square marks the site of the priory cloisters. Mitre Court (Wood Street, City) was the yard behind the Mitre in Wood Street, ‘a house of the greatest note in London’ according to Pepys. The landlord, ‘the greatest vintner for some time in London for great entertainments’ died of the Plague in 1665, and the next year the tavern was destroyed in the Fire.

Monck Street (Westminster 7). Henry Monck was the founder of an old Westminster tradition which survives to this day. In 1713 he gave the Overseers of the Poor of Westminster a little tobacco box, which he had bought for fourpence. Every time new overseers were appointed, an engraved silver plate inscribed with their names was fixed on the box, which thus slowly acquired many outer cases. The original box has now grown into a unique and valuable collection of silver.

Moncorvo Close (Brompton 6) was formed in 1965 as an approach road to a new block of flats on the site of Moncorvo House, a Victorian mansion situated in Ennismore Gardens.

Monkwell Square (City 5). The ancient well called Mukewell, prob­ ably after a Saxon owner, rose about 20 yards from the corner bastion of the city wall. The bastion is still standing, but the wen has long vanished; at one time it stood in an open street, but by 1728 it was enclosed in a house, and cannot be traced thereafter.

Monmouth Street (Seven Dials 4) was probably named in memory of Charles II’s eldest illegitimate son James Duke of Monmouth, who lived nearby in an ornate mansion occupying most of the south side of Soho Square. The duke took up residence there in 1682, at which period he was the centre of a Whig movement attempting to make him the legal heir to the throne, in place of Charles’ Catholic brother James. At his father’s death three years later Monmouth made an abortive attempt to seize power. After his capture and execution on Tower Hill the Soho Square house fell into decay, and was finally replaced by Bateman’s
Buildings (q.v.).

Montague (Marylebone 3). Mrs Elizabeth Montagu (1720-1800), the original Blue-stocking, came to live at 22 Portman Square, Marylebone, in 1781. In her sumptuously decor­ ated mansion demolished and re­ placed by a hotel in 1969-she lavishly entertained writers and artists, and every May Day gave a great feast for chimney sweeps, ‘so that they might enjoy one happy day in the year’.

Among them perhaps was David Porter, who began life as a sweep’s boy, but later acquired some property and became a builder. It was he who built Montagu Square, named after the sweeps’ benefactress and close to her old home. In 1810, to celebrate George III’s Jubilee, he fittingly gave a feast for his workmen in the half-finished square. The name took root as Marylebone grew, with Porter’s help, producing Montagu Mansions, Place, Row and Street, and Upper Montagu Street.

Porter also built Porter Street and David Mews.

Montague Close (Southwark 5) was once the close or cloister of the Priory of St Mary Overy, and the narrow entrance at the Cathedral Street end marks the site of the ancient stone gateway into the Priory. Very soon after Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and priories io 1540, the inhabitants of South­ wark complained at the manor court that Sir Anthony Browne, Master of the Royal Horse, had opened a bowling green in the close and was encouraging gambling there. However Browne, a close friend of the King, was officially granted all the Priory site in 1545, and his son Viscount Montague converted the former Prior’s House in the cloister into a mansion which belonged to his descendants until 1625.

Montague Place and Street (Blooms­ bury 4). When Ralph Duke of Montagu was looking for a home for himself and his bride, whose sister had married the Duke of Bedford, he selected a site where the couples might be in close contact, adjoining the Bedfords’ Bloomsbury mansion. His lavish house fronting Great Russell Street was built in about 1679. Montagu’s second wife was ‘the Mad Duchess’ of Albemarle, who, convinced she was the Empress of China, reigned in imperial splendour at Montagu House and was never disiJlusioned. The Government bought the house in 1753 after the death of the 2nd Duke of Montagu, and it is now­ rebuilt and enlarged-the British Museum. Montague Street and Place mark the original boundaries of the spacious grounds of Montagu House.

Montpelier Grove (Kentish Town 8) was probably named ultimately for much the same reason as Montpelier Square in Knightsbridge. It is derived from a Montpelier House, which was built in Brecknock Road, between the future Leighton Grove and Montpelier Grove, in about 1807, long before any neighbouring houses appeared.

Montpelier Square (Knightsbridge (6) was built in about 1830, and Montpelier Place, Street, Terrace and Walk followed a few years later. This was almost the earliest residential development at rural Knightsbridge. Because of the salubrity of the air, the district was likened to the Riviera town of Montpellier, a noted health resort at that period.

Montrose Place (Belgravia 7). 45 Belgrave Square, which backs on to this street, was the home of Caroline Duchess of Montrose. She came to the house in 1836 as the 18-year-old bride of the Duke of Montrose, and died here in 1894 wedded to a third husband 46 years her junior.

Monument Street (City 5). Sir Christopher Wren’s monument commemorating the Great Fire of 1666 stands 202 feet high, the distanoe from its base to the source of the fire in a Pudding Lane baker’s shop. Almost all the city within the walls was destroyed in the fire; 89 churches and 13,000 houses were consumed before it burnt itself out after four days. London quickly rose again much as before, its buildings cramped between the same medieval lanes. Such men as Wren and John Evelyn recognised that this was the unique opportunity to rebuild the city on a modem, rational grid pattern, but with thousands of refugees desperate to rebuild their homes and determined to keep their every square yard of land, there was nothing to be done but set up a commission investigating claims and try to restore everything as it had been before. The only real sweeping improvement was that the old timber houses which had fostered the Great Plague the previous year were often replaced by stone buildings.

Moor Lane, Moorfields, Moorgate (City 5) are reminders of the medieval moor outside the north wall of the city. ‘When that great marsh which washes the walls of the city on the north side is frozen over,’ wrote Fitz­ stephen in about 1180, ‘the young men go out in crowds to divert themselves upon the ice’. The natural watery state was aggravated by the presence of London Wall, preventing drainage to the Thames. The country side ‘was burrowed and crossed with deep stinking ditches and noysome common sewers’, and useless for building. Moor Lane, so called by 1310, petered off without penetrating the marsh. In 1415 a public-spirited Lord Mayor breached the wall and made a postern known as Moor Gate, and managed to sink causeways for the citizens to stroll along. As the area was gradually drained Moorfields became London’s first civic park, represented today by the rash of green spaces on the site: the central greens in Finsbury Square and Circus, the Artillery Ground and Bunhill Fields.

Moorhouse Road (Paddington 2). The Reverend James Moorhouse was vicar of St James’s, Paddington’s parish church, 1868-1876.

Mora Street (Finsbury 5). The land roughly bounded by City Road, Central Street and Lever Street is the Prebend of Mora, bequeathed to St Paul’s Cathedral by a pious eleventh-century citizen in order to maintain a prebendary priest: in return for nominal duties at the Cathedral, the successive prebendaries were entitled to all the income from the prebend land. The name ‘Mora’, like ‘Moorfields’, is derived from the medieval marsh which covered the district to the north of the City Wali. Mora still has a prebendal stall at St Paul’s, but since 1847 the profits from the estate have been merged in the Church Commissioners’ general funds instead of passing direct to the prebendary concerned.

Moravian Place (Chelsea 6) adjoins the Moravian burial ground. The Moravians were a medieval protestant sect expelled as heretics from Moravia and finally protected by Count Zinzendorf of Saxony. In 1751 Zinzendorf bought the brother­ hood a community centre in Chelsea beside the burial ground, which it still owns. Under Zinzendorf’s influence and patronage the brotherhood grew, and still has a consider able number of adherents.

Moreland Street (Finsbury 5). The Moreland family had been prominent in Finsbury affairs for well over a century when this name was chosen in 1885. At that time John Brogden Moreland and his son Richard were members of the local Parish Vestry.

Morgan’s Lane (Bermondsey 5). An early lane, so called by the seventeenth century. Origin of name lost.

Mornington Crescent, Place, Street and Terrace (Camden Town 8): Part of the Fitzroy family estate.

Mortimer Market (Tottenham Court Road 4) occupies part of the old Capper Farm, which gave its name to adjacent Capper Street. Christopher Capper was farming here as early as 1693-the farmhouse stood behind Heal’s in Tottenham Court Road and was not demolished until the First World War-and he left the property to his two eccentric daughters, Esther and Mary. Dressed in men’s clothes, they waged ferocious war on lads who came to fly kites or bathe in the pond here: one galloped around with a large pair of shears to cut kite-strings, and her sister seized the unfortunate boys’ clothes.

In 1768 Hans Winthrop Mortimer, MP for Shaftesbury, bought the farm’s Home Field and built Mortimer Market, originally a food market for the inhabitants of Tottenham Court Road.

Mortimer Terrace (Kentish Town 8). In 1795 Farmer Richard Mortimer occupied a farm house between this terrace and Highgate Road. He owned several fields stretching as far as the Gospel Oak.

Mossop Street (Chelsea 6) com­memorates Henry Mossop, the leading Irish actor of his time, who lost all he earned at the cardtable, or spent it in litigation resulting from his frequent quick-tempered quarrels. He died at Chelsea in 1774 possessing only fourpence-halfpenoy in the world, and is buried at Chelsea Old Church.

Mount. Mount Street and Row, (Mayfair 7), were named after ‘Oliver’s Mount’, part of the line of Parliamentary fortifications built during the Civil War to protect London from the advancing Royalist army. Possession of London, and thereby the control of wealth and trade, was Cromwell’s greatest single advantage, and Charles did his best to seize it. A girdle of embankments was thrown up round the capital in 1642-1643, and strengthened at intervals by earthen mounds. As it happened, the fighting never reached London. Oliver’s Mount was probably flattened soon after the war but the name persisted in Mount Field, on which these streets were built in 1728. Mount Terrace, Whitechapel, has the same origin.

Mount Mills, (Finsbury 5), was also used as a fort in the Civil War, but this was a natural mound topped by a windmill shown prominently on Agas’ map of about 1560.The hill was considerably more marked than it is now and occupied a larger area than the present alley called Mouut Mills. When a tempest destroyed the windmill, Queen Catherine of Aragon erected a chapel known as the Mount of Calvary on the summit. At the Reformation the chapel was replaced by a new windmill, which made way in its turn for the Roundhead fort. Afterwards the Mount was used as a communal burial pit for hundreds of victims of the Great Plague of 1665, and later still it was the local public rubbish heap. At some stage tons of filth and bones must have been carted away, and the hill with them, since only a very gentle slope now remains.

The Mount (Hampstead 1) rises in a steep crescent from the main road, Heath Street. The Hampstead Manor records for 1805 mention ‘a piece or Parcel of Ground … enclosed or compressed in a circular form called or known by the name of the Mount’ next to ‘a piece or Parcel of Ground called the Grove or Plantation of Trees’, i.e. Hampstead Grove.

Mount Pleasant (Clerkenwell 5) was once a very pleasant country path, winding down into the vaJley of the River Fleet and mounting again on the other bank. The course of the stream can still easily be traced here, especially since extensive war damage has exposed the natural contours of the land.

But the name ‘Mount Pleasant’ is common around London, and where it occurs in built-up areas the sense is usually ironical. In this case the :first instance of the name is found comparatively late, in 1732, when the neighbourhood was beginning to be developed. It already had a bad reputation; Strype’s Survey of London, published in 1720, describes this part of the Fleet valley as ‘a dirty Place, with some ill Buildings, and runneth down to the Ditch’.

‘Ditch’ implies that the Fleet was already polluted even this far upstream. It seems that the residents of Holborn and Clerkenwell had formed the habit of depositing their rubbish on the river bank at Mount Pleasant, building up a great laystall of cinders and refuse, and that it was this heap, rather than the steep little valley, that was the origin of the name. Hence also Laystall Street, which leads into Mount Pleasant.

Mount Vernon (Hampstead 1). General Charles Vernon bought some cottages, gardens and meadows in and aronnd Holly Walk and Frognal in 1785.

Moxon Street (Marylebone 3) used to be Paradise Street, a pleasantly appropriate name since this was the way to the local graveyard. When Edward Harley, lord of Marylebone Manor, granted his tenants a field behind the village main street in which to bury their dead, he also gave them this path by which to reach it; there is still a gate into it at the end of Moxon Street, but the burial ground is now a recreation ground. The London County Council decided to change the name in 1937 because there were other Paradise Streets in inner London, and the inhabitants chose Moxon, after one of the apartment-houses in the street.

Mulberry Walk (Chelsea 6) crosses part of the former Chelsea Park, which was the scene of an ambitious but unsuccessful silk-making experiment in 1719. A large quantity of silkworms were imported and 2000 mulberry trees planted to feed them, attracting ‘a great concourse of foreigners and others daily to Chelsea Park, to see the Raw Silk Undertaking’. The English climate proved unsuitable for silkworm development, but the mulberry trees survived, and residents claim that one of them is still standing.

Mulready Street (Marylebone 3). William Mulready (1786-1863) was an Irish painter who by the age of about 18 had exhibited at the Royal Academy and was supporting a wife and child by illustrating books and teaching drawing. Many of his humourous pictures of boy life and village incidents are in the Victoria and Albert Museum. He lived at 42 Newman Street and his studio was in Cleveland Street, Marylebone. His name was given to this street in 1939.

Mumford Court (City 5) probably commemorates an early owner. The court was so called by 1677, shortly after the Great Fire.

Munro Mews (North Kensington 2) was built in 1868 and probably belonged to Widow Mary Munro of Elm Tree Cottage, Willesden Lane, a North Kensington property-owner at that time.

Munro Terrace (Chelsea 6) seems to date from about 1890. Probably named after the builder.

Munster Square (Regent’s Park 4) was designed in 1812 to be a meat market serving the new Regent’s Park area. Origin of name: see Regent’s Park.

Murray Street (Camden Town 8). After Harriet Murray, wife of Lord Camden.

Moscovy Street (City 5). This part of the city was the quarter of the Russian ambassador and Russian merchants by the time of Elizabeth I, and Peter the Great stayed nearby when he came to study English shipbuilding in 1698. He used to drink at a tavern in Great Tower Street which was promptly renamed the Czar of Muscovy’s Head, and which survived until the bombing of 1941.

Museum Street (Bloomsbury 4) leads to the British Museum, founded in 1753 in what had been Montague House: see Montague Place, Bloomsbury. The present museum buildings, exactly filling the site of Montague House and its gardens, were mainly constructed in 1857.

Myddleton Square (Clerkenwell 5). When James I arrived in England for his coronation in 1603 he found the water supply in his capital dangerusly inadequate. The medieval wells and streams were exhausted, the River Fleet was an open sewer and the Thames little better, and conduits conveying water from villages like Paddington were insufficient for the rapidly growing population. In 1607 William Inglebert, a land-drainage engineer, produced a plan ‘for the bringing in of a fresh Stream of running Water to the North part of the City of London’. Two years later the scheme was adopted by Hugh Myddleton, a wealthy London goldsmith, who undertook to bring water from the springs of Amwell and Cbadwell in Hertfordshire within four years. In spite of the great engineering difficulties of digging a canal almost 40 miles long, and the quibbles of the landowners whose estates it crossed, in 1613 the waters entered the New River Head at Clerkenwell, on the site of the Metropolitan Water Board Headquarters in Rosebery Avenue.

The New River Company purchased several fields around the Head, and in the 1820s, when Samuel Garnault was the Company Treasurer, it was   decided that William Chadwell Mylne, surveyor to the New River, should develop the land. Myddleton Square, Street and Passage, Amwell Street, Chadwell Street, Mylne Street, Inglebert Street, River Street and GarnauJt Place were then built.

Later came Holford Street, Great Percy Street, Percy Circus and Vernon Rise, in memory of two families who served the New River Company for generations: the Holfords, one of whom was Governor of the Company in the 1770s, and the Smiths, notably Robert Percy Smith, brother of Sydney Smith the author and wit, and his son Robert Vernon Smith, an eminent politician. Lastly, Prideaux Place, named in 1935, commemorates Arthur Robert Prideaux, who became a Company director in 1889.

Myddleton’s canal, still known as the New River after over 350 years of existence, continues to supply much of north London with water. Since 1946 the ‘river’ has ended at Stoke Newington, about three miles north of Clerkenwell, but the Metropolitan Water Board, the successor of the New River Company, still owns much of the original Clerkenwell estate.

Nash Street (Regent’s Park 4). It was John Nash (1752-1835) who laid out the Regent’s Park estate, of which this is part. He also planned Regent Street, enlarged Buckingham Palace, and designed Marble Arch. Nearby Yarn­ dell Street is named after Nash’s successor as Surveyor of the estate, C. E. Varndell.

Nassau Street (Marylebone 4) first appears on the maps at about the time that Prince Adolphus, 7th son of George III, married Princess Augusta, grand-daughter of the Prince of Nassau, in May 1818. A few weeks later Adolphus’ elder brothers, princes William and Edward, also cast off their mistresses and married in a dutiful attempt to provide heirs to the throne, because the Crown Princess Charlotte, only legitimate child of the Prince Regent, had died in childbirth six months earlier. The result of this frenzied matrimony was Edward’s daughter, the future Queen Victoria.

Nassington Road (Hampstead 8) A Northamptonshire place name. Connection with Hampstead unknown.

Neal Street (Shaftesbury Avenue 4) was formerly a footpath along the edge of a meadow at St Giles-in-the-fields known as the Marshland, and Hollar’s map of about 1658 shows parishioners of St Giles taking a country stroll along it. In 1693 the lease of the Marshland was acquired by Sir Thomas Neale, Master of the Mint and a Groom Porter, an influential courtier turned speculative builder. He devised an unusual development scheme for the property.

Neathouse Place (Pimlico 7). Neyte, or Neate, was a medieval manor comprising most of present-day Pimlico, formerly a broad marsh cut into dozens of islands by tidal inlets from the Thames and by the mouths of the Westbourne and Tyburn; hence the name Neyte, ‘the islet’. Neat House, the manor house, stood on an islet of its own at the west end of what is now called Warwick Way. Today the site is occupied by Abbot’s Manor housing estate, so named because Neyte belonged to Westminster Abbey until the reign of Henry VIII. In  time all the surrounding district became known as Neathouses. The old name disappeared when Neyte was submerged by the Pimlico street-grid in the 1850s, and was revived for this new access-road in 1962.

Nelson Passage (Finsbury 5). Built at about the time of Trafalgar, 1805, and named after its hero. The Lord Nelson pub still stands in adjacent Mora Street, originally called Nelson Street.

New Bridge Street (City 5). An approach road made to the new bridge, Blackfriars Bridge, the City’s second, opened in 1769.

New Broad Street (City 5) was formed in 1737 and so named because it is a turning out of Old Broad Street-It has never been particularly broad.

New Change (City 5) replaces a street called Old Change (see Old Change Court), bombed flat in 1940.

New Compton Street (St Giles 4). The continuation of Old Compton Street (q.v.).

New End and New End Square (Hampstead 1). The part of Hampstead village known as New End was so called to distinguish it from the ancient hamlets of North End, South End and West End (qq.v.) on the outskirts of Hampstead parish. The name probably dates from the early eighteenth century; there are still few a houses surviving from that period.

New Fetter Lane (City 5). A new street formed after the bombing of 1941, leading into Fetter Lane.

New Inn Passage (Houghton Street, Aldwych) was the old back entrance to New Inn, an Inn of Chancery founded by 1397. It was situated near to Clement’s Inn (q.v.) in the Strand and was ‘so called as latelier made’. The lawyers finally left in 1903, when New Inn was demolished because most of it lay in the projected path of Aldwych, then under construction.

New London Street (Hart Street, City). The continuation of London Street (q.v.).

New North Street (Holborn 4) is the continuation of Old North Street, the north entrance into Red Lion Square.

New Oxford Street (4), the continuation of Oxford Street, was opened in 1847 to enable traffic to pass west from High Holborn without winding round St Giles High Street, and also, more importantly, to transform this most unsavoury neighbourhood. It was previously an appalling slum rookery of narrow alleys teeming with the undernourished and underwashed, for whom this act of mercy merely meant a move to King’s Cross, which became the new slum district.

New Palace Yard (Westminster) was the courtyard of the great new palace designed by William II, the son of William the Conqueror, to replace Edward the Confessor’s Saxon royal residence on the site. The rambling palace remained the sovereign’s principal seat until the reign of Henry VIII, who moved to Whitehall (q.v.). Since then the Palace of Westminster has been used as Houses of Parliament. See also Old Palace Yard.

New Row (St Martin’s Lane 7) was new in 1644, when it was built by the Earl of Bedford, who owned the Covent Garden area and had already developed the rest of it.

New Square (Lincoln’s Inn 4) was the extra square of chambers built for the lawyers of Lincoln’s Inn by Henry Serle: see Serle Street, Lincoln’s Inn.

New Street (Bishopsgate 5) was widened and rebuilt in 1782. Before that it was a narrow passage called Hand Alley.

Newburgh Street (Soho 7) was named in 1936 in memory of one of the fashionable young patrons at Foubert’s Riding Academy, situated close to this street in Foubert’s Place (q.v.). Evelyn wrote in his Diary in 1684:
‘I went with Lord Cornwallis to see the young gallants do their exercise, Mr Foubert having newly rail’d in a manage and fitted it for the Academy. There were the Dukes of Norfolk and Northumberland, Lord Newburgh . . . ‘

Newbury Street (City 5) was originally New Street, built on the close of St Bartholomew’s Priory probably soon after it was dissolved by Henry VlII. ‘Bury’ was added in 1885 to distinguish it from other New Streets.

Newcombe Street (Kensington 6) originated as New Street in about 1830. ‘Combe’ was added in 1874 simply to distinguish it from other New Streets.

Newcourt Street (St John’s Wood 3) was New Street when first built in the mid-nineteenth century. A meaningless ‘court’ was added in 1932 to distinguish it from the ten other New Streets in the County of London at that time.

Newgate Street (City 5), formerly the main highway from London to the west, passed through one of the stone gates which guarded the city. The ‘New’ is surprising since there was a massive fortified gate here by Roman times; probably the name dates from a rebuilding of the gate in the Norman period. Newgate was demolished in 1767, but the notorious prison of the same name, which originated as the guardroom attached to the gate, survived until 1903.

Newman’s Court (Cornhill, City). In 1646 the Company of Merchant Taylors, whose Hall stands at the end of the Court, leased this property to Lawrence Newman, on condition that the Merchant Taylors were allowed to use it as a passage to Cornhill.

Newman ‘s Row (Lincoln’s Inn Fields). Arthur Newman bought a strip of field here in 1653 and built most of the north side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields on it.

Newport (Charing Cross Road 7). In 1634 Mountjoy Blount, Earl of Newport, bought a mansion in extensive grounds straddling the future route of Charing Cross Road. Faithorne and Newcourt’s map pictures it in rural surroundings. Blount was an illegitimate son of the Earl of Devonshire and gained a notorious reputation in the Civil War by serving both sides simultaneously and being imprisoned by each.

At his death in 1665 he bequeathed Newport House to his granddaughter Lady Anne on condition that she did not marry without her guardians’ consent. But Anne eloped not long afterwards with an obscure young man from the country, so the House of Lords decreed that the Newport estate should pass to her cousin George, then still a minor. As soon as George came of age in 1682 he sold the property, by then within the rapidly expanding urban area, to Nicholas Barbon, the building speculator (see Barbon Close). Barbon demolished the house and built Newport Court, roughly on the site of the old courtyard of Newport House, Little Newport Street and Newport Place. Great Newport Street was once the approach road to Newport House.

Newton Street (High Holborn 4). William Newton of Beddenham in Bedfordshire was a speculative builder engaged in urbanising the fields south of High Holborn in the mid-seventeenth century, a period when unauthorised suburban expansion was strictly illegal. In 1656 there were violent complaints that ‘one William Newton, Gent. , for his owne private lucre, had within five or six yeares last past, erected very many building on new foundations, (inhabited for the most part by Popish recusants), in some whereof mass was usually said’. The result: ‘sundry papists, forainers, and lewd, idle and wicked persons, harboured among them’ ! These xenophobic accusations were partly based on fact: Newton was the .designer of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where there was at least one illegal Catholic chapel, and some of the new streets in the area, Whetstone Park for instance, quickly degenerated into vicious criminal back-alleys.

Nicholas Lane (City 5). From a very old-established church of St Nicholas, recorded here in 1084 but destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666.

Noble Street (City 5). One Thomas le Noble had property around here in 1322.

Noel Street (Soho 7). William III’s intimate friend Hans Bentinck, Earl of Portland (see Bentinck Street), received innumerable grants of land from his sovereign, among them plots in Soho on either side of Wardour Street. The widow of his son the Marquess of Titchfield was Lady Elizabeth Noel, who rebuilt the Soho property during the 1730s. Hence Noel Street; Portland Mews; Fareham Street, originally Titchfield Street but renamed after the Hampshire village near Titchfield to distinguish it from the other Titchfield Street (q.v.) belonging to the same family; and an old tablet saying ‘Bentinck Street 1736’ in what is now called Livonia Street.

Norburn Street (North Kensington 2). Adolphus Henry Norburn advertised himself as the ‘proprietor of the nerve tincture for the cure of the tic-doloreux, corn absorbent and asthmatic soothing elixir’. He was also, like many Victorian businessmen, a trustee of one of the land building societies (the Mutual Benefit Building Society) responsible for developing the suburbs at that period.

Norfolk Road (St John’s Wood 3) was built in the 1840s. It may be named after a Norfolk House which stood in Avenue Road.

Norland Place, Road and Square (North Kensington 2). The farmlands in the north part of Kensington parish are recorded as the ‘Northlandes’ in manorial documents as early as 1428. By 1607 the name had been shortened to ‘Norlands’ to reduce the awkward consonant cluster.

Norris Street (Haymarket). Probably from Godfrye Norris, who leased four houses and a yard in the Haymarket from Hemy Jermyn (see Jermyn Street) in 1661. The street name first appears in 1674.

North Bank (Marylebone 3). This twentieth-century stump of a road restores the name (if not quite on the same spot) of the original North Bank: a gracious crescent of elegant villas curving, like its counterpart South Bank, beside the Grand Union Canal. Both were sacrificed to the railway when Marylebone Station was being built in the 1890s.

North Court (behind Tottenham Court Road 4) is a turning out of North Street (now Chitty Street), begun in 1776 when Lord North was Prime Minister. See Lord North Street.

North End, North End Avenue and North End Way (Hampstead 1). The hamlet of North End is first mentioned a century before the Norman Conquest in a charter made during the reign of King Edgar, defining the boundaries of Hampstead. The locality was then called Sandgate, i.e. ‘Sandy Road’, from the nature of the soil, and there is still a track known as Sandy Road at North End. Sandgate was described in King Edgar’s Charter as the northern extremity of Hampstead parish, as it remains a thousand years afterwards. See also South End and West End, Hampstead.

North Gate (Regent’s Park 3). One of the north entrances to the Park.

North Gower Street (Euston Road). ‘North’ was added in 1968 when the new Euston Road Underpass completely severed it from the southern end of Gower Street.

North Mews (Gray’s Road 4) was begun in about 1792, the year of the death of Prime Minister North: see Lord North Street.

Northampton Square and Road (Clerkenwell 5). William Lord Compton of Compton Wynyates at Tysoe in Warwickshire and Castle Ashby, Northampton, also owned the Manor of Clerkenwell. In 1594 he married Elizabeth Spencer, in spite of her father’s strong opposition: the story goes that she was smuggled from home in a bread basket. Since Elizabeth’s father Sir John, ‘the rich Spencer’, ex-Lord Mayor of London, was Lord of Canonbury Manor at Islington, Elizabeth, as his heiress, inherited this estate, and Clerkenwell and Canonbury have belonged to the same family ever since.

William and Elizabeth’s descendant Charles, born in 1760 at Yardley Hastings in Northamptonshire, was created Baron Wilmington and Marquess of Northampton. He carried out most of the development of Clerkenwell, where streets commemorate his wife Maria Smith of Erlestoke Park in Wiltshire, his first cousin Spencer Percival, the Prime Minister who was assassinated in 1812, and the Northampton village of Easton Maudit which he purchased. After the 1st Marquess’s death in 1828 building in Clerkenwell, and, later, on the Canonbury estate, was continued by his son and daughter-in-law, Spencer Joshua Alwyne and Margaret Douglas-Mac­lean-Clephane.

At present William Bingham, 6th Marquess of Northampton, Earl Compton of Compton and Baron Wilmington of Wilmington, still owns Compton Wynyates and Castle Ashby, while what remains of the Clerkenwell and Canonbury estates is held in trust for his grandchildren.

Hence Agdon Street (Clerkenwell) named after a farm a mile from Compton Wynyates; Alwyne Place, Road, Square and Villas (Canonbury); Ashby Street (Clerkenwell) and Grove (Canonbury); Chephane Road (Canonbury); Compton Passage, Street (Clerkenwell and Avenue, Road and Terrace (Canonbury) ; Douglas Road (Canonbury); Earlstoke, Easton and Margery, formerly Margaret, Streets (Clerkenwell ; Marquess Road and Grove (Canonbury); Northampton Buildings, Road, Row, Square (Clerkenwell) and Drive, Grove, Street and Park (Canonbury) ; Percival, Spencer, Tysoe, Wilmington, Wynyatt and Yardley Streets (Clerkenwell).

Northington Street (Holborn 4) originated as a country path to Gray’s Inn Cockpit (see Cockpit Yard). It is now named after the 1st Earl of Northington (1708—1772), who moved to adjacent Great James Street when he married in 1743 and left four years later on being elected to Parliament. Northington was afterwards appointed Lord Chancellor of England.

Northumberland Alley (Fenchurch Street 5) was the ancient lane beside Northumberland House, the town residence of the Earls of Northumberland in the middle ages and Tudor times. The Northumberlands left the house during the reign of Elizabeth I, whereupon ‘the gardens thereof were made into bowling alleys, and other parts into dicing houses, common to all comers for their money, there to bowle and hazard’.

Northumberland Avenue and Street (Charing Cross 7) mark the site of Northumberland House, the town mansion which the Earls of Northumberland acquired by marriage in 1642. Northumberland Street, once a medieval lane, ran alongside the house, an impressive building fronting the Strand and overlooking the Tharnes. It was compulsorily purchased by the Metropolitan Board of Works and demolished in 1874, much against the will of the then Duke of Northurnberland, so that Northumberland Avenue could be formed as an approach road to the new Victoria Embankment.

Northumberland Place (Bayswater 2) was probably given a county name by analogy with parallel Sutherland Place.

Norwich Street (City 5) was named Norwich Court in about 1770; previously it was Magpie Yard, probably from an inn-sign. Origin unknown.

Notting Hill Gate (2). The origin of Notting is uncertain. The earliest known form is Knottynghull, found in 1356. It could derive from a lost Saxon word cnott, ‘hill’, in which case Notting Hill would mean ‘Hill Hill’. Such tautology is frequent in toponymy and is especially probable here since the hill, formerly considerably higher and rising prominently from the Middlesex Plain, was the only geographical feature distinctive enough to serve as a label for the place. Alternatively, a family or tribe named Knotting may have settled here. Gate recalls the turnpike gate which spanned Notting Hill Gate on the site of the Underground station. It was removed in 1864 when an Act of Parliament abolished tolls for traffic using the road.

Nottingham Court (Long Acre 4) was built in about 1710 and named in honour of a distinguished resident of this parish, St Giles-in-theFields: Daniel Finch, 2nd Earl of Nottingham, First Lord of the Admiralty, a leading Tory in the early years of Queen Anne’s reign.

Nottingham Place and Street (Marylebone 3). After the Harley estates in Nottinghamshire :

Nugent Terrace (St John’s Wood 3). Probably after Sir George Nugent (1757—1849), the field-marshal, or his equally respected brother, Admiral Sir Charles Nugent (1759-1844). Both had connections with this parish, Marylebone: Sir George as a resident, and Sir Charles as a property owner. The terrace was built in about 1850.

Oak Hill Avenue, Park and way (Hampstead 1) are said to be the site of a medieval oak wood, felled for timber in 1470 with the stipulation that fifty of the trees were to be left standing. There are still several old oaks on this steep hillside above the valley of the Kilburn. Oak Hill Avenue was formerly a footpath leading to two isolated Georgian mansions called Oak Hill House and Lodge, now converted into flats.

Oak Tree Road (St John’s Wood IVA). Like several local streets, e.g. Hill Road, Garden Road, Springfield Road, this is named after a former rural feature of St John’s Wood: the Oak Tree Field, which lay between the present Grove End Road and Circus Road.

Oak Village (Gospel Oak 8) was built on the field containing the Gospel Oak (q.v.).

Oakeshott Avenue (Highgate 8) was named after Dr John Oakeshott, the local Medical Officer of Health and a leading member of the Highgate Scientific and Literary Institute. He lived in Highgate High Street in the 1870s.

Oakington Road (Paddington 2). A mid-Victorian name, probably chosen simply for its vaguely rural and pleasant connotations.

Oakley Square (Camden Town 4) was part of the Duke of Bedford’s estate.

Oakwood Court (Kensington 6) occupies exactly the once thickly wooded grounds of a Victorian villa called Oak Lodge, demolished to make way for the Court in about 1898.

Oat Lane (City 5). Probably the city oat market in Tudor times or earlier.

Observatory Gardens (Kensington 6) runs straight through the site of an observatory built by Sir James South, the President of the Royal Astronomical Society, in 1826. In those days the remote rural heights of Campden Hill were ideal for observing, but by the time Sir James died in 1867 London had completely engulfed the area. So the observatory was demolished and the Gardens built.

Of Alley (now York Place, Buckingham Street). After George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham: see Buckingham Street, Strand.

Ogle Street (Marylebone 4): see Harley Street, Marylebone.

Old . . . Most ‘Old’ streets originated without the prefix, which was added when a corresponding ‘New’ street was formed as a continuation or off-shoot; Old Bond Street was plain Bond Street until it was extended as New Bond Street. Sometimes the prefix is an integal part of the name, as in Old Church Street, ‘the way to the old church’, and Old Manor Yard, ‘the yard beside the old manor-house’. Occasionally ‘Old’ has been added in recent times to distinguish a street from another of the same name in a different part of town; Old Mitre Court for instance was Mitre Court until 1939.

In the sense of ‘ex’ : Old Jewry means ‘the street formerly inhabited by Jews’ and Old Change ‘the lane where money used to be exchanged’.

Old Bailey (City 5) was the highway along the bailey, a rampart thrown up just outside the city wall, perhaps by the Normans, as an extra line of defence. It was made mainly of mud, probably reinforced with rubble and stakes.

Old Barrack Yard (Knightsbridge 7) was the entrance to the Knightsbridge Barracks, which stood on the site of St Paul’s in Wilton Place and were occupied by the Foot Guards until they moved to Birdcage Walk in 1834.

Old Bond Street (Piccadilly 7). Sir Thomas Bond was a wealthy financier who arranged loans for Charles II, and was Treasurer of the household of the Queen Mother, Henrietta Maria. In 1684 he invested in building speculation, shrewdly purchasing the site of Albemarle House in Piccadilly. Its owner, the spendthrift Duke of Albemarle, was about to leave England having ‘drunk himself out of this part of the world’, and his home was sold for £20,000, £6,000 less than he had paid for it nine years previously in spite of increased land values around Piccadilly. In partnership with the Earl of Dover and one Mistress Margaret Stafford, Sir Thomas started to build Old Bond Street, Dover Street, Albemarle Street and Stafford Street (qq.v.). But he died suddenly the following year, too soon to reap any profits from the enterprise. New Bond Street, the continuation of Old Bond Street, was built in about 1721.

Old Broad Street (Threadneedle Street 5) is first recorded in the twelfth century, and was exceptionally broad by standards of the time.

Old Brompton Road (South Kensington 6). The old lane to the medieval village of Brompton (q.v.), which lay around modern South Kensington Station.

Old Change Court (Carter Lane, City) and New Change are post-war developments replacing a bombed lane called Old Change, originally simply Change, where gold bullion and silver plate were accepted in exchange for coin of the realm. According to Stow, writingin 1598, the Change was situated in the middle of the street, behind the Cathedral. Besides handling the metal that was to be converted into money, it was the central control offce for the English mints. Coins were actually struck at the Tower of London and at about a dozen provincial towns, but the dies from which they were cast had to be issued from the Change, and also returned there when worn out together with a careful account of how much money had been made. In the reign of Henry III the Master of the Change was Andrew Buckerell, a member of the wealthy and influential family which gave its name to nearby Bucklersbury. ‘Old’ was prefixed to ‘Change’ as early as 1293, by which date the exchange must have moved from the locality.

Old Church Street (Chelsea 6) is Chelsea’s oldest village street, leading to the former parish church of St Luke, now a chapel-of-ease. There has been a church in Chelsea since at least 1157 and perhaps since Saxon times, and parts of the Old Church date from the fourteenth century. It contains the tombs of several Lords of Chelsea Manor, among them Thomas More and Sir Hans Sloane. The ccnwegation outgrew the village church after the development of Hans Town, begun in the and Chelsea Common, laid out for building in 1810, and in 1824 New St Luke’s in Sydney Street replaced it as a parish church.

Old Compton Street (Soho 7). In 1677 when this street was begun, Henry Compton, Bishop of London, was actively involved in the building of the local church of St Anne, which is dedicated in compliment to his pupil, the Princess Anne. Nearby Dean Sfreet is probably derived from his post as Dean of the Chapel Royal.

Old Court Place (Kensington 6), so named in 1906, is a reference to a book by Leigh Hunt, poet and essayist, published in 1855 and entitled The Old Court Suburb; or, Memorials of Kensington, regal, critical and anecdotical.

Old Gloucester Street (Holborn 4) is a turning out of Queen Square, named after Queen Anne, and is dedicated to the little Duke of Gloucester, the longest lived of Anne’s 17 ill-fated children: see Gloucester Walk, Kensington.

Old Jewry (Poultry 5) was the central street of an extensive medieval ghetto. Prior to 1066 the land was Saxon royal domaine, which William the Conqueror transferred to the Jews to encourage them to settle in London and add to the City’s wealth. The Jews were not constrained to live there by law, but probably chose to shelter there from the jealous rancour of the citizens. The name Old Jewry came into use after the Jews were expelled from England on various pretexts in 1290.

Old Manor Yard (Earl’s Court Road) ran beside the Old Manor House at Earl’s Court: see Earl’s Court.

Old Marylebone Road (Marylebone 3) was an ancient track formerly known as Watery Lane, because it led from Lisson Manor House, on the site of St Dunstan’s, to Bay’s Water.

Old Mitre Court (Fleet Street 5). The Tudor Miffe in Fleet Street, where Shakespeare is supposed to have written a poem called From the Fair Lavinian Shore, originally stood a little west of this court, and a plaque marks its site outside Hoare’s Bank. Later the tavern moved to Old Mitre Court and was one of Dr Johnson’s favourite haunts, ‘where he loved to sit up late’ and entertain Goldsmith and Boswell.

Old North Street (Red Lion Square, Holborn) is the north. entrance to the Square.

Old Palace Yard (Westminster 7). Once the courtyard of the old Saxon Palace of Westminster, where King Canute is said to have lived and Edward the Confessor died: see New Palace Yard.

Old Park Lane (Mayfair 7) was the original southern end of Park Lane, and gives an idea of the width of the Park Lane of pre-dual carriageway days. About a century ago hardpressed traffic trying to hurry to Victoria Station started to abandon this end of the Lane and drove instead along one of the paths inside Hyde Park. When that path was officially incorporated into Park Lane as the northbound carriageway in about 1962, ‘Old’ was prefixed to the name—justifiably, as Park Lane (q.v.) is now thought to be of pre Roman origin.

Old Pye Street (Westminster 7). Sir Robert Pye, statesman and landowner, was MP for Westminster in the time of Charles I and a prominent Parliamentarian during the Civil War. As a Vestryman of St Margaret’s Westminster he gave generously to Westminster charity institutions and was active in local affairs. Among his Westminster properties was Stourton Meadow, the ground behind Stourton House (see Strutton Ground), on which he began Old Pye Street in 1672.

Old Quebec Street (Oxford Street 3) was begun shortly after Wolfe’s capture of Quebec in 1759. New Quebec Street, its continuation northwards, dates from about 1761.

Old Queen Street (Westminster 7), known simply as Queen Street until 1893, was formed in 1697, a year when there was no queen of England. Perhaps in memory of Mary II, who had died three years previously, or of Elizabeth the maiden queen, since Queen Street was originally a Tudor alley called Maiden Lane.

Old Seacoal Lane (City 5) emerges from its dark passage beneath Holborn Viaduct Station into Farringdon Street, where the River Fleet once flowed: see end-map. In the thirteenth century cargoes of seacoal were brought up the Fleet by barge from the Thames, to be deposited here. ‘Seacoal’ was the usual word for ‘coal’, a commodity always transported by sea from Newcastle, as opposed to the Londoners’ commoner and cheaper fuel, charcoal; hence also Newcastle Close, a few yards upstream from Seacoal Lane. The Fleet was still used for this purpose in the late seventeenth century, when there were complaints that the river was cleared of sewage and silt at great expense simply ‘to bring up a few Chaldrons of Coles to two or three Pedling Fewel Marchants’. ‘Old’ was added to the name after the formation of a new post-war road adjoining the lane on the south, also named Seacoal Lane.

Old Square (Chancery Lane 4) was the courtyard of the original Lincoln’s Inn, and began to be so called after the building of New Square in 1682.

Old Street (5). John Stow wrote in 1598 that ‘Eald Street’ was ‘so called, for that it was the old highway from Aldersgate, for the northeast parts of England’. Modern scholars agree that the road is old : it certainly existed by Roman times, and since it does not enter the Roman City was probably formed by the Britons at an even earlier date. Apparently the track forded the Thames at Fulham, followed the line of Piccadilly, Theobalds Road and Old Street, and led to the River Lea crossing at Old Ford.

Oliphant Street, W10

Onslow Square and Onslow Gardens, SW7 Part of an estate left in trust in 1627 for ‘the relief and ransom of poor captives being slaves under Turkish pirates’

Orange Street (Trafalgar Square 7). The Trafalgar Square area was the medieval Royal Mews, housing the king’s falcons and later his horses. In the seventeenth century the Mews was used as stabling by royal favourites and Court officials, and was divided into the Great Mews, the Green Mews, the Blue Mews and the Duke of Monmouth’s Stables. The latter may have been known alternatively as the Orange Mews, from Monmouth’s coat of arms, and it was here that Orange Street was begun shortly after Monmouth’s execution in 1685.

Orchard Street (Oxford Street 3). After Orchard Portman in Somerset.

Orchardson Street (Edgware Road 3). Sir William Quiller Orchardson, artist, lived in Grove End Road and then St John’s Wood Road from 1869 until 1872, and this local street was so named five years later. Many of his paintings, such as Hamlet and Ophelia, were subjects from literature, and four of them were hung in the Tate Gallery. He died in 1910, three years after being knighted.

Orde Hall Street (Holborn 4) was named in 1879 in honour of John Orde Hall, a local solicitor, who represented Holborn on the Metropolitan Board of Works (a forerunner of the Greater London Council) from its formation in 1857 until 1880.

Ordnance Hill (St John’s Wood 3). Ordnance, in its sense of ‘artillery’, refers to the Barracks on the west side of the Hill, built behind St John’s Wood Farm in 1822 as a military riding-school originally. Since the time of the Crimean War it has been occupied by the Royal Horse Artillery.

Oriel Place (Hampstead l). After Oriel House, a Georgian building with distinctive painted oriel windows, which stood on the corner of Church Row and Heath Street until its demolition in 1886.

Orme Square, Court and Lane (Bayswater 2). Edward Orme was a prosperous Bond Street printseller who acquired several acres of land at Bayswater, beside the Kensington Gravel Pits at Notting Hill Gate in 1808. Six years later the Czar of Russia visited London, and it is said that Orme sold him two shiploads of this gravel for building the squares of St Petersburg, in return for the Eagle Column in Orme Square. In 1822 Orme granted part of his land to John Bark of Bayswater. Both proved to be worthy parishioners, becoming Churchwardens and Overseers of the Poor. Hence Moscow Place and Ormonde(e) Road, St Petersburg Place and Bark Place.

Ormonde(e) Ormond Yard (St James’s 7) was the stable yard behind Ormonde House, the largest mansion in St James’s Square. James Butler, Duke of Ormonde (see Great Ormond
Street), bought it in 1682, and later his grandson the 2nd Duke lived there until he was impeached for Jacobite intrigues and forced to flee to France in 1715. The house’s size made it diffcult to find a purchaser, so 20 years later it was demolished to make way for six comparatively small buildings; these are now 9, 10 and 11 St James’s
Square and 4, 5 and 6 Duke of York Street.

After the 2nd Duke’s hasty flight, his wife retired to the village of Chelsea. She lived in Royal Hospital Road at Ormonde House, which stood on the site of Ormonde Gate.

Ormonde Terrace (Primrose Hill 3) dates from the mid-nineteenth century. The origin of the name, if it means anything at all—the streets in this area were named somewhat arbitrarily—is unknown.

Ornan Road (Hampstead 8) was named in 1873. Origin unknown.

Orsett Terrace (Paddington 3) was built in about 1850, probably by a native of Orsett in Essex.

Osbert Street (Westminster 7) lies on the Chapter of Westminster’s estate.

Oseney Crescent (Kentish Town 8). Oseney Abbey near Oxford was a medieval seat of learning which Henry VIII granted at the dissolution of the monasteries to Christ Church
Oxford, the ground landlords of this part of Kentish Town: see Islip Street, Kentish Town.

Osnaburgh Street and Terrace (Euston Road 4) : see Regent’s Park.

Ossington Buildings (Marylebone 3), now a grim housing anachronism, were hailed with enthusiasm as model working class dwellings in 1889, when first erected to replace
squalid slum tenements on the site.

They were named in recognition of ‘Lady Ossington’s great interest in and benevolence towards so many good works of improvement in the locality’. Viscountess Ossington, who died the same year, was co-owner of the Harley estate, on which the Buildings stand: see Harley Street.

Ossington Street (Notting Hill Gate 2) was named in June 1873, immediately after the death of Viscount Ossington (husband of Lady Ossington), Speaker of the House of Commons, who had performed his office with ‘dignity, knowledge and ability’.

Ossulston Street. Ossulton is one of the Hundreds of the County of Middlesex (see St Oswulf Street), also provides the title of the Barons Ossulston. Several other roads in the neighbourhood have been endowed with names drawn from the Peerage, perhaps in the hope of raising the social status of Somers Town; there are Bridgeway (originally Bridgewater) Sfreet, Cranleigh Street and Clarendon Grove.

Outer Circle (Regent’s Park 3). When John Nash started to transform the farmlands of Marylebone Park into the Regent’s Park in 1812, he intended to build two rings of houses: one, the Outer Circle, would be a continuous line of terraces around the perimeter of the Park. Its concentric counterpart would be the Inner Circle, and between them were to be scattered villas. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer disliked the scheme: he wanted fewer houses and more park. About half the Outer Circle was completed, and is now Hanover Terrace, Clarence Terrace and so on, but all that emerged of the Inner Circle was the carriage-way of this name.

Outwich Street (Houndsditch 5) was named in 1963 in memory of the late twelfth-century church of St Martin Outwich. The church took its name from a local landowner, Martin de Ottewich, who founded it some time before his death in about 1230. The church stood at the junction of Bishopsgate and Threadneedle Street and contained tombs of the Outwich family, but now only a plaque marks its site. Ref: 86.

Oval Road (Camden Town 8) was intended to run through the middle of an oval formed by two crescents. Gloucester Crescent on the east was built, but the coming of the railway here in the 1840s prevented plans for a similar crescent on the western side being carried out, so that only half of the oval ever materialised.

Ovington Gardens, Square and Street (Brompton 7). An early Victorian name of unknown origin.

Owen Street, Owen’s Court and Owen’s Row (Clerkenwell 5) stand on the former Hermitage Field, so called because of a hermit’s lonely retreat here. According to legend, young Mistress Alice Wilkes of Islington, strolling through Hermitage Field one day, decided to bend down and try to milk a cow. The action saved her life; at that moment an arrow, shot by an archer practising in the fields, lodged in the crown of her hat. The vow which she made to prove her gratitude for this act of divine mercy was not forgotten many years later, when she was the wealthy widow of Sir Thomas Owen. In 1609 she built almshouses, now demolished, for Islington and Clerkenwell paupers, and the following year the present Owen’s boys’ school was founded beside them in Owen Street. The girls’ school was added later. At her death in 1613 Dame Alice left the charity estate in trust to the Brewers’ Company, who appointed Thomas Rawstorne, an Islington bricklayer, to develop the rest of Hermitage Field in 1773. The Brewers still play an important part in the annual customs of the two schools, and their arms can be seen on the buildings in Rawstorne Street and Place and Hermit Street. Refs: 250, 147, 227, 74.

Oxenden Street (Soho 7). Henry Oxenden was the son-in-law of Robert Baker, the pickadilly-maker : see Piccadilly.

Oxford Street (4). One of London’s oldest roads, certainly Roman and possibly earlier. To the Anglo-Saxons it was the ‘Broad Military Way’, the route for armies marching westward. Although marked as the ‘Road to Oxford’ on some early maps, it was usually called Tyburn Way, because of the Tyburn stream flowing across it beside present-day Stratford Place, and the Tyburn gallows standing at its lonely west end. By coincidence Edward Harley (see Harley Street), 2nd Earl of Oxford, acquired the land on the north side of the road in 1713, and the name Oxford Street began to replace Tyburn Way a few years later. The name was extended to Oxford Circus, which unlike its neighbours Piccadilly Circus and St Giles Circus, really is circular. Oxford Circus Avenue, euphemistically named by the Victorians, is a tiny steep alley which does not qualify for the title of ‘avenue’ in any respect. It was originally a stable yard.

Paddington Green (3) was the nucleus of the Anglo-Saxon village of Padintune, which originally meant something like ‘Padda’s farm’.

Paddington Street (Marylebone 3) was the continuation of a very old track linking the churches of St Giles-in-the-fields and St Marylebone: see Marylebone Passage. Beyond Marylebone Church the path ran between the Church Field and the Lower Field (now a recreation ground), and then crossing the River Tyburn by a little wooden bridge curved up to Lisson and Paddington villages.

Page Street (Westminster 7). Part of the Chapter of Westminster’s possessions: see Chapter Street, Westminster.

Palace Avenue, Court Gardens, Gate, Gardens Terrace and Green (Kensington 6) refer to Kensington Palace (q.v.).

Pall Mall (St James’s 7) was the smooth grass alley where Charles I and perhaps James I used to play pall mall, a fashionable game introduced from the Continent. It involved striking a ball (palla) along the grass with a mallet (maglio). ‘Among all the exercises of France’, wrote Sir Robert Dallington in 1598, ‘I prefere none before the Paille-Maille, both because it is a gentlemanlike sport, not violent, and yields good occasion and opportunity of discourse, as they walke from the one marke to the other.’ After the Restoration Charles n decided to form a new pall mall alley in St James’s Park, parallel to the old one, and this is now the processional avenue in the Park called The Mall. The original pall mall aliey then became Pall Mall street, which was later extended to Trafalgar Square as Pan Mall East.

Palmer Street (Westminster 7). On the east side of this street stood Palmer’s Almhouses, founded by the Reverend James Palmer in 1654. Close by was Palmer’s Village, a rural enclosure with a village green and cottages for the poor, destroyed for the building of Victoria Street in the 1840s. An eighteenth century deed concerning his charity records that in 1655 Palmer had demised ‘a certain place or Green now called Brewers Green in or near Tuttlefields [Tothill Fields]’ to ‘one William Brewer, Gardener’ : hence Brewer’s Green off Palmer Street, now more black than green. The almshouses were demolished in 1881, and the inmates moved to the United Westminster Almshouses in Rochester Row.

Palmerston Road (West Hampstead 1) and the Palmerston Hotel on the corner were built shortly after Prime Minister Palmerston’s death in office in 1865. His popularity is attested by the fact that there are still sixteen other Palmerston Roads, Crescents, and so on in London besides over a dozen Palmerston pubs, outnumbering in this respect every other nineteenth-century prime minister except Wellington.

Pancras. St Pancras was a 14-year old Christian orphan who had the misfortune to be left alone and unprotected in Rome during the Diocletian persecutions of AD 303, and was beheaded for refusing to deny his faith. The cult of the boy martyr was propogated by St Augustine, whose first English church was St Pancras outside Canterbury. Tradition has it that Augustine also founded both St Pancras Church in the City, destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 (hence Pancras Lane 5), where a plaque and a tiny churchyard commemorate the site) and St Pancras-in-the-Fields, which gave its name to the railway terminus. The latter church stands in Pancras Road 4, formerly a country lane beside the winding River Fleet.

Pangbourne Avenue (North Kensington 2) is the continuation of Wallingford Avenue. Wallingford and Pangbourne are neighbouring towns in Berkshire.

Panton Street (Leicester Square 7). Colonel Thomas Panton was a seventeenth-century gambler of legendary accomplishment, unsurpassed as a card player. The story goes that in a single night he won enough to bring him in over £l500 a year, and swore never to gamble again. Instead, he went into building speculation, buying Shaver’s Hall at Piccadilly (see Shaver’s Place) with the field behind it in 1669, and two years later he laid out Panton Street, ‘a fair street of good houses’, across the field. Suburban expansion was strictly discouraged at that period, but Panton was supported in his building petition to the king by Sir Christopher Wren, who claimed that the street would ‘ease in some measure the passage of the Strand, and will cure the noysomness of that part’. Panton died in 1685, leaving the property to his daughter, whose descendants owned it until 1919.

Panyer Alley (City 5) was so called by 1442, from an alehouse with the sign of the panyer at the end of the alley in Paternoster Row. In Panyer Alley Steps there is an old stone carving of a naked boy sitting on a panyer, or breadbasket, with a bunch of grapes in his hand—presumably advertising the range of sensual gratifications offered by the management. The stone is dated 1688, probably the year the Panyer was rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666, and underneath an inscription reads : When ye have sought the Citty round
Yet still this is the highest ground.

Paradise Walk 7) took its name from a charming terrace of Queen Anne cottages which stood opposite the end of the Walk in Royal Hospital Road and were known as Paradise Row.

Pardon Street (Clerkenwell 5). Pardon Churchyard, which lay between here and Clerkenwe]l Road, was consecrated in 1348 as a plague pit for victims of the Black Death. The Elizabethan historian Stow records that the ground served ‘for burying of such as desperately ended their lives, or were executed for felonies’ : written pardons were often buried with suicides and felons. In 1361 the land was bequeathed to the monks of the Charterhouse—it is still the property of Charterhouse School—and after the dissolution of the monastery became a garden ‘formed of shady walks and complete parterres . . . there are not many such gardens in London’. Thus it was described in 1707, but a few years later streets were built over it.

Paris Garden (Southwark) lies within the old Manor of Paris Garden (whose boundaries were those of modern Christchurch ward and parish), the notorious haunt of Tudor bear-baiters, actors and prostitutes. ‘Parysgardeyn’ first appears in 1453 and is probably connected with a family named de Parys who held the lease of the manor; but one poet suggests a less likely origin:
How it the name of Paris Garden gained
The name it was from a royal boy, Ill
Brave Iliom’s Firebrand . . .
From Paris, Paris Garden hath the name.

Park End (Hampstead 8). A turning out of South Hill Park.

Park Lane (Mayfair 7) runs alongside Hyde Park (q.v.). It was known as Tyburn Lane, from the Tyburn gallows which stood at the Marble Arch end, until about the time the gallows were removed in 1783. In the fifteenth century it was Westmynster Lane. It has been postulated that Park Lane was the Roman continuation of Edgware Road, although no remains can be found in evidence. A current theory is that it was a pre-Roman lane leading to the ancient Britons’ ford over the Thames at Westminster, and that it was abandoned by the Romans once they had built a bridge at Londinium.

Park Place (St James’s 7). After Green Park, said to have gained its name through being the only London park that is all greenery, with no formal flower beds.

Park Place Villas (Paddington 3) is all that materialised of a plan to build a grand square beside the Harrow Road. It was to be called Paddington Park, one of those Victorian ‘parks’ that suddenly appeared, in name only, in order to attract potential buyers of a respectable class to a newly developing neighbourhood; nearby Kensington Park Road and Kilburn Park Road are others of the same genre.

Park Road (Regent’s Park 3). The Marylebone (later Regent’s) Park was an almost circular area imparked by Henry Vlll as one of the royal hunting domaines. Two roads near it must date from about that time: the first was Park Road on the west side, dividing the park from the farm lands beyond. In fact, some early maps show two parallel paths here, one just inside and one outside the boundary fence. The road still marks the western boundary of the Crown estate. Parkway, on the east side, is the other old track; it linked the park with what is now Camden Town, at the point where the road from London forked for Highgate and Hampstead.

Park Crescent and Square are relatively modern. John Nash (see Nash Street) planned to build a vast Circus here at the entrance to the park, but when half of it was erected in 1812 the lessee who had undertaken to finish it became bankrupt, so the completed half was demoted to a Crescent. Park Square East and West appeared on the abandoned part of the site ten years later.

Park Village East and West ‘were among Nash’s very last works, and are full of interest . . . all the properties of the romantic village scene as illustrated in the almanacs and keepsakes are here. They are, in a sense, ancestors of all picturesque suburbia’. (Summerson, Georgian London, 1945).

Park Street (Southwark 5) was a medieval lane skirting the north side of the Bishop of Winchester’s park, which was bounded west and east by Great Suffolk Street and Redcross Way. The Bishops of Winchester, who have been associated with Southwark since Saxon times (see Winchester Square) bought this land in the early twelfth century, when it was open meadow known descriptively as Southwark Marsh. Later it was enclosed and renamed Winchester Park (from Old French ‘parc’, ‘enclosure’). Most of the ground still belongs to the Bishops’ successors, the Church Commissioners, but it is now devoid of anything resembling parkland.

Park Walk (Chelsea 6). An old lane, once known as Lovers Walk or Tuppenny Walk, which skirted the grounds of Chelsea Park: see Chelsea Park Gardens.

Park West Place (Paddington 3) takes its name from Hyde Park

Parker Street (Drury Lane 4). Philip Parker was a prominent parishioner of St Giles-in-the-Fields during the reign of James I, the period when London’s tentacles first reached the rural village of St Giles via a line of newly erected buildings along Drury Lane. One of these houses was Parker’s own, standing near the top of the Lane, with its gardens stretching behind. In about 1630, the year he was elected parish vestryman, an once analogous to a modern Councillor or Alderman, Parker started to build this street alongside his grounds.

Parkhill Road (Haverstock Hill 8) and Upper Park Road fill an area formerly known as St John’s Park.

Parliament Hill (Hampstead Heath 8) gained its name from a local tradition that Guy Fawkes’ confederates retired to its heights on November 5th 1605 to watch the destruction of Parliament. It also used to be known as Traitors’ Hill.

Parliament Street and Square (Westminster 7), leading to the Houses of Parliament, were formed in 1750 as part of the general improvements made in the area when Westminster Bridge was built. Until then, when the king came from his palace in Whitehall to open Parliament, his only route was along a narrow muddy lane lined with slum alleys and tenements. Parliament, the supreme legislature of Great Britain, has been meeting on the site of the present Houses of Parliament, originally the royal Palace of Westminster, for over seven hundred years.

Parsifal Road (West Hampstead I) was laid out in 1882, the year Wagner’s last work, Parsifal, was first produced. Wagner died a few months afterwards.

Passing Alley (St John’s Lane, Clerkenwell) was originally Pissing Alley, a descriptive relic from the middle ages. The modern equivalent is the euphemistic ‘Commit No Nuisance’ sign, and in fact there is one of these notices at the entrance to the alley, showing that its reputation has not improved over the course of the centuries.

Passmore Street (Pimlico 7) was begun in 1833 by Richard Passmore, whose carpenter’s yard was situated in Bourne Street, backing on to this site.

Pater Street (Kensington 6). After Walter Pater (1839-1894), author and critic, who lived near here at 12 Earl’s Terrace towards the end of his life.

Paternoster Row and Square (St Paul’s Churchyard 5), Amen Court and Corner, Ave Maria Lane and Creed Lane are all religious names clustered round St Paul’s Cathedral. The fourteenth-century Paternoster Row is the oldest, and was the street where ‘paternosters’, rosary beads, were made and sold. The other streets probably housed learned clerks who earned their living making copies of prayers and texts.

Patshull Place and Road (Kentish Town 8) were built in the 1860s on a field belonging to the Earl of Dartmouth, and named after his estate of Patshull near Wolverhampton. The Earl also held land in Highgate: see Dartmouth Park.

Pavilion Road and Street (Chelsea 7). The Pavilion was. an ornate eighteenth-century mansion distinguished by a Doric portico and Gothic ruins in the grounds. It was the brainchild of architect Henry Holland, who developed a large part of Chelsea (see Cadogan, Chelsea), and later designed the famous Brighton Pavilion. He died in 1806 at the Pavilion, which was later demolished to make way for Cadogan Square.

Peabody Avenue (Pimlico 7). George Peabody, the American philanthropist, came from a poor family who apprenticed him to a grocer at the age of 11. At 19 he opened his own warehouse, and gradually amassed a fortune. Having settled in England, he donated for housing the poor of London in 1862, a few years before his death. This sum was later increased to half a million pounds. The first Peabody Dwellings were opened in 1864 at Spitalfields and others quickly followed, the Peabody Avenue Dwellings being built in 1890.

Pear Tree, Pear Tree Court, Clerkenwell 5, stands in the former precinct of Clerkenwell Nunnery, and is said to be a reminiscence of the nunnery orchard; however, the name does not appear until 150 years after the nunnery was dissolved, and the land had been put to different uses in the meantime. The Pear Tree was a common inn-sign, which may be the origin of the name here.

Pear Tree Street (Finsbury 5)— now so bare and ugly that it is hard to conceive of the site as rural— was built in 1725, as is testified by an old stone plaque on the corner house. At that period the land either side of the street was still orchards and cultivated plots, and Dodsley, writing thirty years after Pear Tree Street was built, says that it was named from trees formerly growing there.

Peel Street (Kensington 6), built in 1824, commemorates Sir Robert Peel, future Prime Minister and founder of the police force, who at that time was Home Secretary.

Peerless Street (City Road 5). The Perilous Pool was a medieval pond on the south side of this old lane, so called, according to Stow, ‘because divers youths, by swimming therein, have been drowned’. It was closed for many years because of this danger to bathers, and reopened in 1743 as a luxury swimming bath, probably the largest in England at that time, measuring 170 feet by 100 feet. Hence also Bath Street, the main approach to the Pool. ‘Perilous’ was then adapted to ‘Peerless’, the contemporary Press describing the bath as ‘truly peerless, having no equal’. The path beside it became Peerless Row, later Peerless Street, soon afterwards. The bath closed in 1869, when the area had become too run down to attract open-air bathers, and a block of flats now towers on the site.

Pembridge Crescent, Gardens, Place, Road, Square and Villas (Notting Hill 2). In 1844 the Ladbroke family of Ladbroke Grove (q.v.) leased extensive fields here to one William H. Jenkins. His son William Kinnaird Jenkins, a well-known lawyer and Herefordshire landowner, developed the land and named the streets after towns and villages on his native Welsh border: Pembridge, Hereford, Denbigh, Newton, Garway, Ledbury, Bridstow, Chepstow and Monmouth.

Penfold Street and Place (Marylebone 3). George Saxby Penfold scored a clerical hat-trick by being appointed Rector to no less than three new Marylebone churches : firstly to the Brunswick Chapel, in Upper Berkeley Street, which was built in 1795, then to the new Christ Church, from 1825 until 1828, and then to Trinity Church in Marylebone Road when it opened in 1828. He was most upset when the Marlebone Vestry decided to instal gas lighting in his pulpit; he offered to buy candles at his own expense, but was over-ruled on the grounds that candles have a ‘heathenish appearance’ in a protestant church.

Penley Court (Strand). William Penley (1852—1912), actor, was closely associated with the old Globe Theatre which stood almost opposite Penley Court on the Aldwych site. He starred in Charley’s Aunt, which opened at the Globe in 1893 and ran for a record-breaking four years.

Pentonville Road (4-5). The district known anciently as Commandry Mantells (see Mantell Street) and now as Pentonville was purchased in 1709 by Henry Penton, a lawyer of Lincoln’s Inn. The estate was then completely rural, the only building being a mansion called Prospect House; hence the modern b}ock of same name. Ville was flats of the appended in the 1790s, when Henry Penton, a descendant of the first Henry, laid the land out for development. His principal building contractors were the brothers John and Alexander Cumming and Thomas Comer (Cumming and Collier Streets), who subleased plots in 1792 to Edward and George Godson (Godson Street). The Pentons’ country seat at Southampton was remembered in Southampton Street, since changed to Calshot Street, after a hamlet near Southampton. Donegal Street was named in 1906 in honour of the wife of Captain Frederick Penton, head of the family at the time, who came from Ards in Donegal. Pentonville belonged to the Penton family until 1951, when the whole estate was
sold by auction.

Pepys Street (City 5) is built across the site of the Navy Offce, where Samuel Pepys started work in 1660, a few months after beginning his Diary. His home next door to the
Offce was the starting point for energetic visits to all the taverns, playhouses and novelties around town, intimately recorded in a private shorthand which was not deciphered until 1825. He was buried in 1703 just round the corner from Pepys Street in St Olave’s, Hart Street, leaving behind an unrivalled picture of Charles II’s London.

Percy Street (Tottenham Court Road 4) probably took its name from the Percy Coffee House on the corner of Rathbone Place and Percy Street, where James Boswell used to meet his friends in the 1760s.

Perkin’s Rents (Westminster 7) is first recorded in 1682, conunemorating an obscure Perkins who pocketed the rents here.

Perren Street (Kentish Town 8) was probably built by Richard Perren, a Camden Town carpenter, in 1873.

Perrin’s Court, Lane and Walk (Hampstead 1). John Perrin was the owner of a tavern called the Goose, and later of the Parr’s Head, in Hampstead Village in the 1720s. His descendants became local landowners, and James Dyson Perrin still held property in Hampstead in 1882.

Perry’s Place (Oxford Street) is an example of the amazing tenacity with which some ancient footpaths cling to existence, even when the fields they crossed have been covered
with regular blocks of houses. This was the beginning of the track which at least 350 years ago led from St Giles-in-the-Fields to St Marylebone Church; Marylebone Passage (q.v.), a few streets away, is another portion of it. In 1790 one Richard Perry was a resident and landlord here.

Peter Street (Soho 7). Before this district was urbanised in the 1690s, Peter Street existed as a little footpath to a saltpetre house for the manufacture of gunpowder, standing in the fields between Peter Street and Brewer Street in the mid-seventeenth century. This end of Brewer Street was at first called Gunpowder Street. The Soho fields
seem to have been a centre for noxious industries at that period; besides the gunpowder works there were breweries in Brewer Street and a glass factory at Glasshouse Street whose furnaces caused annoyance to the neighbours.

Peter’s Hill (City 5). The name is explained by the old inscription at the corner of Peter’s Hill and Upper Thames Street:

Before ye late Dreadfull Fyer this
was ye Parish Church of St
Peter’s Pauls Wharfe Demolished September 1666.

Peter’s Lane (Smithfield 5), which was St Peter’s Lane in Tudor times, once contained an inn called the St Peter’s Key.

Peterborough Court (Fleet Street 5) is derived from the Bishops of Peterborough, who had their town house here in the middle ages. The see owned the site until 1863, when
it was sold to the Daily Telegraph, whose enormous offices have turned the court into a tunnel. The old name is perpetuated by ‘Peterborough’, the writer of the Telegraph’s “London Day by Day” column.

Petersham Lane and Place (South Kensington 6). From the Viscounts Petersham, who are also Earls of Harrington.

Peto Place (Regent’s Park 4) was named after Sir Samuel Morton Peto, a contractor and politician, MP for Norwich, Finsbury and Bristol successively. He was also an active Baptist, and erected the Regent’s Park Chapel in Peto Place at his own expense in 1855, the year he was created a baronet. The chapel closed down in about 1922.

Petticoat Lane (City). A medieval lane, called Hog Lane or Berewards Lane on earliest maps and now officially named Middlesex Street. The nickname Petticoat Lane is found in 1602, when silkweavers, making ladies’ petticoats among other things, first began to settle at Spitalfields.

Petty France (Westminster 7) existed as early as 1494, when it was spelt ‘Petefraunce’. It was probably the home of French merchants who came to trade at Westminster. There was a Petty Calais nearby at the Woolstaple (now Bridge Street), a rendezvous of the woolstaplers from Calais.

Petyt Place (Chelsea 6). William Petyt (1636—1707), a leading lawyer and antiquarian of his time, settled at Chelsea and built a parish hall next door to Chelsea Old Church, almost opposite Petyt Place. It contained ‘one vestry roome wherein the affairs of this parish are to be considered and settled, one school roome wherein the children of this parish are to be taught and instructed ings for a and school upper master roomes to all for which lodgings may God give a blessing’. The church hall is no longer used as a school, but is still called Petyt House.

Petyward (Chelsea 7D). The Pettiward family were farming scattered fields in Chelsea and West Brompton by 1675. Finborough Road, West Brompton, is named after their country home of Finborough Hall, Suffolk, and part of the street still belonged to Pettiward Estates in 1962.

Phené Street (Chelsea 6). In 1846 Dr John Samuel Phené leased a large house, since demolished, on the Chelsea glebe land. During his long life there he died in 1912 it became a well-known repository of architectural curios. Phené was also involved in schemes for developing the glebe land hence Phené Street and Margaretta Terrace, said to be named after his wife.

Phillimore Gardens, Gardens Close, Place and Walk (Kensington 6). Joseph Phillimore, the younger son of a Gloucestershire clothier, left home for London in his youth and married Anne D’Oyley, a Kensington heiress, in 1696. Anne’s father had purchased an extensive estate at Campden Hill from the descendants of Lord Campden, and it passed in time to Anne and Joseph’s son Robert, who sold part of the land to a friend, Stephen Pitt: hence Pitt Street. In 1865 a later Phillimore married Miss Elizabeth Sheldrake, commemorated in Sheldrake Place. Only a small portion of the original estate now belongs to the Phillimore family.

Philpot Lane (Fenchurch Street 5) was the fourteenth-century alley leading to John Philpot’s house and garden. Philpot, a wealthy grocer, was one of the most powerful men in the city and provided Londoners with much-needed leadership in the 1370s, a period when London’s commerce was almost brought to a standstill by setbacks in the French war, the accession of Richard II as a minor, and the religious storm raised by Wyclif. Since his own business, relying as it did on the import of oriental spices, was threatened by French sea raids, Philpot equipped a fleet at his own expense to drive back the enemy and safeguard the city’s trade. He was elected Lord Mayor in 1378 and knighted three years later for his part in restoring order during the Peasants’ Revolt. After Philpot’s death, his house became the Turners’ Company Hall. The back entrance is still called Turners Alley, although the Company left the Hall in 1737.

Phoenix Place (Mount Pleasant 4) was built in the 1840s along the course of the River Fleet, the stream having been rechannelled in underground pipes. It took its name from an old Phoenix Iron Foundry—the name symbolising marvellous transformations taking place within—near the corner with Mount Pleasant. The Foundry survived until 1964; at present the site is a car park.

Phoenix Road (Somers Town 4). There must have been a tavern of this narne here when the road was first built in about 1800.

Phoenix Street (Charing Cross Road, St Giles) was built across the grounds of St Giles Hospital in about 1680, and named after a Phoenix tavern in Stacey Street.

Piccadilly (7), the most famous street name in the world, has been the object of discussion by philologists for three centuries. It is only in the last few years, as new documents have come to light and methods of research have improved, that the story of ‘Piccadilly’ has been untangled.

The origin has been traced to one Robert Baker, a younger son born into a large Somerset family during the reign of Elizabeth I. He was bound apprentice to one of his brothers, a mercer, but he broke his indentures and came to London, where he lodged with a tailor. Baker himself became a tailor, and a successful one. Among other articles he must have made piccadillies, a fashionable kind of border around ruffs and collars.

Baker eventually acquired enough profit to retire gradually from business and go into the more gentlemanly occupation of land ownership. In about 1612 he bought his first plot of land, a narrow strip on the old road to Reading, alongside a path leading to a windmill. The path is now Great Windmill Street, and the main road is Piccadilly.

Several houses were built there, including a mansion for his own family, nicknamed ‘Pickadel Hall’ by the neighbours as a reminder of Baker’s humble origins in trade. The name extended to the whole of present Piccadilly. Over the next few years Robert Baker purchased several scattered fields in the neighbourhood. Two of them, called Scavenger’s Close and Gelding Close, still bear witness to his family in their street names: after Baker’s death in 1623, followed within a few years by the deaths of his children and grandchildren, quarrels arose over the inheritance of the land. The main claimants were Robert Baker’s son-in-law, Sir Henry Oxenden, and his geat-nephews, John Baker and James Baker. Apparently the matter was never settled legally, but eventually Oxenden took over Scavenger’s Close, where Oxendon Street now stands, while James and John fought out Gelding Close between them. James Baker employed a carpenter named James Axtell, who began building on one side of the field, while John’s property on the other side was being developed by John Emlyn, a brickmaker. The streets that resulted were Upper and Lower James Streets and Upper and Lower John Streets, Golden Square.

Piccadilly Circus was built at the same time as Regent Street. Its original circular shape was destroyed when Shaftesbury Avenue was opened into it. Piccadilly Place was so named in 1862.

Pickyard Street (City Road 5). The Reverend Pickard was the founder of the Orphan Working School, which occupied this site until its removal to Hampstead in 1847 : for further details see Maitland Park, Hampstead.

Pickering Place (St James’s Street). In 1704 William Pickering moved into 3 St James’s Street, where he established a successful painterstainers-cum-grocery trade. After a few years he decided to rebuild his home and the little row of houses behind it which consequently became known as Pickering Place. Pickering lived here until his death in 1734.

Pickle Herring Street (Bermondsey). A mysterious name dating back several centuries. The art of pickling herrings was known in England by the fourteenth century but was more widely practised among the Dutch, and in 1584 one ‘Peter Van Duraunte alias Pickell Heringe’ was buried in Bermondsey. He was a brewer by trade, so his alias is intriguing; possibly it was a common nickname for Dutchmen, in which case perhaps Van Duraunte brewed at the sign of the Pickled Herring, and the street name is derived from his inn-sign. However, even earlier, from 1447 onwards, Sir John Falstofe (Shakespeare’s Falstaff) had his noble residence exactly on the site of Pickle Herring Street. As he was a Yarmouth fish merchant at one stage during his varied career, the name may derive from his pickling herrings here for the London market.

Picton Place (Marylebone 3). ‘The remains of the late LieutenantGeneral Sir Thomas Picton, who was killed at the Battle of Waterloo, in the moment of victory, were brought over to England, and after lying in state at his home in Edwards Street, were buried at St George’s Burial Ground’, wrote a contemporary. Edwards Street was the old name for the section of Wigmore Street which backs on to Picton Place, so named in 1937.

Piercefield Street (Kentish Town 8). The little field on which this was built in 1863 belonged to James Parker Pierce, a retired Soho jeweller who invested in several plots of building land near his home in Camden Road.

Pike Gardens (Bankside, Southwark). Pike are considered somewhat unpalatable today, but as freshwater fish they were an important part of the home produce of any inland medieval manor-house. On the site of the Bankside Power Station was once ‘the greate Pyke gardeyne at the Bankside’, one of the three Bankside pike-gardens where huge quantities of pike were bred for the lord’s table. The Great Pike Gardens existed by 1362, and contained 17 ponds. Here at the entrance to the garden was an ornate gatehouse, decorated with reliefs of dolphins, pikes and tritons.

Pilgrim Street (Ludgate Hill 5). Tradition has it that pilgrims coming to St Paul’s by water disembarked at Pilgrim Street, which ran down to the River Fleet.

Pilgrim’s Lane (Hampstead 1). The Hampstead Manor manuscripts show that James Pilgrim esquire was admitted as a tenant of the manor in 1787 for his house in the High Street
(now the Royal Sailors’ Daughters’ Home, opposite Pilgrim’s Lane). He and his descendants also held three acres of pasture land, probably beside the lane.

Pimiico (7). Ben Pimlico was apparentry a Tudor innkeeper of Hoxton whose beer enjoyed a great reputation. He is mentioned in 1598 in a tract called Newes from Hogsdon: ‘Have at ye then, my merrie boyes, and hey for old Ben Pimlico’s nut browne’. In Hoxton there is still a Pimlico Walk, which was so called by 1609. Then it seems that the name was copied by an establishment on the other side of London, beside the site of Victoria Station, where ‘Pimlicoe’ is found by 1626. Pimlico is now a vague locality lying roughly between Victoria and the Thames, approached from Chelsea by Pimlico Road.

Pindar Street (Bishopsgate 5) is a memento of the home of Sir Paul Pindar, a wealthy merchant and ambassador whose passion for architecture involved spending vast sums on beautifying St Paul’s Cathedral and his own mansion. He was buried at nearby St Botolph, Bishopsgate, in 1650. The house was demolished for the expansion of Liverpool Street Station, but its original front is preserved at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Pindock Mews (Paddington 3). A mid-Victorian name of unknown origin.

Pine Apple Court (Castle Lane, Westminster). A tiny court whose only building is the Pineapple pub, recorded here since the late eighteenth century when pineapples were first introduced into England.

Pine Street (Clerkenwell 5), originally Wood Street, was changed to Pine in modern times although there are certainly no pines or any other trees here. The earlier name derives from Thomas Wood, a carpenter, who leased a small field ‘at a certain place called the Vine Yard Walk near the Vine Yard house’ from the Lord of the Manor, Lord Northampton, in 1776.

Pitt’s Head Mews (Mayfair 7). A Pitt’s Head Tavern, originally built about the time of William Pitt the elder (1708—1778) stood on the corner of Pitt’s Head Mews and Stanhope Row until 1941.

Platt Street (King’s Cross 4) is on part of the land that Richard Platt bequeathed to Aldenham School : see Aldenham Street, King’s Cross.

Platt’s Lane (Hampstead I) belonged to Thomas Pell Platt, an earnest Victorian scholar who translated the Bible into a number of Asian languages. He lived at Childs Hill and also owned a farm beside this lane.

Playhouse Yard (City 5). Here stood the Blackfriars Playhouse, which James Burbage, the actor, founded in 1596 on the former precinct of the Black Friars. In 1612 Shakespeare bought a house almost next door (see Ireland Yard) to be close at hand when his plays were performed. Local inhabitants complained indignantly about ‘the great inconveniences and ill rule that followeth the players’ and about the theatre-going coaches that blocked the lanes, but the playhouse continued in business until Cromwell banned theatres in 1642. It was demolished soon afterwards, and this yard was formed across the site.

Pleasant Row (Camden High Street 8). A Victorian euphemism. When first built it must have been highly unpleasant to live in, crammed with 13 tiny houses whose only view was of the backs of houses in the neighbouring streets.

Plender Place and Street (Camden Town 8). Named in compliment to Wiiliam Plender (1861—1946), a chartered accountant whose services were sought by the Metropolitan Water Board, the National Coal Board, the Board of Trade and other bodies. He was made Lieutenant of the City of London and 1st Baron Plender.

Plough Place (City 5). From a former Plough Inn.

Plumtree Court (Farringdon Street 5) may be a memento of a long vanished plum orchard — this area was renowned for its fertility.

Plympton Street (Marylebone 3) was Little Grove Street, being situated at Lisson Grove, until 1936. Why ‘Plympton’ was chosen to replace it is not known.

Poland Street (Soho 7) was begun in 1689 and named after an inn on the corner with Oxford Street called the King of Poland, commemorating the victory of John Sobieski, King of the Poles, over the Turks in 1683. It was destroyed by bombing in 1940.

Pollen Street (Mayfair 7). Benjamin Pollen was the grandson and heir of Sir Benjamin Maddox, the ground landlord : see Maddox Street, Mayfair.

Polygon Road (Euston 4). The Polygon was a distinctive architectural experiment standing alone in the fields: a ring of 32 houses arranged in a 15-sided figure. It was built by a Frenchman named Jacob Leroux in about 1793, the time of the French Reign of Terror, and became the home of many émigrés. After its demolition in the 1890s the present blocks of flats called Polygon Buildings were erected on the site.

Pond Place (Chelsea 6) was the path along the boundary of Chelsea Common. It ran beside the large pond which for centuries provided water for the cattle grazing on the Common. The pond was filled in about 1850, and Pond House, on the east side of Pond Place, now stands on part of the site.

Pond Square (Highgate 8). Beside this spot once stood a remote and exalted hermitage, occupied in the fourteenth century by William Lichfield, who according to the legends was something of a civil engineer when not attending to his devotions. He not only built a road from Islington to Highgate—the original Highgate Hill—but also dug two ponds here. They eventually became an eyesore and a polluted health hazard, and were covered over in 1864. The site was made a public open space in 1886.

Pond Street (Hampstead 8), so called by 1678, led to an ancient pond which occupied the site of South End Green and was one of the sources of the River Fleet. It survived until Victorian times.

Pond Yard (Bankside, Southwark) runs through the centre of the King’s Pike Garden site, one of the three pike gardens on Bankside (see Pike Gardens). At one time it contained four fish ponds.

Pont Street (Chelsea 7). Probably from French ‘pont’, ‘bridge’. It was built to bridge the River Westbourne in about 1830.

Pope’s Head Alley (Cornhill, City). The Pope’s Head was the sign hung outside a house in Cornhill as early as 1318, when private homes as well as inns were known by their signs. By 1440 it was a ‘hospice’ or tavern, noteworthy for being built of stone. In 1554 it is mentioned as ‘formerly called le popeshead and now le Bishoppeshead’; this concession to the Reformation was shortlived, and the tavern soon reverted to its earlier name. Pope’s Head Alley was originally a footpath through the inn yard.

Poplar Place (Bayswater 2). An early development in rural Bayswater, listed in the local ratebooks by 1825. Probably a descriptive name.

Poppin’s Court (Fleet Street 5) is a corruption of Popinjay Court, a relic of Le Popyngaye, the town house of the Abbots of Cirencester, which was standing here in 1325. The crest of these monks included a popinjay, or parrot, and there is a coloured relief of a parrot above the entrance to the court.

Portland. The Dukes of Portland, descended from William m’s favourite Hans Bentinck (see Bentinck Street), owned innumerable estates in the country and also some properties in London. The first of these was a portion of Soho Fields granted to Bentinck by the king and now covered by Portland Mews, off D’Arblay Street, and its neighbourhood.

The other land came to the Portlands in 1734, when Bentinck’s grandson William, 2nd Duke of Portland, married young Lady Margaret Cavendish Harley, heiress to the Harley (q.v.) estates in Marylebone which were to remain with the Portlands until the 5th Duke died childless in 1879. Portland Place (Marylebone 4), crosses this estate. It owes its great width to Lord Foley of Foley Street, whose mansion blocked the southern end ; Foley insisted that nothing should obstruct his view towards the hills of Hig-gate and Hampstead, hoping thereby to stop all building near his house. But John Nash circumvented this restriction by making Portland Place the same width as the north side of the house, 125 feet. Refs:

Portman Square, Street and Close (Marylebone 3). In 1553 Sir William Portman, a West Country knight and Lord ChiefJustice of England, bought 270 acres of land in Marylebone parish which Henry William Portman began to develop two centuries later. Their descendant, the 8th Viscount Portman, still possesses about half of the original estate.

The Portman’s country estates account for several street names at Marylebone: the properties near Taunton, Somerset, included Orchard Portman, where stood the family seat, and the villages of Bickenhall, Capland and Huntworth. In Dorset, near Blandford Forum, was the other country seat, Bryanston, a boys’ public school since 1927.

Adjoining properties were Nutford, Enford, Durweston, Tarrant Abbey at Tarrant Crawford and Broadley Wood near Winterborne Clenston.

Other Dorset names in the Portmans’ Marylebone are Bridport, Broadstone, Melbury, Melcombe, Rossmore, Sher borne, Stourcliffe and possibly Balcombe, which may be a corruption of Batcombe in Dorset.

Most of the remaining streets bear the names of members of the family,

Portnall Road (Paddington 111B). A Surrey place name. Connection with Paddington unknown.

Portobello Road (North Kensington 2), winding through the fields from Notting Hill turnpike gate to Kensal Green, was ‘one of the most rural and pleasant walks in summer in the vicinity of London’. It was originally the cart-track to a farm house situated at what is now St Joseph’s Home. The house was built by a local farmer called Adams in the early eighteenth century and patriotically given the name Porto Bello Farm following Admiral Vernon’s capture of Porto Bello in the Gulf of Mexico from the Spaniards in 1739. The port was taken again in 1819 by Sir George McGregor; hence Vernon Yard, a turning out of Portobello Road, and nearby McGregor Road. The farm and fields survived until North Kensington was urbanised in the 1860s.

Portpool Lane (Gray’s Inn Road 5) recalls the Soke of Portpool, which was probably derived from a long-vanished pool near the port, or gate, to the City. Reginald de Gray bought most of the Soke, or Manor, in 1294, and lived in the manor house, which has survived as Gray’s Inn (q.v.). Portpool Lane was a very early track, possibly Roman, which connected the manor house with the village of Clerkenwell.

Portsmouth Street (Lincoln’s Inn Fields 4). In Portsmouth Street stood Portsmouth House, according to tradition the home of Louise de Kéroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth, Charles Il’s highly unpopular French mistress. She was brought to the king’s notice by his relatives at the French court, who hoped that her influence would strengthen Charles’ Catholic leanings and eventually bring about a Roman Catholic alliance between France and England, but she was viewed with hostility by the anti-papist Londoners, who forcibly demonstrated their dislike. On one occasion the mob accidentally attacked the carriage of her English rival Nell Gwynn, who stepped out and said with characteristic candour ‘Pray, good people, be civil for I am the Protestant whore’.

Portsoken Street (City 5) crosses Portsoken Ward, the soke, or area of private jurisdiction, lying outside the port, or gate, of Aldgate. In Saxon times the ward belonged to the Knighten Guild, a company of 13 knights who gained it by fighting three combats, above ground, below ground, and in water, and then defending themselves in tournament against all challengers, according to the legend. In 1125 the then members of the Knighten Guild donated the land to Holy Trinity Priory at Aldgate, which administered the soke until the dissolution of the monasteries. Since then Portsoken has been governed like the rest of the City wards by an elected Alderman and Common Councilmen.

Portugal Street (Lincoln’s Inn 4) was so called from Portugal Row, the former name for the south side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Probably the earliest building in the Row was the Portuguese Embassy, which was standing on the site of the present Royal College of Surgeons by 1641.

Post Office Court (Lombard Street, City). The General Post Office ‘to settle the postage of England, Scotland and Ireland’ was founded by an Act of 1656, which ordered the ‘erecting of one general post office and one officer stiled the Postmaster General of England and Comptroller of the Post Office’. Revenues from the project were settled on the Duke of York, the future James II, and by 1678 the post office was established on the site of this court. In 1682 the duke discovered that a Customs official named William Docwra was running an effcient private enterprise called the Penny Post (not to be confused with Rowland Hill’s invention, the pre-paid post) from his home in Lime Street. The duke sued Docwra for infraction of monopoly and won his case, but since the idea was obviously a profitable one, Docwra was appointed Comptroller at Post Office Court. His original price of a penny a letter remained stable for well over a century, almost until the Post Office moved in 1829 to its present headquarters sprawling over several streets at St Martin’s-leGrand and Newgate Street. There is still a branch Post Office in Post Office Court.

Potter’s Fields (Bermondsey 5) was an open space called Potts Fields on a map dated 1682, and it would seem from excavations carried out in 1965 that one of the earliest delftware kilns in England was established here circa 1618. About two tons of pottery have been dug up, most of it seventeenth-century glazed and biscuit ware, along with débris from the kiln itself, which was probably closed down by about 1700.

Pottery Lane (North Kensington 2). An old lane which led through fields of rich yellow brick-earth, the kind used for London stock bricks. A colony of potters making bricks, tiles and drainpipes settled around here in the early nineteenth century, living in rough and ready shacks which remained an eyesore to the neighbourhood long after the brickfields had been built over. The only sign of the Potteries now is the old kiln preserved at the top of the lane in Walmer Road.

Poultry (City 5) was the end of Cheapside market where poultry was sold. Pitches here were reserved for freemen of the city; ‘strangers’, i.e. countrymen importing produce from outside the city boundaries, who had a reputation for selling their poultry on unauthorised sites and at extortionate prices, were commanded to set up their stalls at Leadenhall Market (q.v.) and nowhere else, by a proclamation of 1345. The same proclamation prevented native Londoners joining the pariahs at Leadenhall :
‘Also, that no person resident in the City who sells poultry, shall be so daring as to come to the Leaden Hall, to sell or buy poultry there among the strangers, on pain of imprisonment; but let such persons sell their poultry at the stalls [in Poultry] as of old they were wont to do’.

The poultry market probably expired as the supply of home-produced wares naturally dwindled under conditions of denser population in the city. Stow wrote in 1598 that Poultry ‘hath divers fair houses, which were sometime inhabited by poulters, but now by grocers, haberdashers, and upholsters’.

Powis Gardens, Square and Terrace (North Kensington 2) were begun in about 1863. Origin of name unknown.

Powis Place (Holborn 4). William Herbert, 2nd Marquess of Powis, spent most of his career either outlawed or imprisoned for his adherence to the banished James II, yet in about 1706 he managed to build himself a mansion in fashionable new Great Ormond Street, with gardens sloping down to a little stream. More by luck than prudence his house was not confiscated by his political adversaries, but after his death in 1745 it passed out of the family and was demolished to make way for Powis Place.

Praed Street (Paddington 3) commemorates William Praed, banker and first chairman of the Grand Junction Canal Company (now the Grand Union). The canal was authorised in 1795 and originally terminated at the Paddington Basin, where the Company purchased several acres of adjoining land; it has since been extended to the Thames at Limehouse. Sale Place, a turning out of Praed Street, was named after the Company’s solicitor and clerk, Richard Cowlishaw Sale, who was responsible for developing the Paddington land in the 1820s. Formosa Street, on a detached part of the Grand Junction estate, is probably connected with Sir George Young of Formosa Place in Berkshire, who married into the Praed family in 1835. Hence also Junction Mews off Sale Place, and the Grand Junction Arms in Praed Street.

Priest’s Court (Foster Lane, City) was probably the residence of the rector of St Vedast, Foster Lane, the church adjoining this alley.

Primrose Gardens (Hampstead 8) was so named in 1939. It lay within the Primrose Telephone Exchange area, which also covered Primrose Hill.

Primrose Hill (City 5) and Primrose Street (Bishopsgate 5) are more probably named from inn-signs than flowers; it must be many centuries since primroses grew in these localities. There is a Primrose pub at the entrance to Primrose Street, while Primrose Hill contains the Harrow, apparently determined to inflict rurality on a street totally devoid of vegetation.

Primrose Hill Road (South Hampstead 8).
When grass grows green and flowers spring,
Methinks it is a pleasant thing
To walk on Primrose Hill,
wrote the anonymous author of one of the Roxburghe Ballads in about 1620. The hill, which rises sharply to 216 feet, had gained this name by the time of Elizabeth I because of the quantities of primroses growing on its slopes.

Prince and Princes. Prince Streets have always abounded in London, as in other towns, either as a sign of patriotism or to lend a noble tone to the street. Princes Street in the City (5) is one of the latter; it was cut after the Great Fire to accompany the new King and Queen Streets—in the reign of Charles II, who was manifestly unable to provide a legitimate heir. Princes, now Princeton, Street, Holborn 4, also probably falls in this class.

But most Prince Streets are genuinely named in honour of royalty. Allegiance to the new House of Hanover was proclaimed in the name of Princes Street off Hanover Square (q.v.). The birth of the future Edward Vil in 1841 had predictable results wherever new roads were being formed on the suburban outskirts: for instance Prince of Wales Road and Crescent, biting through the fields of Kentish Town (8); Princes, now Princedale, Road and Princes Place, along with the Prince of Wales pub, laid out in 1841 in North Kensington (2) ; Princes Square, Bayswater (2); and the Prince of Wales Gate into Hyde Park which led in turn to Princes Gate and Princes Gardens (6). Prince of Wales Terrace, Kensington (6), dates from 1862, the year Edward came of age and entered into public

Prince Arthur Road (Hampstead 1). Prince Arthur was the third son of Queen Victoria. This street was begun in 1869, when one of his early public duties, at the age of 19, was opening the Royal Sailors’ Daughters’ Home, which stood in Fitzjohns Avenue until 1957.

Princedale Road (North Kensington (2). Originally Princes Road: see Prince.

Princess Road (Primrose Hi]] 8) appears on the map at some time between 1845 and 1849, and must have been named after either Princess Helena, born in 1846, or Princess Louise, born 1848, the second and third daughters of Queen Victoria.

Princeton Street (Holborn 4). Formerly Princes Street: see Prince.

Printer Street (City 5) was so called at least two centuries ago because of the abundance of printing offces here. Intensive bombing of the area during the 2nd World War did not destroy the association; the printing trade still monopolises Printer Street and adjoining streets.

Printing House Square (Queen Victoria Street, City). Here stood the King’s Printing House, the official printing agency for all royal proclamations and speeches from the reign of Charles II until 1770, when the printing house was moved to a site behind Fleet Street. Fifteen years after its removal John Walter, a resident of Printing House Square, founded a newspaper called the Universal Register, soon given its present name, The Times. The postwar Times building now occupies three sides of Printing House Square, and The Observer, British editions of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times are also printed in its extensive premises.

Priory Road (West Hampstead 1) was part of the old track shown running parallel to West End Lane through the fields on Rocque’s map of 1745. It connected Hampstead Village with Kilburn Priory.

Procter Street (Holborn 4) was formed in 1962 to provide improved access to Red Lion Square. It is named after a former inhabitant of the Square, Bryan Waller Procter (1787—1874), a solicitor and minor poet whose most valuable talent lay in discerning and encouraging men of real genius, such as Browning and Swinburne.

Prospect Terrace (Gray’s Inn Road 4). ‘Prospect’ was a common Georgian ‘advertising’ name, often found in localities where the prospect was particularly grim. Here the outlook was on to two burial grounds which are now public gardens.

Prowse Place (Camden Town 8). After Captain Sir William Prowse, one of Nelson ‘s fighting-captains, who was made Commander of the Bath in 1815 and died a rear-admiral in 1826. He was a resident of this parish, St Pancras, living for some years in Euston Road.

Pudding Lane (Eastcheap 5). Named from ‘puddinges, and other filth of Beastes’ : see Eastcheap, City.

Puddle Dock (Upper Thames Street 5) was ungrammatically described by Stow in 1598 as ‘Puddle wharf, a watergate into the Thames, where horses use to water, and therefore being defiled with their trampling, and made puddle’.

Pump Court (Temple 5) was so called by 1677 from the pump in the centre of the court.

Purchese Street (Somers Town 4) Frederick Purchese was a Churchwarden of St Pancras parish living nearby in Ossulston Street when this street was built in 1895.

Quadrant Grove (Kentish Town 8). Four houses arranged in a quadrant, or quarter-circle, and facing north across a grove or orchard, stood here by about 1845, years before there were any other buildings or roads in the area. The houses have since been rebuilt in a straight line.

Quality Court (Chancery Lane). ‘A very handsome, large and airy Court, lately built, with very handsome Brick Houses, called New Court,’ wrote Strype in 1720. ‘And’, he adds, ‘for the goodness of the Houses, and the Inhabitants, is by some called Quality Court.’

Queen and Queen ‘s. Queens, like Princes and Kings, have long been subjects for street names, whether from patriotic fervour, a spirit of chivalry, or simply a desire to ennoble an undistinguished suburban street. The oldest in London is Queen Street in the City (5), formed after the Great Fire of 1666 at the same time as King Street, and diplomatically named in compliment to Charles II’s unpopular Catholic consort, Catherine of Braganza.

Queen Square (Holborn 4) is named after Queen Anne, in whose reign it was built, but the statue there is George III’s queen, Charlotte. In its early days the square was built round three sides only, leaving a rural view of Hampstead and Highgate Hills, and on the north side ran a small stream. The scarcity of Hanoverian ‘Queen’ streets reflects the general unpopularity of the House. Queen Street Mayfair (7) dates from 1753, in the reign of George II, but the name cannot refer to his consort, Caroline, since she had been dead nearly twenty years. However Queen’s Walk in Green Park (7) certainly commemorates Caroline. She took a great interest in the royal parks, and also in the arts; the Queen’s Library which she built at St James’s Palace overlooked the Walk until it was demolished to make way for the apartments of her great-grandson Frederick Duke of York.

There are a multitude of streets named after Queen Victoria, whose long and popular reign (1837—1901) coincided with energetic development in the suburbs—so energetic that builders out-paced their ability to think of more original names. Queen’s (now Queensdale) Place, Road and Walk (2) appeared in North Kensington in 1841, at the same period as Queen’s Grove and Terrace in St John’s Wood (3). Queen’s Gardens, Paddington (3), dates from about 1850. As the 1850s wore on her majesty inspired street names in more and more newly erected suburbs, often in company with her son the Prince of Wales : Queen’s Crescent at Kentish Town (8) is an offshoot of Prince of Wales Road, while an entrance into Kensington Gardens was named Queen’s Gate to match nearby Prince’s Gate. Queen’s Gate in its turn spawned Queen’s Gate and Queen’s Gate Gardens, Place and Terrace (South Kensington 6).

Queen Anne Street (Marylebone 4). The year 1714 was a momentous one in English politics; it saw the death of Queen Anne and the consequent downfall of Robert Harley, her Tory First Minister, who spent the next three years in prison. George I arrived from Hanover and instated the Whig party in power, and Hanover Square was built by prominent Whigs. In the same year Edward Harley, Robert’s son, married Lady Henrietta Cavendish, whose dowry included the Manor of Marylebone: see Harley Street. Edward was no statesman, but he evidently felt some loyalty to his father’s party; his earliest building plans for the new property included Cavendish Square situated directly opposite Hanover Square and inhabited almost solely by leading Tories from Robert Harley’s administration, and Queen Anne Street.

Queen Anne’s Gate (St James’s Park 7) was begun in 1704, in the reign of Queene Anne, and decorated with a statue of Her Majesty which still stands here.

Queen Elizabeth Street (Bermondsey 5). Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School was founded in 1560 by the parishioners of St Olave’s, Bermondsey and dedicated to the reigning queen. The school moved from its former site at the junction of Tooley Street and Queen Elizabeth Street to Orpington in 1970.

Queen Victoria Street (City 5) was carved through the City in 1867 to relieve traffic in Cheapside and link up with the Victoria Embankment, then under construction.

Queenhithe (Upper Thames Street 5). In Saxon times Queenhithe was called Edredshithe, presumably from an early owner, but after the Norman Conquest it seems to have been settled on the queens of England. It is mentioned in connection with the four successive Queens Matilda, who were respectively the consorts of William I and Henry I, an Empress in her own right, and the consort of King Stephen. Henry I’s Matilda, renowned for her piety, granted the dues from the hithe, or harbour, to the Priory of Holy Trinity which she had founded at Aldgate, but the property reverted to the Crown at her death and the income was subsequently enjoyed by the three Queens Eleanor (consorts of Henry II, Henry III and Edward I) who followed the Matildas.

Queensberry Place and Way (South Kensington 6), formed in the 1860s, probably commemorate the famous Marquess who drew up the Queensberry Rules for boxing in 1867. He is also remembered as the irate father who had Oscar Wilde convicted for corrupting his son.

Queensborough Terrace, W2 Built by the grandson of John Aldridge in the 1860s on part of the Aldridge lands

Queensdale Place, Road and Walk (North Kensington 2). An adaptation of Queen’s Place, Road and Walk: see Queen.

Queensway (Bayswater 3). This old country track, formerly called Black Lion Lane from the pub on the corner, was renamed in honour of Queen Victoria soon after she came to the throne in 1837. It was her favourite ride as a child, according to one writer; another claims that it was the scene of her first drive after becoming queen. Either explanation of the name may well be true. During Victoria’s girlhood, which she spent less than half a mile away at Kensington Palace, the lane was still entirely rural, but by the time of her accession houses were beginning to spread along it, and soon lined both sides of the road.

Quex Road (West Hampstead 1). Throughout the nineteenth century most of West Hampstead belonged to the Powell-Cottons, a family of Kentish landowners and big-game hunters. Their country seat at Quex Park on the Isle of Thanet in Kent- is now the Powell Cotton Museum of African and Asian Animals. Thirteen other Hampstead streets bear the names of their estates near Quex: Acol, Minster, Kingsgate, Garlinge, Birchington, Ebbsfleet, Cleve, Fordwych, Sarre, Richborough, Woodchurch, Westbere and Manstone Roads. Menelik, Asmara and Somali Roads and Gondar Gardens are named after the Powell-Cotton shooting estates in Ethiopia, while Skardu and Ronda are in Kashmir. The list of exotic names is completed with Mutrix and Smyrna Roads and Messina and Gascony Avenues.

Raddington Road (North Kensington 2) was built in 1867. Origin of name unknown.

Radlett Place (St John’s Wood 3) was so named in 1923 at the inexplicable whim of the London County Council.

Radley Mews (Earls Court 6). Perhaps from the proximity of Abingdon Road; Radley is near Abingdon in Berkshire.

Radnor Street (Finsbury 5). Here stood the French Hospital, an asylum for Protestants forced to seek refuge in England after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. It was founded in 1708 by a French Huguenot, James de Gastigny, and supported by two French Protestant families who were granted English earldoms: Henri de Massue, Earl of Galway, the first Governor, and successive generations of Pleydell-Bouveries, Earls of Radnor. Galway House and Gastigny House on the Pleydell Estate in Radnor Street occupy the site of the Hospital, which has now moved to Rochester.

Radnor Walk (Chelsea 7). In memory of Letitia, Countess of Radnor, who lived at the corner of Flood Street and Royal Hospital Road in a seventeenth-century house demolished in 1888. After the death of the Earl of Radnor in 1685 the beautiful countess captivated and married her neighbour Charles Lord Cheyne, Lord of Chelsea Manor (see Chelsea Manor Street). They lived together at Radnor House until Lord Cheyne’s death in 1698.

Railey Mews (Kentish Town 8) probably took its name from Railey Works, a builders’ and carpenters’ yard established on the corner in the late nineteenth century.

Railway Approach (Borough High Street 5) leads to London Bridge Station, opened in 1841.

Railway Mews (North Kensington 2) is situated behind Ladbroke Grove Station on the Hammersmith and City Railway, now the Metropolitan Line. When the line was projected In the 1850s hundreds of navvies moved into the area to start on the embankments and arches that were to carry the rails above the fields of Netting Hill. Cheap cottages were hastily erected to house the workers, creating slums which remained uncleared unti1 1970. Railway labourers were not considered worthy of road surfacing around their dwellings, and conditions were so bad that one night in 1860 a woman drowned in the mud in the middle of Latimer Road.

Railway Place (Fenchurch Street 5) is the approach to Fenchurch Street Station.

Rainsford Street (Paddlngton 3) The Reverend Marcus Rainsford was vicar of nearby St James’, Sussex Gardens, 1904-1911.

Ralston Street (Chelsea 6) was built In 1877 and named after a seat in Renfrewshire, perhaps a property of the Cadogan family (see Cadogan, Chelsea).

Rampayne Street (Westminster 7). In 1705 Charles Rampayne of Westminster set up a charity providing money to bind poor local boys apprentice to a trade. Under the name of the Westminster Technical Fund this grant is still awarded.

Randolph Avenue, Crescent, Gardens and Road (Paddington 3). John Randolph was Bishop of London: see Bishop’s Bridge Road, Paddington.

Ranelagh Bridge (Westbourne Park 3) takes its name from the stream formerly known as the Kilburn at its source, the Westbourne further south, and as the Ranelagh where it entered the Thames beside Ranelagh Gardens. In the nineteenth century, when the stream was forced into the sewer pipes which now carry it beneath the course of this street, it was renamed the Ranelagh Sewer throughout its length and as such still drains rainwater from the streets which have covered its original catchment area.

Ranelagh Grove (Pimlico 7) is shown on maps of two centuries ago as a genuine rural grove, a broad tree-lined avenue leading to the famous Ranelagh Gardens beside Chelsea Hospital. Richard Earl of Ranelagh, a Treasurer of Chelsea Hospital, acquired 7 acres of the hospital grounds in 1690 for a family mansion. In 1742, some years after his death, the gardens became a public entertainment ground, the principal attraction of which was the Rotunda, a building rather similar to the Royal Albert Hall, with a central orchestra or promenade encircled by tiers of boxes, where refreshments were served. Horace Walpole enthusiastically described its opening:

‘. . . the prince, princess, duke, much nobility, and much mob besides were there. There is a vast amphitheatre, finely gilt, painted and illuminated; into which everybody that loves eating, drinking, staring or crowding is admitted for twelve pence’.

The aim of a visit was to promenade around the circle greeting acquaintances and observing fashion and scandalous liaisons, an atmosphere where Walpole was in his element:

‘Every night constantly I go to Ranelagh; which has totally beat Vauxhall. Nobody goes anywhere else-everybody goes there’.

But in 1805 the public suddenly tired of its attractions. One poem captured the general disillusionment:

First we trac’d the gay circle all round
Ay-and then we went round it again.

Ranelagh closed down the same year, and the gardens are once more part of the Chelsea Hospital grounds.

Rangoon Street (City 5). This nineteenth-century street was formed through an extensive hinterland between Fenchurch Street and Crutched Friars which featured nothing but the tea-warehouses of the East India Company. It is named after the factory set up by the Company at Rangoon in Burma in 1790. The Company controlled a large part of India on behalf of the Crown until its abolition after the Indian Mutiny of 1858. The East and West India Docks Company, which then took over the warehouses, has since disappeared in its turn, but the East India Arms pub and a number of tea merchants remain in Fen­ church Street. Hence also nearby India Street.

Ranston Street (Marylebone 3). Ranston in Dorset is the home of the Baker family: see Baker Street.

Ranulf Road (North Hampstead 1). This name was taken from the Domesday Book entry for Hampstead: ‘Ranulf Pevrel holds under the Abbot [of Westminster] one hide [about 120 acres] of the land of the villanes . . . This land was and is worth five shillings’. He was probably the same Pevrel who married William the Conqueror’s discarded mistress Ingelrica and brought William’s son up as his own. The king eventually granted him 64 English manors.

Raphael Street (Knightsbridge 7). This site belonged to Lewis Raphael, the owner of a prosperous dairy farm at King’s Cross, who began the street in 1842.

Rathbone Place and Street (Oxford Street 4). Rathbone Place was the first street to be built in the fields north of Oxford Street; it was finished in about 1720. Captain Thomas Rathbone had had a house here since 1684, and was a person of some importance in the parish as he was Churchwarden in 1687. In the 1720s and 30s Dr John and Mrs Rathbone, presumably the captain’s son and daughter-in-law, were living here.

By about 1740 the land on either side of Rathbone Place belonged to William Glanville esquire of Kent: hence Glanville Mews, Rathbone Street. His only child and heiress, Frances, married William Evelyn of St Clare in Kent, a descendant of John Evelyn the diarist. Their children built Evelyn Yard, off Rathbone Place.

Rawlings Street (Chelsea 7). In memory of Charles Rawlings of Chelsea, who died in 1862 and left over £400 for the poor of the parish.

Ray Street (Monnt Pleasant 4), formerly a country path in the valley of the River Fleet, was known in the seventeenth century as Hockley-in­the-Hole. ‘Hockley’ is said to mean ‘dirty or muddy field’, and a poem written in 1717 mentions:

… all the stinks that rise together
From Hockley Hole in sultry weather.

By the time the suburban sprawl reached this point a few years later, the ‘stinks’ of Hockley-in-the-Hole were enhanced by rubbish tips towering over miserable back streets, whlle the meandering Fleet was an open sewer. The residents were those who could afford nothing better, and it seems probable that the alternative early name for this street, Rag Street, was a nickname implying poverty and squalor. In 1774 Rag Street was officially adapted to the less offensive Ray Street.

Raymond Buildings (Gray’s Inn 4) was named in honour of Lord Robert Raymond (1673-1733), who was admitted to Gray’s Inn at about eight years old. He rose to be Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, where his judgments were ‘patient, impartial, careful and discriminating’.

Red Lion Court (Fleet Street 5). There has been a Red Lion tavern here since at least 1571.

Red Lion Street and Square (Holborn 4). The Red Lion Inn on the site of the present Old Red Lion was the principal inn on High Holborn by about 1580. Prisoners on their way from Newgate prison to St Giles gallows or Tyburn Tree were sometimes allowed to break their journey and take a last drink there. Beside the inn ran a rough track to Lamb’s Conduit (q.v.) which is now Red Lion Street. At the rear was a 17- acre paddock, developed as Red Lion Square in 1698.

Red Place (Mayfair 7) was so named when it was rebuilt in 1891, partly because it is a turning out of Green Street and partly because the buildings had a reddish hue.

Redan Place (Bayswater 3). The Redan pub on the comer was opened shortly after a brave but unsuccessful British attack on the Crimean fortress called the Redan in 1855.

Redanchor Close (Chelsea 6). Named from the red anchor mark used on Sprimont’s famous Chelsea china: see Sprimont Place, Chelsea.

Redburn Street (Chelsea 7) and Redesdale Street were both built in 1871 on Lord Cadogan’s estate (see Cadogan, Chelsea) and named after places in Northumberland. One branch of the Cadogan family had settled in Northumberland.

Redcliffe Gardens, Place, Road, Square and Street (Earl’s Court 6). The Redcliffe district of Earl’s Court was designed and developed in 1860 by architect George Godwin, editor of The Builder, who had also worked at Redcliffe in Bristol. Among other Bristol buildings, he was responsible for Redcliffe Infant School and restored St Mary Redcliffe Church.

Redcross Way (Southwark 5). The Red Cross was one of the old inns in Borough High Street and a favourite haunt of the Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn. Redcross Place originated as a yard leading to the rear of the inn.

Rede Place (Paddington 2). Paddington Manor became the property of Richard Rede, a citizen of London and a salter by trade, when Henry VIII seized the estate from the previous owner, the Abbot of Westminster, at the dissolution of the monasteries. Rede had instructions to remove all popish books and idolatrous ornaments from the parish church. His descendants held Paddington until the 1620s.

Redfield Lane (Earl’s Court 6). This short twisting street is all that remains of a much longer country track which has been largely incorporated into Cromwell Road. It led to the 23-acre Red Field, now the site of the Air Terminal in Cromwell Road.

Reece Mews (South Kensington 6). Louisa, wife of Robert Reece of Barbados, inherited from her father some gardens and cottages on this site, which her husband arranged to develop in 1869.

Reed’s Place (Camden Town 8). William Reed, a builder by trade, built the Place in the 1860s and lived at No. 7 for many years.

Reeves Mews (Mayfair 7). One Spelsant Reeves esquire leased a plot of land on the south side of Upper Grosvenor Street from the Grosvenor family in 1731, when this area was being laid out for development.

Regal Lane (Chalk Farm 8). Originally Queen’s Mews, being a mews serving Queen’s Road (now Regent’s Park Road), named after Queen Victoria. This was such a common name that first Queen’s was adapted to Regal, then later Mews was changed to the ‘higher-class’ Lane at the request of the inhabitants.

Regency Place and Street (Vauxhall Bridge Road 7) were begun in 1811, during the Regency period. The foundation stone of the nearby Regent’s Bridge, now called Vauxhall Bridge, was laid by the Prince Regent the same year.

Regent Place (Soho 7). A turning out of Regent Street.

Regent Square (King’s Cross 4) was planned in about 1820, the year the Regency came to an end.

Regent Street (7) was designed by John Nash as a ‘Royal Mile’ along which the Prince Regent might drive from his mansion at Carlton House, St James’s, to his new park, the Regent’s Park. But by the time the street was finished, in about 1823, the Regent, now George IV, had abandoned Carlton House in favour of Buckingham Palace.

Regent’s Park (3-4). The park dates from the time of Henry VIII, who enclosed the land as a hunting ground. It has belonged to the Crown ever since. During the rule of Cromwell, the deer were sold, the timber cut down to build ships, and Marylebone Park was made into a farm. When the last of the farmers’ leases expired in 1811, John Nash the architect, under the auspices of the Prince Regent, decided to turn the estate into a sort of garden suburb: ‘Mary-le-bone Park shall be made to contribute to the healthful­ ness, beauty and advantage of that quarter of the Metropolis’.

Almost all the streets on the estate are named after the King, George III, and eight of his fifteen children:

King George III (1738-1820)

King of Hanover
Hanover Terrace and Gate

HRH George (1762-1830) (George IV)

Regent of the Kingdom
Regent’s Park

Earl of Chester
Chester Terrace, Road, Gate, Place

Duke of Cornwall
Cornwall Terrace

HRH Frederick (1763-1827) (Frederick Street, now Longford Street)

Earl of Ulster
Ulster Terrace and Place

Bishop of Osnabrück
Osnaburgh Street and Terrace

Duke of York
York Terrace and Gate

Duke of Albany
Albany Street, Little Albany Street

HRH William (1765-1837) (William IV)

William Road

Earl of Munster
Munster Square

Duke of Clarence
Clarence Gate, Terrace and Gardens

Duke of St Andrews
St Andrews Place

HRH Edward (1767-1820)

Little Edward Street

Duke of Kent
Kent Terrace

HRH Ernest (1771-1851) (King of Hanover)

(Ernest Street, now Robert Street)

Duke of Cumberland
Cumberland Place, Terrace and Market

HRH Augustus (1773-1843)
Augustus Street

Duke of Sussex
Sussex Place

HRH Adolphus (1774-1850)

Duke of Cambridge
Cambridge Terrace and Gate

HRH Mary (1776-1857) married Duke of Gloucester

Gloucester Gate

Hence also Regent’s Park Road and Terrace to the north-east of the park.

Remnant Street (Holborn 4) is a remnant of Great Queen Street, which was cut in two unequal parts by the formation of Kingsway in 1901.

But it is in fact named after Lord Remnant (1862-1933), a barrister at nearby Lincoln’s Inn, who represented Holborn on the London County Council and was MP for Holborn. His country home at Twyford in Berkshire provided the name of parallel Twyford Place.

Rennie Street (Southwark 5) com­ memorates John Rennie the engineer, who moved to a house round the corner in Stamford Street, where a plaque marks the site, in 1794. While living there he designed the original Southwark Bridge and Waterloo Bridge, and formed the London Docks and the East India Docks. His son, Sir John Rennie, the re-builder of London Bridge, was born in the same house.

Reston Place (Kensington 6), was named in 1935 after a place in Berwickshire, for no apparent reason.

Rex Place (Mayfair 7) was King’s Mews until 1951, when it was adap­ ted to Latin rex, ‘king’. Since it was too small to be indicated on early maps, the king’s identity is unknown.

Richard’s Place (Chelsea 6) dates from about 1850 and is probably named after the builder or owner.

Richbell Place (Holborn 4). John Richbell, a builder, formed Richbell Place in 1710 and followed it with several other streets in this newly developing district.

Richmond Buildings (Dean Street, Soho). Thomas Richmond was a ‘Citizen and Wax-chandler’ who took to the more lucrative trade of carpentry in the 1720s, a period when much of his home parish of Soho was being rebuilt. He leased the site of this cul-de-sac in 1732 and completed it the same year, as the name-tablets on the corner with Dean Street testify.

Richmond Terrace (Whitehall 7) occupies the site of Richmond House, demolished in about 1820, the home of the Dukes of Richmond. The 1st Duke was the son of Charles II and his Breton mistress Louise de Keroualle, and the house was erected on the site of her apartments in the royal Palace of Whitehall.

Riding House Street (Marylebone VA). There was a Riding House Lane here long before the surround­ ing streets were built in the mid­ eighteenth century. It was presumably the way to a riding academy or hunting stables: Marylebone Fields and Soho Fields to the south were well-known hunting grounds.

Riley Street (Chelsea 6). In 1786 Stephen Riley, an upholsterer by trade, ]eased a plot of ground here from its owner, Mary Ann Jones. He married her not long afterwards, and from then on is described in contemporary records as ‘gentleman’ instead of ‘upholsterer’. Stephen soon began Riley Street on this wife’s land, which stretched from King’s Road to the Thames.

Rising Sun Court (Cloth Fair, City). From a Rising Sun inn on the comer with Cloth Fair, now closed and empty with its signboard only just legible.

Risinghill Street (Pentonville 4) is now a short stump of roadway, with no noticeable rising hill. However, the name was once descriptive. The street used to extend down to Rodney Street, descending steeply towards the valley of the Fleet. The schools which have replaced this western section of Risinghill Street are built on the slope of the hill, and are designed in steps which disguise the difference in level.

Ritchie Street (Pentonville 5) was adapted in 1937 from Richard Street, after Richard Cloudesley: see Cloudesley Place.

Robert Adam Street (Marylebone ) was originally Adams Street, erected in about 1780 by Samuel Adams, a local builder. The London County Council added ‘Robert’ in 1937, after one of the Adelphi brothers: see Adelphi Terrace.

Robert Street (Adelphi 4). After Robert Adam, one of the ‘Adelphi’ brothers

Robert Street (Hampstead Road 4). The earliest streets on the west side of Hampstead Road were formed c. 1790-1810 and all unimaginatively given male Christian names; south to north they were Henry Street, Charles Street, Frederick Street, William Street, Robert Street and another Henry Street. Most of them have since been renamed.

Roberts Mews (Belgravia 7). The ground landlord at the time of building (1839) was Robert Grosvenor, Marquess of Westminster: see Grosvenor Square.

Robin Grove (Highgate 8) stands on the former wooded lawns of Holly Lodge (see Holly Lodge Gardens), which survived until this and the neighbouring streets were built in 1924. The name was a memento of its recently vanished rurality.

Robin Hood Yard (Leather Lane, Holborn). From an eighteenth-century Robin Hood tavern, demolished in 1911. The sign was once a common one, usually accompanied by this verse:
You gentlemen and yeomen good
Come in and drink with Robin Hood.
If Robin Hood be not at home
Come in and drink with Little John.

Roderick Road (Gospel Oak 8) dates from 1879. Origin unknown.

Rodmarton Street (Marylebone 3). Originally Gloucester Mews East, being one of the mews serving Gloucester Place, changed in 1913 because there was a street of the same name in Paddington. Rodmarton is a village in the county of Gloucester. In 1961 Rodmarton Mews became the more dignified Rodmarton Street.

Rodney Street (Pentonville 4). In 1782, the year this street was begun, Admiral George Rodney crushed the French fleet off the Leeward Islands at the Battle of the Saints.

Roger Street (Gray’s Inn Road 4) was originally Henry Street, after Henry Doughty: see Doughty Street, Ho1born. Altered to another male name in 1937 because there were seven other Henry Streets in Inner London.

Roland Gardens and Way (South Kensington 6) may be named after Anne Elizabeth Rolland from Paris, who was involved in a number of building schemes in Kensington in the 1860s.

Rolls Buildings (City 5) adjoined the Rolls Office, where official State rolls, so called because the documents were rolled up, have been stored since 1377. The Rolls Office has been rebuilt as the Public Record Office, and contains records ranging from the Domesday Book of 1086 to the present day.

Romily Street (Soho 7). Named in honour of Sir Samuel Romilly, the law reformer, who was born nearby at 18 Frith Street in 1757. Romilly obtained such mitigations of the law as the abolition of the death penalty for soldiers and sailors absent without leave. He was also interested in the legal position of Catholics and negro slaves, but their emancipation was left uncompleted in 1818, when he committed suicide at his wife’s death.

Romney Street (Westminster 7) belonged to the Marshams, Earls of Romney: see Marsham Street, West­ minster.

Rona Road (Gospel Oak 8) was built in 1879. Origin of name unknown.

Rood Laoe (Eastcheap 5) was named from a sixteenth-century rood, or holy cross, set up in St Margaret’s Church­ yard here while the church was being rebuilt. To pay for the building the faithful left offerings at the foot of the rood, until one morning in 1538 it was found hacked to pieces by Protestant zealots who thought it constituted popish idol worship.

Ropemaker Street (Finsbury 5) was one of many Ropemakers Alleys on the outskirts of the medieval City, where there was room enough to make a rope-walk. Here the hemp was twisted into lengths of rope. as long as possible. Even today Ropemaker Street is exceptionally long and straight by City standards.

Rosary Gardens (South Kensington 6) crosses the site of a Georgian villa called the Rosery. The family which owned it from the early eighteenth century until the Gardens was begun in 1880 also held Rose Hawe, a little field nearby, which was so called as early as 1535.

Rose and Crown Yard (St James’s 7). There was probably a Rose and Crown Inn here some three hundred years ago, although modem research has not brought any evidence of it to light.

Rose Alley (Southwark 5) was the lane beside an early sixteenth­century house known by the sign of the Rose. The first of the Southwark theatres, also called the Rose, where Burbage and possibly Shakespeare acted, was erected here in about 1587. Audiences dwindled after the more famous Globe Playhouse opened in 1599 just a little further along Park Street, opposite the Windmill pub, and not long after­wards the Rose was demolished.

Rosebery Avenue (Clerkenwell 5). The fifth Lord Rosebery was elected a member of the London County Council at its formation in 1889, and was then appointed first Chairman, by I04 votes to 17.It was appropriate that his name should be given to the Lee’s first big achievement, this new major road begun the same year.

Rosmead Road (North Kensington 2) was so named in 1898, just after Lord Rosmead was buried at Brompton Cemetery, Kensington. Rosmead had been High Commissioner for South Africa, and was raised to the peerage for his conduct at the time of the Jameson Raid in 1896. According to the Dictionary of National Biography ‘he was the only man who had sufficient prestige to cope with such a crisis and save a war’.

Rosoman Street (Clerkenwell 5). Thomas Rosoman was the proprietor of Sadler’s Wells from 1746 until 1772, a period when it was a third­rate theatre and spa. He also ran other local attractions in conjunction with it: a Ducking Pond (where dogs were set to hunt ducks) on the site of Spa Fields Chapel, and an attached pleasure garden. In about 1756 Rosoman extended his profit­making activities into other spheres and started to build houses along an old path leading to these properties. A few years later the path was named Rosoman Street.

Rosslyn Hill (Hampstead I) was named after Rosslyn House, demolished in 1896, on Haverstock Hill. It was the home of Alexander Wedderburn, Earl of Rosslyn, the ‘pushing, unscrupulous and cruel’ Lord Chancellor whose ruthless ambition and mercilessness took him to the top of his profession but led to his dismissal from the woolsack in 1801. Wedderburn Road skirted the south side of the house. Streets built on the rest of the grounds commemorate other Lords Chancellor: the popular Lord Eldon, who replaced Rosslyn, Lord Lyndhurst, and Lord Thurlow, who also had a country house at Hampstead.

Rothwell Street (Prinnose Hill 8). This site was purchased in about 1861 by Count Richard Rainshaw, Marquess de Rothwell, of Mornington Road, Camden Town and Sharples Hall at Bolton le Moors in Lancashire. He began Rothwell Street and Sharples Hall Street the following year.

Rotten Row (Hyde Park 6). An unusual and much disputed name. The path used to be called King’s Road, perhaps because it was the royal way to William III’s new palace at Kensington. It has been suggested that Rotten Row is therefore a corruption of Route du Roi­ but why should a French name be given to a London road? More probably ‘rotten’ refers to the loose soft soil of the ride, but that does not explain ‘row’, which was always used of a row of houses and is most inappropriate here in the Park.

Rotten Row (Hampstead 1), a track across Hampstead Heath, was probably named after the Row in Hyde Park, both being horse-riding paths.

Rousden Street (Camden Town 8) was named after a parish two or three miles from Lyme Regis by association with parallel Lyme Street.

Rowington Close (Paddington 3) is part of the 1965 Warwick Estate, so called because it adjoins Warwick Crescent. The approach roads and blocks of flats here have all been given Warwickshire place names: Gaydon, Wilmcote, Princethorpe, Atherstone, Oldbury, Rowington, Oversley, Polesworth and Brinklow.

Rowland Hill Street (Hampstead 8). Sir Rowland Hill, the inventor of the pre-paid post, lived at Hampstead Green from 1849 until his death 30 years later. He strenuously opposed the scheme to build a smallpox isolation hospital (now the Royal Free) behind the Green, but after his death his house was demolished to make way for this street, the central avenue through the hospital.

Royal Avenue (Chelsea 7) was so named in the nineteenth century because of the tradition that it had been intended as a stately boulevard built for William III, to connect the Chelsea Hospital with his new Palace at Kensington. If so, the plan was never completed.

Royal College Street (Camden Town 8). The first Veterinary College in Britain was founded in 1791, when a Frenchman called St Bel came from the veterinary school at Lyons to launch the scheme. The next year he purchased the present site, then pleasantly situated on the banks of the River Fleet, from Lord Camden. The College was incorporated by royal charter in 1844, and is now known as the Royal Veterinary College. Hence also College Grove and Place, Camden Town.

Royal Crescent (Notting Hill 2) was laid out in 1841 along with Queen’s and Princes Roads (now Queensdale and Princedale), and so the name was partly patriotic in origin. But its main function was as an ‘advertising’ name intended to attract buyers to the new development.

Royal Exchange Buildings (Thread­ needle Street, City) face the Exchange, founded by the financial genius Sir Thomas Gresham (see Gresham Street), so that British merchants could build up a commercial empire to rival that of Antwerp. Queen Elizabeth proclaimed the Exchange Royal at its opening in 1571.

Royal Hospital Road (Chelsea 7). Legend has it that Charles II offered to give the old house that formerly stood on the site of the Royal Hospital to Nell Gwynne. But with characteristic generosity she gave it back, that it might be opened as a refuge for old and disabled soldiers. Be that as it may, the king commissioned Wren to build the Hospital, and it still houses pensioners from every arm of the British Army.

Royal Mint Street (Tower Hill 5). The Royal Mint of coinage of the realm, situated in the safety of the Tower of London for centuries, was transferred to Royal Mint Street in 1810.

Royal Opera Arcade (Pall Mall) was built in 1818 to contain dressing rooms and stage door of the Opera House (now Her Majesty’s Theatre).

Royalty Mews (Dean Street, Soho). The New Royalty Theatre stood almost opposite in Dean Street from 1861 until the 1950s. There is now an office block called Royalty House on the site.

Rugby Street (Holborn 4) and its neighbourhood belong to Rugby public school. Laurence Sheriff, the school’s founder, was a native of Rugby who came to London and rose to be Warden of the Grocers’ Company and a Gentleman of the Princess Elizabeth. Like many Elizabethans of wealth and position he was concerned at the state of education in the country since the dissolution of the monasteries had closed the church schools, and so in 1567 he bequeathed this land and some money to endow a grammar school in his home town. Nearby Bedford Row, Tonbridge Street and Aldenham Street have the same origin, all being on estates donated to provincial schools at that period. The field was laid out for development in the 1680s, and leased to Sir WilJiam Milman, a lawyer turned speculative builder: hence Millman Street. See also Milman’s Street, Chelsea.

Runcorn Place (North Kensington 2) was named after the town in Cheshire in 1911for reasons unknown.

Rupert Court and Street (Soho 7) were named in honour of Prince Rupert of the Rhine, the son of James I’s daughter Elizabeth. During the Civil War he commanded the troops for his uncle Charles Iand acquired a reputation as a dashing cavalry leader despite his defeats at Marston Moor and Naseby. In exile with the rest of the royal family he led a royalist privateering fleet, and after the Restoration distinguished himself as an admiral in the Dutch wars. When Rupert Street was begun in 1676 the prince was First Lord of the British Admiralty.

Russell Court (Cleveland Row, St James’s). The name first appears in the parish ratebooks in about 1660, when a house on the north side of the court was occupied by a Mr Russell and his family.

Russell Square (Bloomsbury 4) and Russell Street (Covent Garden 4) belonged to the Russells, Dukes of Bedford:see Bedford Square, Blooms­ bury.

Russia Row (City 5) dates from about 1804, the year Russia decided to enter the Napoleonic Wars as an ally of Britain.

Ruston Close (North Kensington 2): see St Quintin Avenue, North Kensington. Former name Rillington Place, changed after the discovery of Christie’s gruesome activities at No. 10.

Rutherford Street (Westminster 7). Part of the Chapter of Westminster’s estate.

Rutland Gate (Knightsbridge 6) stands on the site of Rutland House, the town residence of the Dukes of Rutland by about 1760. It was an impressive red-brick mansion fronting Knightsbridge, with extensive grounds behind on which Rutland Gardens and Street are built. The duke sold the estate in 1833 and the house was then demolished.

Ryder Street, Yard and Court (St James’s 7). Captain Richard Rider, one of Charles II’s Master Carpenters, was engaged in developing this area in the 1670s.

Ryder’s Terrace (St John’s Wood 3). A late nineteenth-century street. Origin unknown.

Ryland Road (Kentish Town 8) was named in 1873, probably after the builder.

Rysbrack Street (Chelsea 7). Michael Rysbrack of Antwerp made the mar­ ble statue of Sir Hans Sloane erected in the Botanic Gardens, Chelsea Embankment, in 1737.

Sackville Street (Piccadilly 7). Sir Christopher Wren gave planning permission for this street in 1671. The first occupant of one of the new houses on the west side was Captain Edward Sackville, a younger brother of the Earl of Dorset. He lived there from 1675 until his death three years later, and the street took its name from him during that short period.

Saffron Hill (Holborn 5). A medieval path through the Bishop of Ely’s fruitful gardens, famed for their vines, roses and strawberries (see Ely Place) and also the main source of saffron for the City house­ wife. Saffron was used as a golden dye, a pungent disguise of rancid meat and a cure ‘for quieting the brain and strengthening the heart’. It was originally grown in Cam­ bridgeshire and Essex (cf Saffron Walden some thirty miles from the Isle of Ely) and was probably introduced at Holborn by one of the early bishops.

St Alban’s Court (City 5) faces St Alban’s Tower, all that remains of Wren’s St Alban’s Church. Docu­ ments at County Hall show that this Saxon foundation once belonged to the Abbey of St Albans in Hertfordshire.

St Alban’s Road (Highgate 8) and St Alban’s Grove (Kensington 6), The notorious Duchess of St Albans, nee Harriot Mellon, daughter of an Irish peasant, crowned her successful career on the stage by marrying firstly an aged and wealthy bauker, and secondly, in 1827, when she was fifty and he 26, the 9th Duke of St Albans. St Albans Road adjoined Holly Lodge, her Highgate estate: see Holly Lodge Gardens. St Alban’s Grove was begun shortly after her death.                        ·

St Alban’s Street (St James’s 7). Built by ‘the founder of London’s West End’, Henry Jermyn, Earl of St Albans: see Jerroyn Street, St James’s.

St Alpbage Garden (City 5). Alphage, Archbishop of Canterbury, was martyred by the Danes during a raid in 1012, and shortly afterwards a church in his memory was erected here beside the City Wall. A long section of the Wall still shades the benches and lawn in St Alphage’s Churchyard. Slightly to the south stand remains of the fourteenth­ century church tower revealed after enemy bombing in 1940, best viewed from the pedestrian way called St Alpbage Higbwalk.

St Andrew Street (Holborn Circus 5) passes St Andrew Holborn, a tenth-century church rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren and severely bombed in 1941.

St Andrew’s Hill (Queen Victoria Street 5). At the bottom of the hill is St Andrew’s-by-the-Wardrobe, a Wren church restored and reopened since bomb damage in 1940. It adjoined the Royal Wardrobe: see Wardrobe Place.

St Ann’s Lane and Street (Westminster 7). St Ann’s Street used to lead to the little pre-Reformation chapel dedicated to St Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary. During the reign of Elizabeth the disused chapel building became a store house for wood for the parish poor, and by the time Stow wrote his Survey of London in 1598 it had apparently been demolished. It occupied roughly the site of Monsanto House in Victoria Street.

St Ann’s Road and Villas (North Kensington 8). There may have been plans to build a St Ann’s Church here when the Norlands area was laid out for development in If so the street was prematurely named, since no such church ever materialised.

St Anne’s Close (Highgate 8). The church of St Anne, Brookfield, stands on the site of a farmhouse known as the Cow and Hare. Its last farmer was Richard Barnett, who died in 1851, whereupon his sister Anne erected the church in his memory entirely at her own expense.

St Anne’s Court (Soho 7) was begun shortly after the nearby church of St Anne had been consecrated in 1686 by Bishop Compton: see Old Compton Street. The church was dedicated in honour of the young Princess (later Queen) Anne, Bishop Compton’s pupil.

St Anselm’s Place (Davies Street, Mayfair). St Anselm’s Church in Davies Street, consecrated in 1896, lasted only 42 years; in 1938 it was demolished to make way for redevelopment, and the British Council now occupies its site.

St Augostine’s Road (St Pancras 8). St Augustine was the traditional founder of the ancient church of St Pancras in Pancras Road. Before his mission to Britain, he was prior of a convent dedicated to the saint,and his first church in England was St Pancras outside Canterbury, consecrated A.D. 597. It is quite possible that before penetrating into the City Augustine decided to found a St Pancras outside London in the same way.

St Barnabas Street (Pimlico 7). St Barnabas parish church was founded in 1847 and consecrated on St Barna bas’s Day 1850 by Bishop Blomfield -hence adjacent Bloomfield Terrace.

St Chad’s Place and Street (King’s Cross 4). On the north side of St Chad’s Place rose one of the wells formed by the River Fleet, also known as ‘the River of Wells’, which flowed a few yards away beside King’s Cross Road. The well was dedicated to St Chad, patron saint of hot springs and spas, and exploited commercially as a minor spa until the area degenerated into a Victorian slum.

St Charles Square (North Kensington 2) contained a Catholic college founded in 1874 and dedicated to St Charles Borromeo.

St Christopher’s Place (off Oxford Street 3) was a slum alley called Barrett’s Court (see Barrett Street) until Octavia Hill, the housing reformer, took it over. Her letters explain its transformation and the present name:
April 1871: ‘B. Court, the last purchased property, is still in a dreadful state; oh so dirty and dilapidated’.
May 1873: ‘We are deeply interested about the rebuilding in B. Court’.
January 1877: ‘B’s Court is going so beautifully; every room and shop let; the people so happy and good’. July 1877: ‘I rather thought of “St Christopher’s Buildings” if the name must be changed. I’m very fond of St Christopher … the way he learnt that the good thing was the strong thing seems LO me very grand … Do you know the early part of St Christopher’s life, I wonder? I think in B. Crt. we want all to be reminded that the devil is himself afraid when he really sees the good thing’.

St Clement’s Lane (Aldwych 4) has now been drastically shortened, but four centuries ago it was a country lane leading to the parish church of St Clement Danes in the Strand. St Clement was reputedly a Bishop of Rome martyred in A.D. 100 by the Emperor Trajan, who had him flung into the sea weighted by an anchor round his neck. The anchor became the symbol of St Clement, and can be seen with the letters SCD carved on old buildings around the parish. The origin of the ‘Danes’ in ‘St Clement Danes’ is obscure. Stow claimed in 1598 that the parish was ‘so called because Harolde a Danish king and other Danes were buried there’, and Strype some years later suggested another theory:’The Danes were utterly driven out of this kingdom; and none left but a few, who were married to English Women; These were constrained to inhabit between the Isle of Thorne (that which is now called Westminster) and Caer Lud, now called Ludgate’. Alfred the Great expelled the Danes from London in 886 and then re­ paired the Wall so that the invaders never again penetrated the City. However, he may, as Strype suggests, have arranged a treaty with those who had taken AnglowSaxon wives, and granted them land here to the west of the Wall. Since the Danes were undisputed masters of the northern seas at that period, they perhaps chose Clement as their patron because of their mutual connections with the sea.

St Cross Street (Holborn 5) was formed across the grounds of Hatton House (see Hatton Garden) when it was demolished in 1659, and therefore called Cross Street. This name (q.v.) was so common that the London County Council decided to end confusion and change it to the improbable Saint Cross in 1937.

St Cuthbert’s Road (West Hampstead I) leads to St Cuthbert’s Church consecrated in 1887.

St Dunstan’s. St Dunstan, a tenth­ century Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury, was so popular with Londoners that they dedicated two churches to him: St Dunstan in thewEast, now a ruined shell (hence St Dunstan’s Hill and Lane, City 5), and St Dunstanwin the West, near St Dunstan’s Court, Fleet Street 5).

St Edmund’s Terrace (St John’s Wood 8) was originally St John’s Terrace. Perhaps this was confused with nearby St John’s Wood Terrace, as in 1876 St Edmund was substituted for St John.

St Ermin’s Hill (Broadway, Westminster). This place-name is first found in the time of Henry vu (1485-1509) as St Armille’s Hill. St Armille or Armel was a sixth­ century Welsh saint who crossed to Brittany and founded a monastery at a place still called St Armel des Boschaux. He vanquished a local dragon and became greatly revered in Brittany. Henry vrr, who lived in Brittany during his exile before becoming king, probably knew the legend well, and apparently con sidered the saint responsible for placing hhn on the throne of England.
There are two images of St Armel in Henry VII’s Chapel in Westminster Abbey.

It was probably during his reign that a chapel to the saint was built on this hill, not far from the king’s palace at Westminster. It was still standing in 1577 when Van Dun (see Vandon Street) bequeathed land for building his almshouses on a site ‘leading up to the Chapel of St Armil’, but gone by 1599, when a document mentions a hill whereon a chapel of ‘St Armill late stood situate in the West End of Tothill Street’.

St George. The church of St George in St George Street, Hanover Square (7), was begun in 1713, and like the Square, was dedicated in compli­ ment to the new House of Hanover. It was finished and consecrated eleven years later and endowed with a parish stretching as far as the Thames, including the almost un­ inhabited marshy wastes of Pimlico. As development slowly spread south over the succeeding century, new smaller Victorian parishes were car­ ved out of this sprawling area, but its former extent is indicated by the names of St George’s Hospital at Hyde Park Corner, the St George’s Baths in Buckingham Palace Road, a St George pub and St George’s Hotel in Belgrave Road, the St George’s Conservative Club in Chur­ ton Street and St George’s Drive and Square, Pimlico (7).

St George’s Lane (Botolph Lane, City) once contained the medieval parish church of St George, de­ molished in 1904. Only a corporation plaque now marks the site.

St George’s Terrace (Chalk Farm 8). A mid-Victorian name presumably of patriotic origin, since there has never been a St George’s church or chapel here.

St Giles High Street (Holborn 4) takes its name from St Giles’ Leper Colony founded by Queen Matilda in 1117. At that time leprosy was becoming so widespread in England that the first isolation hospitals were necessary. Cautiously placed at a safe distance outside the City walls, it provided for 14 London lepers, and was equipped like a small monastery: besides the actual living quarters, there were the church of St Giles, a Master’s House, and various outbuildings and orchards. Around the whole was a high strong wall, still partly standing in 1658. The hospital itself was confined to the island site bounded by what are now called Charing Cross Road. St Giles High Street and Shaftesbury Avenue, but large portions of the surrounding countryside were donated by various citizens to increase the income of St Giles’, as much for the sake of their souls on judgment day as to avoid the need for contagious lepers to beg for their living on the public highways.

All this was seized by Henry VIII at the dissolution of monasteries­ luckily the number of infirm inmates was very small by that time-and the centuries-old hospital soon vanished. All that remained was the church, rebuilt in 1731, still the parish church of St Giles-in-the-Fields.

St Giles’ Circus is the name given in 1921 to the cross-roads at the end of St Giles High Street. It is neither circular nor a roundabout.

St Helen’s Gardens (North Kensington 2). St Helen’s Church was built in 1881, largely due to the fund-raising efforts of the Reverend Arthur Dalgarno Robinson (commemorated in nearby Dalgarno Gardens and Way), vicar here until his death in 1899.

St Helena Street (Clerkenwell 5) dates from about 1821, the year Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile on the South Atlantic island of St Helena.

St James’s (Westminster 7). This place name derives from an eleventh­ century asylum dedicated to St James, founded ‘by the citizens of London, before the time of any man’s memory, for fourteen sisters, maidens, that were leprous, living chastely and honestly in divine service’, according to Stow in 1598;

‘This hospital was surrendered to Henry vm: the sisters being com­ pounded with, were allowed pensions for the term of their lives, and the king built there a goodly manor [St James’s Palace], annexing there­ unto a park, closed about with a wall of brick, now called St James’ park’. Plate rn shows the palace as it stood alone in the fields, simply linked to Piccadilly by a Tudor roadway which later became St James’s Street. Thus it remained until the Restoration, when Charles n’s glittering court started to attract the wealthy and the. noble towards St James’s Palace. It was at that period that Henry Jermyn (see Jermyn Street), who owned the field adjoining the palace, founded the present district known as St James’s. Plate N, published in 1682, shows the transformation that came over the area.

The centrepiece of Jermyn’s scheme was St James’s Square, which took shape in the 1670s. St James’s Place and Little St James’s Street date from much the same period. The alley named St James’s Market is a souvenir of the market Jermyn established to feed his growing suburb; it was mostly destroyed to make way for Regent Street, and then the remainder became so dilapidated that it was eventually demolished and the site redeveloped.

St James’s Gardens (North Kensington 2). St James’s Church here was built in 1845 to serve the rapidly growing Norlands area.

St James’s Passage (Duke’s Place, City). A memento of St James’s Church, built in 1623 to replace the dissolved priory church of Holy Trinity (see Duke’s Place) and dedicated in compliment to the king, James I. It was declared redundant and demolished in 1874, but a plaque still marks its site in Mitre Square.

St James’s Row and Walk (Clerkenwell 5) : see Clerkenwell Close.

St James’s Terrace (Prince Albert Road 3) was built in 1850. Origin unknown.

St John (Clerkenwell 5). The Knights of St John of Jerusalem were a military order formed to protect pilgrims visiting Jerusalem. Their English branch was founded at Clerkenwell in about 1110, when Jordan de Briset, Lord of Clerkenwell (hence Briset Street), granted them some land on the south side of Clerkenwell Green. The main en­ trance to the monastery was St Jobn’s Gate, at the top of St Jobn’s Lane. Rebuilt in 1504, the Gate was virtually the only part of the Priory to survive the dissolution of the monasteries. The Anglican Order of St John moved back into the Gate in 1873, and it is now the headquarters of the St John Ambulance Brigade.

Beyond the Gate lay the Priory courtyard in front of St John’s Church (rebuilt 1958). After Henry VIII dissolved the Order in 1540 secular houses spread around this court, henceforth known as St John’s Square. The unity of the Square was destroyed when the Victorians built Clerkenwell Road through the middle of it.

Jerusalem Passage on the north side of the Priory precinct was originally an alley to the postern gate opening onto Clerkenwell Green, and contained a tavern called the St John of Jerusalem.

St John Street was ‘that street which goeth from Smithfield towards Yseldon [Islington]’ by 1170. It passed beside St John’s Priory, and the Knights undoubtedly improved and widened the road, but there was probably a track on the site long before then. Nearly a thousand years of constant use as a main road have failed to eliminate the primeval curves and twists in St John Street, once notorious for robbers lurking at every bend.

Beyond the west side of St John’s Lane, just outside the Priory precinct, stood the house of the Bailiff of Eagle, a high dignitary of the Order of St John; its site is now marked by Eagle Court.

St John’s Gardens (North Kensington 2). St John’s Church stands at the summit of a hill on the site of the grandstand of the Hippodrome Racecourse, which once covered the Ladbroke estate: see Ladbroke Grove. The church was begun in 1844, as soon as the racecourse closed down.

St John’s Terrace (Kensal Green 2). After St John’s Church, Kensal Green, founded in 1843.

St John’s Wood High Street, Park, Road and Terrace (3). The wood was originally part of the dense Middlesex Forest, which Fitzstephen described in about 1180 as ‘beautiful with woods and groves and full of the lairs and coverts of beasts and game, stags, bucks, boars and wild bulls’. It was gradually disafforested from the thirteenth century onwards, but was still sufficiently wooded in 1616 for a grant to be made ‘for keeping the King’s deer in St John’s Wood’. The present St John’s Wood district constituted the northern half of the Manor of Lilestone, or Lisson (see Lisson Grove), and at the time of Edward I Otho, son of William de Lilestone, granted it to the Knights Temp1ar. When the Templars were suppressed in 1307 the wood passed, along with many of their other estates, to the Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem, who retained it until the dissolution of the monasteries. By the end of Elizabeth’s reign the wood had largely given way to fields and pastures, and it remained agricultural land unbroken by any buildings except St John’s Wood farmhouse on the site of St John’s Wood Station until urbanisation began in the 1830s.

St Katherines Row (Fenchurch Street, City). A churchyard and railings here are all that remain of St Katherine Coleman Church, whose dilapidated ruins were demolished in 1926.

St Leonard’s Square (Kentish Town 8) was built in the 1850s, probably by a Kentishman; it and the Newberry Arms pub, which stands in what was formerly called Newberry Place, are named after neighbouring villages outside Maidstone.

St Loo Avenue (Chelsea 7) was named in 1888 after Lady St Loo, Countess of Shrewsbury, whose husband owned Shrewsbury House in Cheyne Walk (where there is now an apartment building of the same name). She is better known as Bess of Hardwick, a Tudor squire’s daughter with a passion for building, whose four successive husbands (Shrewsbury was the last) each raised her in the social scale. As Dowager Countess (1590-1607) Bess inherited the Chelsea house, but spent most of her time at the stately homes she had built at Chatsworth and Hardwick.

St Luke’s Road (Westbourne Park 2). St Luke’s Church was one of the first buildings erected in this area in the 1860s, standing alone in the fields in anticipation of the expected rise in population. It was closed down and demolished about ninety years later, partly because the increasing West Indian community in the neighbourhood tended to prefer Dissenting chapels to the Church of England. The congregation of St Luke’s is now combined with St Stephen’s, Westbourne Park.

St Luke’s Street (Chelsea 6). St Luke’s was built in 1819 when the ancient church in Old Church Street became too small for the rapidly growing village of Chelsea.

St Margaret Street (Westminster 7). An old lane leading to St Margaret’s Church standing alongside Westminster Abbey, According to some authorities, St Margaret’s was founded by Edward the Confessor at the san1e time as the Abbey and was a church for the local lay population, the usual appendage of a Benedictine monastery. Other experts date its foundation later than the reign of Edward but agree that it was standing by about 1130. Part of the present church date from about 1520.

St Mark’s Crescent and Square (Primrose Hill 8). St Mark’s Church, Prince Albert Road, was built in 1853 to serve the needs of this recently developed locality.

St Mark’s Grove (West Brompton 6) faces the Teacher Training College of St Mark and St John.

St Mark’s Place and Road (North Kensington 2). St Mark’s Church was begun in 1862. The architect was Bassett Keeling; this may be the origin of Bassett Road, which crosses St Mark’s Road.

St Martin’s (Trafalgar Square 7). The church of St Martin’s-in-the­ Fields was in existence by the twelfth century, but little is koown of its early days. It may have originated as a wayside chapel used by the monks of Westminster when they visited their rural properties around Covent Garden. St Martin’s Lane, probably as old as the earliest church here, was the lane linking St Martin’s with St Giles-in-the-Fields, and served as the main road north out of Westminster until Charing Cross Road was formed. St Martin’s Place is the wide roadway before the church. St Martin’s Street and Court date from the 1690s.

St Martin’s Close (Camden Town 8) stands on part of a 4-acre plot which the parish of St Martin’s-in­the-Fields purchased from Lord Camden in 1803 to provide an additional burial ground for the parishioners. The land remained a detached part of St Martin’s Parish until the Metropolitan Boroughs were formed in 1899, by which time the cemetery was disused and had been opened as the present St Martin’s Garden. In 1817 the western strip of the burial ground was set aside as the site of Almshouses for the poor of St Martin’s. They are still standing in Bayham Street.

St Martin’s-le-Grand (City 5) was the track through the precinct of the Saxon collegiate church of St Martin, called le Grand because of its great antiquity and the special privileges that William the Conqueror granted it on arrival in London. St Martin’s had the job of ringing the ‘couvre-feu’, the curfew signalling the closing of the town gates ‘as well as all the taverns for wine or for ale; and no one is to go about the streets or ways’. Like all medieval churches and monasteries, St Martin’s had the right to grant sanctuary, and this privilege lingered on within the former precinct long after St Martin’s itself had been dissolved with the rest of the monasteries.

It was unfortunate that Henry VIII did not destroy this custom at the same time that he destroyed the monastic wealth and culture. Without the restraining presence of the monks, or the architectural unity of the monastic buildings, the holy precincts degenerated into vicious slum rookeries crammed with criminals and refugees who could not be touched by law. This happened not only at St Martin’s but also at Whitefriars, ‘a notorious place of refuge and retirement for persons wishing to avoid bailifs and creditors’, where sanctuary was not abolished until 1697, Blackfriars, which remained a sanctuary until 1735, and Westminster: see Sanctuary. The undesirable residents of St Martin’s-le-Grand were not finally evicted until the street was cleared for the erection of the present GPO headquarters in 1815.

St Mary Abbot’s Place and Terrace (Kensington 6). Kensington’s parish church of St Mary Abbot’s gained its unusual name after Aubrey de Vere, a Norman Lord of the Manor of Kensington, granted Kensington church and nearly 300 acres of farm land around it to St Mary’s Abbey at Abingdon in Berkshire: hence also Abingdon Gardens. He did so as a token of gratitude to the Abbot for curing his son: see De Vere Gardens. By this gift Kensington was split into the Manor of Abbot’s Kensington and the Manor of Earl’s Court, the latter remaining in the possession of the de Veres, Earls of Oxford. The division lasted until the Parish Vestry took over the function of the Manorial Courts in the nineteenth century, although Abingdon Abbey had long previously been dissolved by Henry VIII. The present church of St Mary Abbot’s was built in 1872.

St Mary-at-Hill (Eastcheap 5), sloping down towards the river, contains the Wren church of this name. Inside, a list of rectors of the church is headed by St Thomas a Becket.

St Mary-Axe (Leadenball Street 5) once contained a church dedicated to St Mary, St Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins, the improbable band who accompanied Ursula to Germany to meet the heathen and were methodically beheaded three at a time by the unimpressed Huns. Until about the time of the Reformation the church treasured one of the actual axes, presumably much blunted, reputed to have chopped through 3,666 maidenly necks.

St Mary’s Mansions, Square and Terrace (Paddington 3). There has been a church at Paddington Green since the early middle ages. The present church of St Mary, where Sarah Siddons is buried, was begun in 1788.

St Matthew Street (Westminster 7) was known for centuries as Duck Lane, perhaps from birds living by the ditches and creeks of this low-lying district, or simply because it was a muddy alley, Duck Lane was the most notorious street of the unsavoury Westminster slums, until the cutting of Victoria Street
1844-1851 caused a number of improvements to be made in the area. The street was then renamed after the local church to give it a fresh chance of respectability. St Matthew’s was founded in 1849 in an attempt to save the lost souls of the slums, but at the first services the populace showed their appreciation by banging on barrels, breaking windows. stealing parts of the structure and assaulting the scripture reader.

St Michael’s Alley (Cornbill, City) adjoins one of the seven medieval City churches dedicated to St Michael the Archangel.

St Michael’s Gardens (Ladbroke Grove, North Kensington). Beside St Michael’s Church, begun in 1870.

St Michael’s Street (Paddington 3) takes its name from the church of St Michael and All Angels, Star Street, built in 1860. After bombing in the 2nd World War it was closed and the congregation merged with St John the Evangelist, Hyde Park Crescent.

St Mildred’s Court (City 5). The church of St Mildred Poultry formerly stood beside this alley, on the site of the Midland Bank.

St Olave’s Court (City 5). St Olave’s Church here was declared super­ fluous in 1888 and demolished, but the Wren tower and the churchyard have survived.

St Oswulf Street (Erasmus Street, Westminster). This name was chosen in 1897 on the grounds that Westminster, along with the City and surrounding parishes, was part of the Hundred of Ossulstone division of the former County of Middlesex. Ossulstone means ‘stone of Oswulf’, referring to a prominent rock about halfway along Park Lane, on the east side, probably the meeting place of the Hundred where justice was administered in Saxon times. Oswulf was a local chieftain of some kind; the tmwarranted intrusion of the ‘Saint’ is due to the fact that the street belonged to Westminster Abbey, and a Dean of the Abbey suggested the name.

St Pancras Way (Camden Town 8) was the ancient track, winding beside the River Fleet, which led to Old St Pancras Church in Pancras Road.

St Paul’s Churchyard (City 5) is the thoroughfare which rings St Paul’s Cathedral, founded in A.D. 604 with cathedral status from the start. The famous Old St Paul’s which dominated Shakespeare’s London was begun in 1087 and took two centuries to build, and was frequently damaged by fire and lightning. It was finally consumed in the Great Fire of 1666, whereupon Sir Christopher Wren designed the present Cathedral. Begun in 1675, it was not completed until 35 years later, in the reign of Queen Anne, whose statue stands stoutly before the cathedral steps.

St Paul’s Crescent (Camden Town 8). After the former local church of St Paul, Camden Square, begun in 1847 and now combined with St Luke, Oseney Crescent. Its dedication commemorated the fact that Camden Town was a prebend belonging to St Paul’s Cathedral.

St Peter’s Alley (Cornhill, City). St Peter’s claims to be the oldest church site in the City, and in the middle ages its rectors were given precedence over all other London clergymen, even those of St Paul’s, because of the church’s supposed Roman origins.

St Philip’s Place (Paddington 3). St Philip’s Church stood at the end of this street until 1894. It was officially a temporary church, but it lasted 40 years, long enough to implant its name on the map.

St Quintin Avenue and Gardens (North Kensington 2). Sir Herbert St Quintin fought with William the Conqueror at Hastings, and received as a reward large stretches of Yorkshire, where his descendants lived for the next 800 years. At some stage, in the eighteenth century or earlier, the St Quintins also acquired much of North Kensington, where streets are now named after their seat of Scampston Hall, near Malton, and Yorkshire villages around it: Scampston Mews, Malton Mews, Barlby Gardens, Ruston Close, Kelfield Gardens and Oakwortb Road. Highlever Road may be a corruption of Highleven in Yorkshire.

St Silas Street (Kentish Town). The church of St Silas the Martyr was opened aa mission chapel in 1884, and rebmlt 1911-1912.

St Stephen’s Close (Avenue Road, Hampstead). The church of St Stephen, Avenue Road, closed down in 1950.

St Stephen’s Crescent and Gardens (Westbourne Park 2). The church of St Stephen with St Luke was begun in 1855, when Westbourne Park was a rapidly growing new residential district.

St Stephen’s Row (Walbrook, City) contains St Stephen’s, a Saxon church rebuilt by Wren, apparently on the foundations of a pagan Roman temple. It is best known now as the birthplace of the Samaritans, the society for those in despair, run by St Stephen’s Rector, Chad Varah, in a small building beside the church.

St Swithin’s Lane (Cannon Street 5). A church dedicated to St Swithin, a Saxon Bishop of Winchester, stood at the bottom of this lane until it was bombed in 1940. The Bank of China has since been built on its site.

St Thomas Street (Bermondsey 5). St Thomas’s Hospital originated as the infirmary of St Mary Overy Priory (on the site of Montagne Close, Southwark) and was dedicated to Thomas a Becket after his canonisation in 1173. Following a disastrous fire at the Priory, the Hospital was refounded in 1215 in what is now called St Thomas Street. There it remained for six and a half centuries until in 1859 railway lines were scheduled to run through the hospital grounds. Sooner than have trains thundering past the wards, the Hospital governors abandoned the St Thomas Street site and sold it to the railway company, who built London Bridge Street there, and in 1871 the Hospital moved to its present location on the Albert Embankment.

St Vincent Street (Marylebone 3). The Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul opened a nursery in the needy back streets of Marylebone in 1868, and followed it with orphan­ ages, soup kitchens and schools in the area. The Primary School which they founded in Blandford Street backs on to this street.

Salem Road (Bayswater 2). Probably from Hebrew salem, ‘peace’. There was a Salem Gardens in the area by 1825, at which date Bayswater was still a peaceful rural retreat.

Salisbury Court and Square (Fleet Street 5) mark the site of the medieval palace of the Bishops of Salisbury, where they stayed when summoned to London to attend Parliament, or on other business. Salisbury Court was its main carriage entrance, and the Square was the central courtyard. In 1564 the Bishop sold the house to Sir Richard Sackville, father of Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset (who wrote Gorboduc, the first English tragedy in blank verse): hence Dorset Buildings and Rise leading out of the Square. The house was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666.

Salisbury Place (Marylebone 3). This name dates from about 1819, a period when John Salisbury, a Greenwich carpenter, and his brothers Thomas from Paddington and Isaac of Marylebone, both labourers, were contracting to build a number of houses around this district.

Salisbury Street (Marylebone 3). The area between Lisson Grove and Edgware Road was laid out in 1820: there was to be a broad east·west thoroughfare with the dignified name of Earl Street (now Broadley Street) and three north-south arteries named after earldoms: Carlisle (now Penfold) Street, Salisbury Street and Exeter (now Ashbridge) Street. Back streets and railway sidings have since destroyed the unity of the district.

Salters’ Court (Bow Lane, City) used to contain the Salters’ Company Almshouses, founded in 1454 by a city salter who bequeathed the site. The Almshouses moved to Watford in 1860, but the Salters’ Company arms with its three salt sprinklers still adorns the gate into the court.

Salters’ Hall Court (Cannon Street, City). On this site stood the twelfth­ century ‘Great Stone House’ of London’s first mayor Henry Fitz­ Aylwin, which became the property of Tortington Priory in Sussex after his death. At the dissolution of the monasteries this ‘great messuage in the Parish of St Swithin London Stone, with a great and little garden adjoining with free ingress and egress by the large gates’ fell into the hands of John de Vere, Earl of Oxford: hence Oxford Court at the end of Salters’ Hall Court. In 1641 the Worshipful Company of Salters took the house over as their Hall, and rebuilt it after the Great Fire of 1666. The Salters were finally driven out by bombing in the 2nd World War.

Saltram Crescent (Paddington 2). Saltram is a seat in Devon. Connection with this district unknown.

Samford Street (Marylebone 3) dates from about 1830. Origin of name unknown.

The Sanctuary (Westminster Abbey 7) now consists of two perfectly respectable streets called Broad Sanctuary and Little Sanctuary, but in the middle ages the name referred to a jumbled mass of buildings and narrow winding lanes huddled against the side of Westminster Abbey and enclosed by the Abbey’s precinct wall. The precinct, like the abbey itself, offered refuge to any person ‘of what condition or estate soever he be, from whence soever he come, or for what offence or cause it be.’

The Sanctuary harboured the occasional important political refugee, but most of the time was crammed with thieves and prostitutes, a nursery of crime and disease. The privilege of sanctuary was abolished during the reign of James I, but the slums it had fostered survived for centuries. Now, however, redevelopment has been so thorough that even the line of the old precinct wall can no longer be traced.

Sandall Road (Camden Town 8) was built on the Earl of Dartmouth’s property: see Dartmouth Park.

Sandland Street (Holborn 4). Origin unknown. So named in 1878.

Sandwell Crescent (West Hampstead 1) was built in 1893 on the site of a villa called Sandwell House. Widow Mary Sandwell was admitted as a tenant of Hampstead Manor in 1800.

Sandy Road (Hampstead 1). An old track, still unmade-up and in its natural sandy state. The earliest mention of the sandy soil here is in a tenth-century charter, which describes the northern boundary of Hampstead as at ‘Sandgate’, the future North End (q.v.).

Sans Walk (Clerkenwell 5). So named in 1893 in honour of Edward Sans, the oldest Vestryman at nearby St James’s Church.

Saracen’s Head Yard (Jewry Street, City) was the back entrance to a busy Tudor coaching inn in Aldgate called the Saracen’s Head.

Sardinia Street (Kingsway 4) once contained the entrance to the dark secluded Sardinian Chapel. As the official Chapel attached to the Sardinian Embassy in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Mass was permitted to the staff there, but other Roman Catholics entered furtively at the risk of being arrested or attacked by Protestant mobs. The embassy left Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1799, although the Chapel remained under the patronage of the King of Sardinia until 1858. The old chapel was demolished and replaced by the nearby Church of St Anselm and St Cecilia during the Kingsway development 1901-1905, when Sardinia Street was entirely rebuilt.

 

Savage Garden, EC3N

 

Savernake Road (Gospel Oak 8) was built in 1879. Origin unknown.

Savoy Buildings, Court, Hill, Place, Ride, Row, Steps, Street and Way (Strand 4). The Manor or Liberty of the Savoy exists as a sort of buffer state between the cities of London and Westminster. In 1246 it came into the hands of Peter, uncle to Queen Eleanor, one of the many kinsmen who followed Eleanor to England to see what profit could be made from her marriage to Henry III. When Peter became Count of Savoy in 1263 he left London for good, yet his name was to remain permanently attached to the Manor. After his death the Queen purchased the land from the Count’s heirs in order to give it to her son Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, and it has be­ longed to the House of Lancaster ever since: see Lancaster Place. Edmund built a fortified mansion on the site which his descendants enlarged and strengthened. It was the home of the hated Regent John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, until Wat Tyler and his followers burnt it to the ground in 1381. The palace lay in ruins for the next century, was then used spasmodically as a hospital, and finally degenerated into a slum which remained until the area was cleared for the building of Waterloo Bridge.

Scala Street (Tottenham Court Road 4) backed on to a theatre in Tottenham Street, which opened in 1772 as the King’s Concert Rooms, and subsequently changed its name well over a dozen times in fresh attempts to recapture an audience. It was finally called the Scala in pathetic emulation of La Scala at Milan, and this street was named after it in !937. The Scala closed for the last time in 1970, and was demolished the following year.

Scampston Mews (North Kensington ). From Scampston Hall, home of the St Quintins: see St Quintin Avenue, North Kensington.

Scarsdale Villas (Kensington 6) was named after Scarsdale House, which stood on the corner of Kensington High Street and Wright’s Lane It was apparently built in the reign of James II by John Curzon, a kinsman of the Curzons, Viscounts Scarsdale, Curzons continued to live there until 1894, when the house was replaced by Pontings store. Remnants of the fabric of Scarsdale House survive in the Kensington Market, which succeeded Pontings in 1971.

Scott-Ellis Gardens (StJohn’s Wood 3). This street, which now belongs to the local Council, used to be a detached part of the Harley estate. It was built in 1906 by Thomas Scott-Ellis, 8th Baron Howard de Walden, a descendant of Edward Harley.

Seaforth Place (Victoria 7) was given this Scottish place-name in 1912 because it adjoins the H.Q. of the London Scottish Territorials.

Seaton Place (Hampstead Road 4). John Louis Seaton was a local parish Vestryman and also the owner of several properties in this area, including Seaton’s extensive carpet store (closed down on his death in 1882) situated in Hampstead Road adjoining this street.

Sedding Street (Chelsea 7) adjoins Holy Trinity Church, designed by architect John Dando Sedding and consecrated in 1890.

Sedley Place (Oxford Street VIIIA). The wrought-iron black and gold arch over the Oxford Street end of this alley, announcing ‘Sedley Place 1873,’ was erected by Angelo Sedley, who obtained permission to name the Place after himself in that year-a gratuitous piece of advertising for his large furnishing and upholstery store which was at the other end of Sedley Place, in Woodstock Street.

Seething Lane (City 5) was Shyvethene strat in 1257, and Old English ‘sifethena’ meant ‘full of bran or chaff’. The chaff probably came from corn threshed and win­ nowed here in preparation for the hay and corn markets nearby in Fenchurch Street and Gracechurch Street (qq.v.).

Sekforde Street (Clerkenwell 5). Thomas Sekforde was an eminent Elizabethan lawyer and also the first person to compile a set of English county maps. In later life he retired to his small estate at Clerkenwell (see end-map) which had belonged to Clerkenwell Nun­ nery until the dissolution of the monasteries. At his death in 1588 he bequeathed this field for the mainten­ ance of almshouses he had founded at Woodbridge in Suffolk: hence also Woodbridge Street, Clerkenwell.

Selous Street (Camden Town 4). Henry Selous (1811-1890), painter and book illustrator, used to live in Bayharn Street, Camden Town.

Selwood Place and Terrace (South Kensington 6). Mr Selwood’s Nursery Gardens occupied this site in 1712.

Semley Place (Victoria 7). A name connected with the landowners, the Grosvenor family: see Grosvenor Square.

Senior Street (Westbourne Green 3) belonged to Nassau William Senior (1790-1864), the political economist and poor-law reformer, who bought some fields by the Harrow Road in 1847 in partnership with John Wall, his next-door neighbour at Hyde Park Gate Kensington. The street was begun 14 years later, when urbanisation destroyed the last remaining open spaces at Westbourne Green.

Serjeants’ Inn (Fleet Street 5) was formerly an Inn of Court reserved for the Serjeants-at-Law, a superior body of lawyers from whom High Court judges were always selected until the brotherhood of Serjeants was abolished in 1873.

Serle Street (Lincoin’s Inn 4). Henry Serle was a ‘bencher’, a senior member, of Lincoln’s Inn and also the owner of Little Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a pasture adjoining the Inn. In 1682 he started to build New Square, a set of chambers for the use of the Inn, on part of the land, and Serle Street on what was left.

Sermon Lane (Carter Lane, City) belonged in 1228 to Adam Sermonic­ inarius, a Latin rendering of Adam ‘the sermon preacher’. Sermonicin­ arius was probably a nickname; his property was by St Paul’s Churchyard, where there was a public outdoor pulpit in his day.

Seven Dials (St Giles 4). In 1693 Thomas Neale, Master of the Royal Mint, acquired the Marshland, a meadow bounded by what are now Neal Street, Shelton Street and Shaftesbury Avenue. Neale’s building plan astonished his contemporaries: he laid out on the field seven streets radiating from a central point. Evelyn the diarist records with surprise ‘the building neere St Giles’s, where 7 streets make a star from a Doric pillar plac’d in the middle of a circular area’. On top of the column were sun-dials, facing each of the streets. The column has gone now: in 1773 a rumour spread that treasure was hidden in its base, and it was uprooted in a vain search. It has been re-erected at Weybridge, minus the dials, as a monument to a Duchess of York.

Seville Street (Knightsbridge 7), formerly called Charles Street after Charles Lowndes (see Lowndes) was so named in 1880 for reasons unknown.

Seward Street (Goswell Road 5). Edward Seward, dyer, bought a large house and extensive grounds at Monnt Mills in 1777. The following year he started to build Seward Street and established a Dye House just opposite his home, on the corner with Goswell Road. After Seward’s death in about 1805 his sons continued the business, and a Dye Works remained on the site, where there is now a garage, until 1929.

Seymour Walk (Fulham Road 6). Next door to the Somerset Arms pub here stood Seymour House, a mid­nineteenth-century Academy for young gentlemen.

Shaftesbury Avenue (7) was carved through a former slum area and opened in 1886, a few months after the death of the 7th Earl of Shaftes­ bury, much of whose philanthropic work had been directed at the poor of this neighbourhood. Besides spending his life trying to improve conditions for mine- and factory­ workers, slaves, lunatics and animals, Shaftesbury also propagated the idea that social evils are caused by slum housing of the kind which was destroyed to make way for the Avenue. A monument to Shaftesbury, with an inscription by Gladstone, stands in Piccadilly -Circus at the bottom of Shaftesbury Avenue; this symbolic figure of an archer burying its shafts in the Avenue is now known as Eros.

Shafto Mews (Chelsea 7) was formed in 1875 at the same time as nearby Clabon Mews. It was probably named after barrister Jolm Eden Shafto of the Temple: see Clabon Mews.

Sharples Hall Street (Primrose Hill 8) belonged to the Marquess de Rothwell of Sharples Hall, Yorkshire: see Rothwell Street, Primrose Hill.

Shaver’s Place (Piccadilly Circus) encloses the site of Shaver’s Hall, a fashionable gambling and bowling centre at the top of the Haymarket. It was built in 1634 for Simon Osbaldeston, who had been gentleman barber to the Earl of Pembrok. ‘Simon Austbiston’s house is newly christened. It is called Shaver’s Hall’ wrote a contemporary in explanation of the name; ‘At first no conceit there was of the builder’s being a barber, but it came upon my Lord of Dunbar’s losing of £3000 at one sitting, whereon they said a Northern Lord was shaved there; but now, putting both together, I fear it be a nickname of the place . . . as long as the house stands’. As the house was demolished in about 1685, the nick­ name has in fact lasted much longer.

Sheffield Terrace (Kensington 6). In 1617 Lady Jane Berkeley, a sister of the founder of Berkeley Square, bequeathed her house in Kensington Church Street to Robert Sheffield esquire. Berkeley Gardens stands on the grounds of Sheffield House, demolished in about 1860, and Sheffield Terrace is just opposite its site.

Sheldon Street (Cleveland Terrace, Paddington). After Bishop Gilbert Sheldon: see Bishop’s Bridge Road, Paddington.

Shelton Street (St Giles 4) was a medieval country footpath dividing the Long Acre from the Marshland (see Seven Dials). Houses spread along it in the 1670s, a period when St Giles village was being rapidly developed, and just as rapidly turned into slums, by an influx of immigrant Irish and refugees left home less after the Great Fire. The situation was eased by William Shelton, a Vestryman of St Giles, who bequeathed enough money in 1672 to clothe 20 aged parish paupers every year, and educate ‘fifty children of the poorest sort’ in a school (now closed) which he founded nearby in Parker Street. Shelton Street was named after him in 1877.

Shepherd Market (Mayfair 7). In 1735 architect Edward Shepherd founded a market ‘for the buying and selling of flesh, fish, fowl, roots, herbs, and other provisions for human food’ on the plot of waste ground where the notorious annual May Fair was held. The gronnd landlord, Sir Nathaniel Curzon (see Curzon Street), who was probably pleased to be rid of the problem of developing a plot with such a bad reputation (see Mayfair), gave Shepherd a 999-year lease of the ground at a very low rent. This was a bargain for Shepherd’s heirs which Curzon’s descendants were to regret as land values later soared in Mayfall:.

Hence also Shepherd Street and Market Mews.

Shepherd Place (Mayfair 7) was built by John Shepherd, a plasterer by trade and the brother of architect Edward Shepherd who founded nearby Shepherd Market.

Shepherd’s Walk (Hampstead 1) was formerly a country path to the Shepherds Well, the source of the River Tyburn. For centuries the pure spring provided the residents of Hampstead with water. When the surrounding Shepherds Fields were built up in the 1860s, the well was retained as the drinking fountain still on exactly the same site, where Akenside Road meets Fitzjohns Avenue.

Sheraton Street (Wardour Street, Soho). Thomas Sheraton carne to live in Wardour Street almost opposite the end of Sheraton Street in 1793. The house where he de­ signed his world-famous furniture is now marked with a plaque in his honour. Before Wardour Street gained its present reputation as the headquarters of the British cinema industry, it was equally renowned as a furnishing centre.

Sherborne Lane (City 5). Eilert Ekwall, the leading authority on old City names, derives Sherborne from Anglo-Saxon ‘scitan’, ‘to void excrements’. ‘Bourne’ was originally ‘burwe’, a mansion, and ‘shite burwe’ therefore an ironical name for the squalid public privy. Streets named after the local convenience were not uncommon in medieval Europe, and there were several Pissing Alleys in London. As Londoners became more refined, ‘shite’ was euphemis­ tically replaced by ‘shire’.

Sherlock Mews (Baker Street 3) was named in 1937 after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s great fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, whose address was given in the stories as 221b Baker Street.

Sherriff Road (Kilburn 1). The minutes of the Metropolitan Board of Works record that in 1878 Messrs Sherriff and Jacob, trustees of the London Permanent Building Society, applied to build Gladys, Hemstal, Hilltop, Kylemore, Lowfield and Sherriff Roads on what they called the West End Park Estate.

Sherwood Street (Soho 7) is a corruption of Sherard Street. Francis Sherard, a younger brother of Baron Sherard of Leitriro, leased part of the Windmill Field near Great Windmill Street from the owner, Sir William Pulteney of Great Pulteney Street, in 1670. Sherard erected several expensive houses here but the venture was not an immediate success and he died ten years later heavily indebted by the enterprise. The family continued to hold the land until the lease expired in 1821.

Shillibeer Place (York Street, Marylebone). George Shillibeer (1797-1866) was London’s first omnibus proprietor, and moreover introduced the word ‘omnibus’ to the English language. On the 4th of July 1829 the first omnibus ran from here (at the Yorkshire Stingo ino) to the Bank and back, with a naval officer on board to reassure the pioneering passengers, at a fare of one shilling, including newspaper. Later, Shillibeer extended his routes to the commuter suburbs, and was ruined by the competition of the railways, but he lived to see the formation of the London General Omnibus Company.

Ship Tavern Passage (City 5). There has been a Ship Tavern in Lime Street, opposite the end of this passage, since at least 1842 and probably much earlier.

Shipton Place (Kentish Town). Old Mother Shipton, a fifteenth-century wise-woman, prophesied that the kingdom would fall when London joined Hampstead. When the houses reached this point in 1850, only a few fields away from Hampstead, the Mother Shipton pub was opened in Malden Road in defiance of the curse.

Shirlock Road (Gospel Oak 8) was built in 1879. Origin unknown.

Shoe Lane (City 5). According to Eilert Ekwall in Street Names of the City of London, this thirteenth­ century name meant ‘land shaped like a shoe’. It is hard to see how Shoe Lane itself could have resembled a shoe; perhaps it led to a shoe-shaped field.

Shoot-up Hll1 (West Hampstead 1). Perhaps so called from the steepness of the hill. Another suggested derivation is from Henry VIII’s shooting estates at the top of the hill. The name is first found in 1566, twenty years after the king’s death.

Shorts Gardens (Holborn 4). The land either side of this dreary street was once carefully cultivated garden grounds which William Short, a gardener of Gray’s Inn, purchased in 1590. The family home was built there, and the Shorts were prominent parishioners until Thomas Short sold the property about a century later.

Shouldham Street and Molyneux Street (Marylebone 3) commemorate Molyneux Lord Shuldham, a British admiral who fought in the Seven Years’ War and the War of American Independence. He died in 1798, approximately the year these streets were finished. Shuldham leased the land on which they stand from the ground landlord, his step-son John Harcourt: see Harcourt Street.

Shrewsbury Court (Finsbury 5) was probably built by Edward Shrewsbury, carpenter and citizen of London, who owned a few small properties in the district in the 1720s.

Shrewsbury Road (Westbourne Park 2) is a turning out of Talbot Road; Talbot is the family name of the Earls of Shrewsbury.

Shroton Street (Lisson Grove 3). The Baker family lived at Shroton in Dorset.

Sicilian Avenue (Holborn) was built in 1905 to connect the newly widened Southampton Row to Bloomsbury Way, and is said to be paved with Sicilian marble.

Siddons Lane (Melcombe Street, Marylebone) seems a miserable alley to name after Sarah Siddons, one of England’s greatest actresses, but it is close to her old home (now demolished) on the site of 226 Baker Street. There she lived from 1817 until her death in 1831, officially in retirement, but still receiving homage from such admirers as the Prince Regent.

Sidmouth Street (Gray’s Inn Road ) was under construction 1801-1804 during Henry Addington’s term as Prime Minister and was probably completed the following year when he was created Viscount Sidmouth.

Silk Street (City 5) was named in 1799, when there were several silk merchants and silk warehouses here. No trace of them survived the intensive bombing which flattened this area in 1940.

Silver Place (Soho) is the continuation of Beak Street, which was formerly known as Silver Street by association with nearby Golden Square.

Simon Close (Portobello Road 2) was named in honour of Sir John Simon (1816-1904), public health reformer, who lived in the neighbourhood at 40 Kensington Square, where a plaque indicates his house. Dr Simon became London’s first Medical Officer of Health in 1848 and was soon convinced of the connection between sanitary neglect and such diseases as cholera. His main achievement lay in persuading the apathetic and ignorant author ities to decontaminate London water supplies and encourage vaccination.

Sirdar Road (North Kensington 2). This name was selected in 1872 for reasons unknown.

Sise Lane (Pancras Lane, City). At the north end of this street, in Pancras Lane, stood a church dedicated to St Osyth, martyr Queen of Mercia. ‘Osyth’s’ became ‘Syth’s’, then Sise. The church was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666.

Skin Market Place (Southwark 5). A Skin Market is shown on this site on Rocque’s map of 1746, and also on his later edition of 1761, but has gone by the time of Horwood’s map, published in 1799.

Skinner Street (Clerkenwell). John Meredith Esquire, citizen of London and a member of the Skinners’ Company, bequeathed eight acres of land in Clerkenwell to his Company in 1630. About 200 years later the Skinners leased the land to James Whiskin of Clerkenwell, a plumber, painter and glazier by trade, who built Meredith, Skinner and Whiskin Streets. Part of the estate is occupied by an extension of Northampton Polytechnic (The City University), founded in 1898, whose constitution required four of its 21 Governors to be chosen from the Skinners’ Company; in 1901 Lewis Boyd Sebastian, Past Master of the Company, was elected Chairman of the College Governors and is remembered in Sebastian Street behind the main university building.

Skinners Lane (City 5). For centuries the skin and fur trade has centred on this part of the City; Skinners’ Hall on nearby Dowgate Hill was established by the time of Henry III(1216-1272). There are still dozens of fur merchants in Skinners Lane and in parallel Miniver Place-miniver being a kind of fur used in ceremonial costume-close to the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fur-auction rooms in Garlick Hill.

Sloane Avenue, Court, Gardens, Square, Street and Terrace (Chelsea 7) commemorate Sir Hans Sloane, the eminent physician, whose daughter married— Lord Cadogan: see Cadogan, Chelsea

Smallbrook Mews (Bayswater 3). Formerly Lower Conduit Mews. See nearby Conduit Place and Brook Mews North: both brook aod con­ duit were near this site.

Smart’s Place (High Ho1born 4) was the home of William Smart, a carpenter, by 1710. He or his descendants, who held the property for many years, must have built the street here.

Smith Street (Chelsea 7) takes its name from Thomas Smith of Chelsea, a vintner by trade, who apparently decided in about 1795 that specu­ lative building would be more profitable than wineselling and so started to form this street. By 1801, in view of his new status as a property owner, he is always described as ‘gentleman’ instead of ‘vintner’ in contemporary records.

Smithfield Street (City 5). The twelfth-century monk Fitzstephen called Smithfield the ‘caropus planus re et nomine’, ‘smooth field in fact and name’. A fiat open space just outside the City Wall, it was con­ venient for public spectacles: jousts, burnings at the stake and revolts. The city meat market, since removed to adjacent Central Markets (q.v.) was held here and part of the field was partitioned into cattle pens. A portion of the Smooth Field still survives as the circular green in front of the Market.

Snow Hill (Holbom Viaduct 5) was Snore Hylle in the time of Henry III­ a mysterious name of unknown origin.

Soho Street and Square (7). The call ‘Soho!’ was a medieval hunting cry, similar to ‘tally-ho!’ It is first found in this district in the 1630s, when the site of Soho Square and the surrounding streets was St Giles Field, a pasture containing a large brick building situated roughly where Wardour Street now meets Bourchier Street ‘commonly called or known by the name of So-ho’. This So-ho was probably an inn used as a hunting rendezvous by sportsmen in the       surrounding countryside, and gave its name to a whole locality, much as the neighbouring house called Piccadilly had done a few years earlier. The Lord Mayor of London came hunting here with his aldermen in 1562:

‘And, after Dinner, they went to Hunting the Fox. There was a great Cry for a Mile; and, at length, the Hounds killed him at the end of St Giles’s. Great Hallowing at his Death, and Blowing of Horns.’

Soho Square and Street were built in about 1681 by Richard Frith

South Crescent (Store Street, Blooms­ bury) and North Crescent are situated at either end of an isolated rectangle of land bequeathed to the City of London in Tudor times as a charity estate devoted to the education of poor City boys.

South End. Names suffixed with ‘End’ in and around London date from the days when villages now absorbed in the suburbs were so small and compact that houses even a short distance from the main cluster of buildings were isolated outposts. Town’s Ends and even World’s Ends-one of the latter survives in Chelsea-were common. In Kensington South End, South End Row and South End Gardens (6), only a few hundred yards from the village centre at Kensington High Street, demark the southern extremity of the settlement in the eighteenth century. In Hampstead too South End Green (8), so close to Hampstead Viiiage, is a separate hamlet on Rocque’s map of 1745. Hampstead also boasted two other far-flung communities on the opposite boundaries of the parish, at West End (surviving in West End Lane) and North End.

South Grove (Highgate 8). So called to distinguish it from The Grove, Highgate (q.v.)

South Hill Park (Hampstead 8) covers a stretch of the Hampstead Manor demesne lands, on the slopes south of Hampstead village.

South Molton Street (Mayfair 7) was built and named in 1721. Origin unknown. South Molton Lane was originally Poverty Lane.

South Parade (Chelsea 6). The parade of houses erected here in about 1830 was not south of anything in particular, nor was there a corresponding North Parade, so it seems likely that South was the name of the builder.

South Place (Moorgate 7). In the 1790s the ancient common called Middle Moorfields (see Moorfields) was transformed into unimaginatively named streets: across the field ran Cross Street, now Lackington Street, and along its south side appeared South Place.

South Square (Gray’s Inn 5). The southernmost of the two quadrangles at Gray’s Inn.

South Street (Mayfair 7) is tbe southern boundary of the Mayfair estate belonging to the Grosvenor family of Grosvenor Square. Cf North Row, lying a few streets to the north.

South Terrace and North Terrace (South Kensington 6), at the south and north ends of Alexander Square, mark the extremities of Mr Alexander’s property.

South Villas (Camden Town 8) was originally part of the south side of Camden Square.

South Wharf Road (Paddington 3) was built to serve the wharf and warehouses on the south bank of the Grand Junction Canal, opened in 1801.

Southampton Buildings (High Hal­ born 5), Place and Row (Blooms­ bury 4) and Street (Covent Garden 4). Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton, was a humbly-born Tudor lawyer who rose to be Lord High Chancellor, a peer, and one of the richest men in the kingdom through his policy of pandering to Henry VIII’s whims, with ruthlessness and cruelty when necessary. Among his gains were two important grants of land: a mansion in High Holborn, and the country manor of Bloomsbury.

These properties passed down his family to the 3rd Earl, Shakespeare’s patron, and then to the 4th and last Earl, ‘London’s first town-planner’. By that time High Holborn was no longer a desirable place of residence, what with cattle being driven to Smithfield, criminals being dragged to Tyburn, and the ever-encroaching houses. So Southampton House was demolished in about 1652 and replaced by Southampton Buildings, while the family moved to a lavish mansion on their Bloomsbury estate, occupying what is now the whole north side of Bloomsbury Square. The Square was planned by the Earl to face the forecourt of the house. Shortly afterwards he improved the Square’s amenities by making access roads: Southampton Row and Place.

The old Earl died in 1667, and his daughter Lady Rachel inherited Bloomsbury. She had married the son and heir of the Earl of Bedford who already owned a town house and estate at Covent Garden. The couple moved into the Bloomsbury home and soon demolished Bedford House at Covent Garden, replacing it with a road fittingly named Southampton Street.

Southampton Road (Kentish Town 8). Part of the estate of the Fitzroys, Lords Southampton: see Fitzroy Square, Tottenham Court Road.

Southwark (5) was the ‘weorc’, the ‘fortification’; at the south end of London Bridge. There was a settlement here in Roman times, apparently a kind of commuter suburb for wealthy citizens, but it was not fortified at that date. The name belongs to the troubled Saxon period, when the bridge end had to be defended against possible invasion from the south by continental marauders.

Southwark Bridge was first built by John Rennie at the time of Waterloo, and was a superb construction in cast iron. The present bridge replaced it in 1921.

Southwark Street was made by the Victorians in response to a request for a better approach to London Bridge Station.

Southwick Street and Place (Padding­ ton 3). A large proportion of the streets in the Manor of Paddington are connected with the family who leased the land from the Bishops of London from 1741 onwards. The original lessee was Sir John Frederick of Burwood in Surrey, heir to the fortunes of his grandfather, Lord Mayor Frederick (see Frederick’s Place, City). Sir John’s son married Elizabeth Bathurst of Clarendon Park in Wiltshire, and had two daughters who divided the estate between them. The elder, Elizabeth, was the wife of Sir John Morshead bart; their son and heir married Jane Warwick of Warwick Hall in Cumberland. Selina, the younger girl, was married in 1778, three months before her sister, to Robert Thistlethwaite of Southwick Park. While she did not manage to captivate a baronet like Elizabeth, she brought the extensive Thistlethwaite Hampshire estates of Porchester, Portsea, Widley and Wymering into the family. Robert died in 1802, naming his brother-in-law and cousin-in­ law, Arthur Stanhope and Thomas Somers Cocks, as trustees of Selina’s estate, which eventually descended in part to her granddaughter, Lady Caroline Chichester.

Building on the Paddington Estate began in 1795 and took almost a century to complete. It resulted in Frederick Oose; Burwood Place; Bathurst Street; Clarendon Close, Gardens, Place and Terrace; Morshead Road; Warwick Avenue, Crescent, and Place; Porchester Gardens, Road, Square, Street and Terrace; Portsea Place; Widley Road; Wymering Road; Stanhope Place and Terrace; Somers Crescent and Chichester Road.

Spafield Street (Exmouth Market, Clerkenwell) leads to Spa Fields, now a recreation ground but once a meadow beside an ancient spring like so many suburban springs, as a mineral spa. An adjoining inn provided an additional attraction:
Some go but just to drink the water,
Some for the ale which they like better.

No more is heard of the water after about 1754, but the inn, the London Spa, still flourishes on the corner of Exmouth Market and Roseman Street.

Spaniards Road (Hampstead 1). There are many legends surrounding the origin of the Spaniards Inn. The only one supported by evidence is that it derives from a Spanish Ambassador who stayed here in the time of James I, and wrote home complaining about the lack of sunshine in England.

Spanish Place (Marylebone 3). Hertford House in Manchester Square, which now houses the Wallace Collection, was in 1788 the residence of the Spanish Ambassador, who built an embassy chapel in the adjoining street henceforth called Spanish Place. The chapel has been replaced by the Roman Catholic Church in George Street, opposite the old site.

Spear Mews (Earl’s Court Road 6) was built in 1875 and probably named after the owner. Several members of a Spear family moved to the Earl’s Court area and bought up property here in the second half of the nineteenth-century.

Spencer Place (Westminster 7) was originally a row of five cottages built in about 1815. The parish rate-books enter one George Spencer as paying rates for his tenants here, so he was presumably the landlord and perhaps the builder as well.

Spital Square (Bishopsgate 5) was the large square churchyard of St Mary’s Hospital, founded by Walter Brune of London and Rosia his wife in 1197. ‘Hospital’ to ‘spital’ was the regular medieval abbreviation; by the same process of apheresis ‘disport’ became ‘sport’, ‘Hispania’ ‘Spain’ and ‘esquire’ ‘squire’. St Mary’s was run by Augustinian canons and their lay helpers, who had to be quite as dedicated as modern nurses since hospital regulations forbad lay personnel to grow their hair, marry, go alone into town, receive guests or own any personal possession. It was ‘an hospital of great relief for receipt of the poor’, a very large establish ment for the period, containing 180 beds when it was dissolved by Henry VIII and probably sleeping twice that number, since none but the rich might expect a bed to themselves. Behind the churchyard lay an extensive field belonging to the hospital, built over by about 1700 but still known as Spitalfields.

Sprimont Place (Chelsea 7). Nicholas Sprimont ran the Chelsea China Works in Lawrence Street-a plaque marks its site-which made the finest soft-paste porcelain in England. He probably founded the factory in 1745, and it closed down after his retirement in 1769.

Spring Gardens (Trafalgar Square 7) is on the site of the Tudor Spring Garden, a corner of St James’s Park set aside as a spring, or plantation of young trees. Agas’s map of about 1560 shows it enclosed by a strong fence and filled with rows of trees. Later it became a pleasure ground containing a bowling green, a bathing pool, shooting butts and a pheasant yard. A further attraction was a trick fountain designed to soak the unwary, formerly thought to be the origin of the name. Hentzner describes it in his Travels of 1598 :

‘There is a jet d’eau, with a sundial, at which while strangers are looking, a quantity of water forced by a wheel, which the gardener turns at a distance through a number of little pipes, plentifully sprinkles those that are standing around.’

Eventually the name ‘Spring Garden’ came to mean ‘pleasure garden’.

When the site was required for building purposes at the Restoration the entertainments were removed to the New Spring Gardens, later named Vauxhall. Hence Spring Gardens Walk, Vauxhall. Two or three other Spring Gardens appeared in the suburban fields during the eighteenth century, but were all short-lived.

Spring Mews (Marylebone 3) was the mews serving Spring Street, now Montagu Mansions, built on the site of the Spring Pond.

Spring Place (Kentish Town 8). The spring is the River Fleet: see Holmes Road, Kentish Town.

Spring Street (Bayswater 5). This area was renowned for its water supply. Besides the Westbourne stream there were also conduits and springs here: see Bayswater.

Springfield (Kilburn 1) derives from the spring at Kilburn, which stood in a field near the corner of Kilburn High Road and Belsize Road. Like almost every chalybeate spring in London, it enjoyed its spate of popularity as a spa, and eighteenth century Londoners flocked to Kilburn Wells, now the Bell Tavern, to drink the waters. If they came from the south they would perhaps take the track which began as Lisson Grove and finished as Springfield Lane; if they came across the fields from Hampstead, their path would probably take them along Springfield Walk. But Springfield Road, although only a few streets away, has a separate origin: it stands on a different Spring Field, on which parts of Loudoun and Finchley Roads are also built. A tributary of the River Tyburn probably rose there.

Squires’ Mount (Hampstead 7) leads to the Georgian house of the same name, now National Trust property but once probably the home of a family called Squire.

Stable Yard Road (St James’s 7) leads to the Stable Yard of St James’s Palace.

Stacey Street (Shaftesbury Avenue 7). John Stafey or Stacey owned two large houses which appeared on St Giles’ Hospital grounds after the Hospital was dissolved by Henry vm. The street, originally a pathway between the buildings, was formed by about 1680.

Stadium Street (Chelsea 6). The Cremorne Stadium once stood here: see Cremorne Road, Chelsea.

Stafford Place (Westminster 7) was part of the grounds of Tart Hall, now demolished, the home of William Howard, Lord Stafford. Stafford. brought up as a Catholic, was one of the victims of Titus Oates’ false accusations against certain Catholic Lords in 1680. It is said that the gates of Tart Hall were never again opened after Lord Stafford passed through to his execution on Tower Hill. Wilfred Street, originally William Street, on the Tart Hall site, may also be named after him.

Stafford Street (Old Bond Street 7). Margaret Stafford was a partner of Sir Thomas Bond in his development scheme for the Duke of Albemarle’s property behind Piccadilly: see Old Bond Street. She was the spinster daughter of a wealthy country gentleman. Her coat of arms can be seen on an old tablet reading ‘This is Stafford Street 1686’, now kept inside the Duke of Albemarle pub in Stafford Street.

Stafford Terrace (Kensington 6) probably refers to the Reverend Charles Stafford of Oxford and Richard Stafford, a Mayfair surgeon, who leased some land on the south side of ‘the track from Church Lane to Holland House’ (Duchess of Bedford’s Walk) in 1842, some years before the street was built.

Stag Place (Westminster 7). Here stood the Stag Brewery founded by the Greenes, a family of London brewers: Thomas Greene was Master of the Brewers’ Company in Dick Whittington’s time. They were brew­ ing and baking in the Gatehouse of Westminster Abbey before the Abbey was dissolved, then in about 1607 they moved to the Stag Place site. The new premises took their name from the Greenes’ coat of arms, depicting three bucks. In 1837 James Watney purchased the Stag Brewery and Watney’s continued to brew there until its demolition in 1959. Four years later the present Stag Place was opened, along with two Watney pubs-including a Stag on the site of the old Cask Yard-and the multi-storey headquarters of Watney Combe Reid and Watney Mann Ltd.

Stainer Street (Bermondsey 5). Sir John Stainer (1840-1901), organist and composer, born in Southwark and brought up in Bermondsey, used to sing in the choir of St Olave’s, Bermondsey, as a boy. In 1872 he became organist of St Paul’s Cathedral, where he reformed the standard of singing and playing and brought the cathedral music worldwide acclaim.

Staining Lane (City 5). The ‘Staen­ inga haga’, ‘town house of the people from Staines’, was standing close to this lane by the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066.

Stalbridge Street (Marylebone 3). The Baker family live near Stalbridge, in Dorset: see Baker Street.

Stanhope Gardens (South Kensington 6). From the Stanhopes, Earls of Harrington: see Harrington Gardens, South Kensington.

Stanhope Gate and Row (Mayfair 7) led to the mansion belonging to Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield.

Stanhope Street (Euston 4). William Stanhope, 2nd Earl of Harrington, married Caroline Fitzroy.

Stanley Passage (King’s Cross 4). From the Stanley Buildings on the comer with Pancras Road, erected by the Improved Industrial Dwellings Company in 1865 and named after Lord Stanley, the first chairman of the Company.

Stanley Place (Pimlico 7) was once part of the little manor of Neate (see Neathouse Place) which came into the possession of the Stanley family at some time before 1723. In 1719 George Stanley of Paultons, Hampshire, married Sarah Sloane, daughter and co-heiress of Sir Hans Sloane, lord of the Manor of Chelsea, and from then until the twentieth century the Sloane-Stanleys owned both Neate and a moiety of Chelsea, shared with Sarah’s sister’s descendants, the Earls Cadogan: see Cadogan, Chelsea. Hence the two Stanley Arms pubs, one in Lupus Street, Pimlico, and the other in the King’s Road, Chelsea.

Staple Inn Buildings (Holborn 4). Staple Inn, beside Staple Inn Buildings, was founded in the early fourteenth century as an inn, or hostelry, for merchants involved in England’s staple industry, the wool trade. It was probably a scene of activity of staplers, men who graded and sorted the wool accord­ ing to its quality. By 1529 the connec­ tion with the wool merchants had been severed, and it was a legal Inn of Chancery attached to Gray’s Inn. Gray’s Inn sold the property in 1884 but Staple Inn is still largely tenanted by solicitors. The inner courtyard is Georgian, partly rebuilt, but the black and white timber fa9ade over­ looking Holborn is genuine Tudor, carefully restored since bombing in the 2nd World War.

Star Alley (Mark Lane, City). There was a Star Inn in Mark Lane in 1669, and probably earlier.

Star Street (Paddington 3) presumably took its name from an early nineteenth-century tavern sign, of which no other record exists.

Star Yard (Bell Yard 4) is derived from the ‘Starre’ Tavern mentioned in Bell Yard in 1721, in the earliest surviving Licensed Victuallers records.

Starcross Street (Euston 4), formerly Exmouth Street: see Exmouth Market, Clerkenwell.

Stationers’ Hall Court (Ludgate Hill 5). The Stationers’ Company Hall has stood here since 1611, and for 300 years all books were entered here for copyright purposes. Stationers were originally those respectable traders who had stationary shops, especially book shops, as opposed to itinerant pedlars.

Steadman Street (Finsbury 5) was named after W. C. Steadman, the first Labour MP for Central Finsbury, who held office from 1906 until 1911.

Steele’s Road (Hampstead 8). Sir Richard Steele (1672-1729) came to live in a lonely, rather ricketty little cottage on Haverstock Hill, where he would be remote from London’s worldly temptations, in 1712, during one of his many periods of financial embarrassment. Always living beyond his means, Steele was impecunious even though at the height of his career. He no longer edited The Tatler at that time, but continued to write The Spectator in the peace of the Hampstead countryside. This street was built roughly on the site when the cottage was demolished in 1867.

Sterling Street (Knightsbridge 6). After the Sterling family, who had a house in Knightsbridge. Its members included John Sterling (1806-1844), poet and author, and his father Captain Edward (1773-1847), a well-known military journalist des­ cribed as ‘a gallant shewy stirring gentleman the Magus of the Times’.

Stew Lane (Upper Thames Street 5). A narrow lane descending to the water front, where medieval prostitutes and their clients used to slip down to boats waiting to take them to the stews on the opposite bank. ‘Stews’ were originally bathhouses (French •etuve’, a hot-air bath), but they became the scene of such licentious conduct that the City fathers banished them to Southwark and the word took on the meaning of ‘brothel’. There were about twenty stew-houses along Bankside, displaying gaily painted signs on the walls overlooking the Thames. The prostitutes had to wear special clothes and colours while they were in the City to distinguish them from respectable women, and they were buried in unconsecrated ground close to the Stews.

Stewart’s Grove (Chelsea 6). William Stewart, auctioneer, of Piccadilly, leased land from the Cadogans, Lords of Chelsea Manor, in 1810 and started to build on it in 1827.

Stillington Street (Westminster 7). Part of the Chapter of Westminster”s land: see Chapter Street, West­ minster.

Stone House Conrt (Houndsditch, City). The office block here called Stone House, erected 1928, took Its name from an earlier Stonehouse, a property of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, which stood at the junction of Houndsditch and Bishopsgate by 1197. Most dwellings of that period were of timber, plaster and thatch, and although the Norman kings tried to insist on stone party­ walls to reduce fire-risk, it was generally too difficult for citizens. to obtain the materials. The crumbling Roman ruins in the city were the easiest source of stone; perhaps the nearby Bishops Gate and city wall were looted to build the original Stone House.

Stonecutter Street (Farringdon Street 5). Cargoes of stone were probably brought by barge to this point up the navigable Fleet River, which flowed along the future line of Farringdon Street. Old Seacoal Lane (q.v.) on the other side of Farringdon Street, has a similar origin.

Stoneleigh Place and Street (North Kensington 2). Stoneleigh Place was formerly Kenilworth Street, named after the Kenilworth Castle pub still standing. Stoneleigh in Warwickshire is situ­ated close to the town of Kenilworth.

Stoney Lane (Middlesex Street, City) and Stoney Street (Southwark . 5) both date back several centuries . The name was probably commentary; streets paved with stone were rare and greatly appreciated. See also Gravel Lane.

Storey’s Gate (St James’s Park 7) The parish ratebooks for the 1680s show that this was the gate into the park beside Edward Storey’s house. Storey was keeper of Charles II’s royal aviary in St James’s Park, and so was lodged at the end of Birdcage Walk.

Stothard Place (Bishopsgate, City) was named after Thomas Stothard (1755-1834), artist and book:illustrator. Before turning to painting he served his apprenticeship at adjacent Spital Square designing patterns for use in the local silk­ weaving industry.

The Strand (4). A pre-Roman track, later Romanised. The name ‘Strande’ is found by 1185, at which date the road was probably literally the strand or shore of the Thames. Since then land has gradually been reclaimed from the river, first by the princes of the Church who built palaces along the south side of the Strand in the middle ages, and then by the Tudor and Stuart nobles who took over the ecclesiastical estates after the dissolution of the monasteries; the owners of these sites must have taken steps to raise the land artificially in case of flood­ ing. Then in the eighteenth centuny the Adam brothers built the Adelphi area, a feat of engineering which drove the river back further. Finally the Victoria Embankment was made, leaving the Strand several hundred feet from the water.

Strand Lane (Strand 4) is an ancient stream bed. It held a rivulet flowing from St Clement’s Well (see Clem­ ent’s Inn Passage), which passed under the Strand at a point called Strand Bridge. By the time Stow compiled his Survey of London in 1598 the stream had either dried up or more probably been dammed at the source to provide a public water supply, since the bridge had been removed and its course become a footway: ‘Then had ye in the high street a fair bridge called Strand Bridge, and under it a lane or way down to the landing-place on the bank of the Thames’. See also Milford Lane and Ivybridge Lane.

Stratford Avenue and Road (Earl’s Court 6). Stratford Road was an early lane, existing long before houses were erected here. It takes its name from William Stratford, who lived in Kensington High Street at the top of Wright’s Lane in the 1760s and owned four acres of market gardens stretching back to Stratford Road.

Stratford Place (Oxford Street 4) stands on a thin strip of land running north and south, which had belonged for centuries to the City of London, and on which stood the conduit-head supplying water to the City. By the latter part of the eighteenth century, London had several more plentiful supplies of water than the Tyburn, and as the land on which the conduit stood had recently become extremely valuable, the City Corporation leased it in 1771 to the Honourable Edward Stratford.’ (F. H. W. Sheppard’s Local Government in St Marylebone, 1958). ‘He staked out the land to form one street running north from Oxford Street and ending in a cul-de-sac . . . The building of Stratford Place ruined the successful development of Sir Thomas Edwardes’ field to the west of Stratford Place. He had laid out streets which were now abruptly terminated by the backyard walls of Stratford Place, and as they led nowhere, their value declined sharply, and it soon became a low-class quarter’: see for instance St Christopher’s Place and Barratt Street. Sir Thomas Edwardes then leased his land to the parish scav­ enger, Edward Gray, who built Gray’s Yard and Edward’s Mews there.

Stratheam Place (Paddington 3) is close to Connaught Place, and was so named in 1938 from one of the titles of the then Duke of Connaught.

Strathmore Gardens (Kensington 6). The lOth Earl of Strathmore and Kinghome, and his brother who succeeded him in 1865, seem to have invested in plots of building land in newly developing areas of Kensington in the 1860s. The family town house was in Queen’s Gate Gardens, South Kensington, but the Earls were registered as owners of numerous other properties in the neighbourhood. Strathmore Gardens was begun in 1868.

Stratton Street (Mayfair 7) belonged to the Berkeleys of Stratton: see Berkeley Square.

Streatley Place (Hampstead I) was Brewhouse Lane, an ancient and highly disreputable alley, until 1892. A new name was then chosen, more or less at random, in an attempt to destroy its evil reputation.

Strutton Ground (Westminster 7), originally Stourton Ground, was the ground or meadow behind Stourton House on the south side of Tothlll Street, the Tudor home of Lord Dacre: see Dacre Street. The name Strutton Ground was gradually transferred from the meadow to the path beside it, the present street of this name. A seventeenth-century owner of Stourton meadow was Sir Robert Pye: see Old Pye Street.

Studio Place (Kinnerton Street, Bel­ gravia). Named after the artists’ studios which stood here until 1949.

Stukeley Street (Holborn 4). After the Reverend Dr Stukeley (1687-1765), an enthusiastic if somewhat misguided antiquary, who made some important collections and discoveries as well as many that are now discredited. He was closely connected with the Holborn area, as an inhabitant of Great Ormond Street from 1717 until 1726 and as Rector of St George’s Queen Square from 1745 to his death.

Suffolk Lane (City 5). Here stood the ‘Manor of the Rose’, the home of William de la Pole, created Duke of Suffolk in 1448 in recognition of distinguished service during the Hundred Years’ War. The manor­ house descended to his grandson Edmund, who called himself ‘White Rose’ and added to the confusion of the Wars of the Roses by trying to claim the throne of England in right of descent from his maternal uncles, Edward IV and Richard III.

When Henry VII emerged victorious from the Wars, he cast Suffolk into the Tower to languish until his execution seven years later. After that, the Manor of the Rose passed out of the family.

Suffolk Street and Place (near Trafalgar Square 7) were once extensive stabling belonging to the Earls of Suffolk, conveniently situated for their town house at Charing Cross. But when the 2nd Earl’s daughter married the Earl of Northumberland in 1642, Suffolk House passed to her husband and became Northumberland House: see Northumberland Avenue. So shortly afterwards her brother, who had succeeded as 3rd Earl of Suffolk, proceeded to dismantle the stables and have these streets built instead. He established a new family home in Suffolk Street, where his descendants lived until 1714.

Sugar Loaf Court (Garlick Hill, City). An inn or shop with the sign of the Sugarloaf stood here in the seventeenth century and perhaps earlier. It is now the Crown & Sugarloaf pub. A sugar loaf was a common sign for a grocer’s shop in the days when sugar was sold in conical moulded loaves.

Sumatra Road (Kilburn I) was planned and named in 1877. Origin unknown.

Sumner Street (Southwark 5) was built in 1839 across the Bishops of Winchester’s estate (see Winchester Square, Southwark), and named in compliment to Charles Richard Sumner, the current bishop, who had won much respect for his efforts to provide schools and churches for the poor under his administration.

Sunderland  Terrace (Westboun1e Park 2). Probably so named from its proximity to Durham Terrace, Sunderland being a town in County Durham.

Sussex. Sussex Gardens, Place and Square (Paddington 3) were begun in 1843, the year of the death of Prince Augustus, Duke of Sussex, 6th son of George III. The royal dukes were always a popular source of street name with nineteenth­ century builders. He is also commemorated in Sussex Place (Regent’s Park 3), built on part of an estate belonging to his brother, the Prince Regent: see Regent’s Park. Augustus distinguished himself by being arrested for debt by the Bow Street Runners, and by twice marrying illegally without the king’s consent­ once with a coalman for a witness.

Sutherland Place (Westbourne Park 2) probably takes its name from Lucy Ann Sinclair Sutherland, who was registered in 1843 as the holder of Great Bandilands, one of the fields of Westbourne Farm, which adjoined the site of this street.

Sutton Row (Soho 7) and Falconberg Court and Mews adjoin 20 Soho Square, now rebuilt as office premises but formerly known as Fauconberg House. The house was built in about 1683 for Thomas Lord Fauconberg of Sutton Court near Chiswick, who lived there with his wife Mary, third daughter of Oliver Cromwell.

Sutton Way (North Kensington 2). William Richard Sutton, like George Peabody, came from a humble background but built up a large fortune in trade, which he bequeathed to form a Trust provid­ ing cheap but wholesome housing for the poor. The Sutton Dwellings in North Kensington were opened in 1930 and now house about 1700 people.

Swain’s Lane (Highgate 8), one of the medieval routes up Highgate Hill, is found as ‘Swayneslaneas early as 1492. However, until the nineteenth century its more usual name was Swine Lane. Then ‘Swain’s’ prevailed, probably for the sake of euphony-although  in fact the original meaning of the poetic
‘swain’ is simply ‘swineherd’.

Swallow Street and Place (Mayfair 7). Swallow Street, a turning out of Piccadilly, was begun in the 1670s on Swallow Close, a little field which Thomas Swallow was farming in 1540. At one time Swallow Street extended all the way from Piccadilly to Oxford Street, but most of it disappeared when Regent Street was formed along almost the same route. However, a small portion still exists at the Oxford Street end as an alley called Swallow Place.

Swan Lane (Upper Thames Street 5). From a medieval tavern beside the Thames, known as the Olde Swanne as early as 1323. The Swan was a very common riverside inn­ sign in less polluted days, and there were still six Swan pubs between London Bridge and Battersea in 1829.

Swan Walk (Chelsea 7). At the bottom of this lane stood the old Swan Inn, demolished to make way for the Chelsea Embankment, with its wooden balconies overhanging the Thames. Pepys came here with his wife and his flighty friend Mistress Knipps, and had a fine time singing and eating in a box in a tree; but ‘my wife out of humour, as ever when that woman is by’.

Swedeland Court (Bishopsgate, City). Swedeland was the former name for Sweden, so this seventeenth-century court may represent a little Swedish settlement here.

Swinbrook Road (North Kensington 2). An Oxfordshire place-name. Connection with North Kensington unknown.

Sycamore Street (Old Street 5) is more likely to take its name from an inn-sign than from a tree. Agas’ map of about 1560 on Plate n shows a cluster of trees at this end of Old Street, but within a century the area was tightly packed with houses. John Rocque, who enjoyed marking rural features on his maps wherever possible, certainly indicates no trees in 1746, but it is possible that a lone sycamore did survive here and was considered so remarkable that the street was named from it.

Tabernacle Street (Finsbury 5) was formerly known as Windmill Hill, from the Tudor windmills which stood on its slopes; there is still a Windmill pub in Tabernacle Street. George Whitefield the evangelist ­ see Whitfield Street – used to preach on Windmill Hill when he was in London, and his followers built him a temporary wooden shed they caUed the Tabernacle, after the Tabernacle of the Israelites in the wilderness. It opened in 1741 on what was later the corner of Leonard Street and Tabernacle Street, and became the headquarters of Whitefield’s London work. A brick meeting house replaced the shed, and there is still a church on the site, but now it is used as a factory.

Tachbrook Street (Pimlico 7). Henry Wise, Royal Gardener to William III, Queen Anne and George I, retired from his highly successful career to establish himself as a landed country gentleman in his old age. He purchased estates at Chadwood in Surrey and Moreton and Lillington near Tachbrook in Warwickshire, and settled at Warwick Priory, where he died in 1738. Two fields in Pimlico, acquired in 1713, which like the country properties were to pass down to his twentieth­ century descendants, are now covered by Lillington Gardens;Moreton Place, Street and Terrace; Warwick Place North, Way and Square and Charlwood Place and Street. A Henry Wise House in Vauxhall Bridge Road was erected on part of his land in 1970.

Tadema Road (Chelsea 6) was built in 1878 and perhaps named in compliment to Sir Lawrence Alma­ Tadema, the Victorian artist of Belgian extraction, who settled in England in 1870 and rapidly rose to prominence as a painter of classical subjects.

Talacre Road (Kentish Town 8). Named in 1967 after Talacre in Flintshire by analogy with nearby Rhyl Street, Rhyl also being a Flintshire place name.

Talbot Court (Gracechurch Street, City) adjoined a Tabard Inn in Gracechurch Street. Its name was probably corrupted to Talbot in imitation of the more famous Tabard, or Talbot, in Southwark (see below) The inn was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666.

Talbot Road (North Kensington 2). By 1712 Sir William Talbot, a kinsman of the Earl of Shrewsbury, owned a large farm in North Kensington which was soon to be known as Portobello Farm. It belonged to his family until the late nineteenth century, when the two old Misses Talbot, the last of the line, sold the fields off to speculative builders and land development companies.

Talbot Yard (Borough High Street 5) is a corruption of Tabard Yard, the stable-yard behind the famous Tabard Inn where Chaucer’s pilgrims assembled before setting off to Thomas a Becket’s tomb.

A tabard was a sleeveless jacket or short smock commonly worn by noblemen and their household, and embroidered with their coat of arms when they went to war. The inn first opened in about 1306, was rebuilt many times and finally demolished in 1875.

The Chaucerian connection has been emphasised in modern times by the names of nearby Tabard Street, Pilgrimage Street, Pardoner Street, Becket Street and Prioress Street.

Tallis Street (City 5) contains the Guildhall School of Music, and was named in 1893 after Thomas Tallis (c. 1505-1585), organist at the Chapel Royal and composer. Tallis does not appear to have any direct connection with the school.

Taraplin Mews (Paddington 2) was probably one of the Paddington properties of George Tamplin, a Victorian solicitor living in Manchester Square, Marylebone, who was also Parliamentary returning officer for Paddington and Mary1ebone in the 1860s.

Tanfield Court (Temple, City). A memorial to Judge Lawrence Tanfield of the Inner Temple, Chief Baron of the Exchequer in James I’s time, who had his chambers here.

Tasker Road (Hampstead 8), formerely Church Road, leads to St Dominic’s Priory. The present name was suggested by the prior of St Dominic’s in 1937, on the grounds that it was mainly due to the late Countess Tasker that the church was built.

Taverner’s Close (North Kensington 2) was built in 1962 on land purchased from the Brewers who own the Norland Arms tavern on the corner.

Tavistock Crescent and Road (Westbourne Park 2) were planned in 1864. Origin of name unknown.

Telegraph Hill (Hampstead 1). On the summit of this hill stood an early telegraph station, the first of a line linking Chelsea with Yarmouth. Originally, in about 1796, messages were conveyed by means of two wooOen shutters on the roof, which were moved up and down on pulleys. The shutters gave way to semaphores, then finally to electricity in 1847. The signaller’s lonely cottage remained inhabited, though no longer used for sending messages, unti1 1927.

Telegraph Street (City 5) was so named shortly after the English Telegraph Company opened a branch here in 1859. The ETC was followed within the decade by the Channel Islands Telegraph Company, the Electric & International Telegraph Company, the Lombard Telegraph News Agency, The Indo-European Telegraph Company and several others, all short-lived private enterprises. The government-sponsored Post Office Central Telegraph Station, established here by 1872, stayed until 1933. Why this particular alley should become the centre for the electric wonder of the age remains a mystery.

Temple Avenue, Lane and Place (City 5) mark the London home of the Templars, a religious order founded in 1119 by a band of knights who took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and were pledged to protecting pilgrims on the infidel-infested roads to the Holy Land. Their international head· quarters at the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem was copied for their Temple Church in London, consecrated in 1185 and still standing. The Templars amassed unrivaled treasure hoards and countless es­ tates by gift, purchase and conquest, arousing the envy of the needy Philippe le Bel of France. The king arranged charges of heresy to be brought against them and had the order cruelly suppressed in 1307, The knights’ raison d’etre was re­ moved once the Fall of Acre had put an end to all pilgrimages to Jerusalem, and Edward II of England followed the French example in seizing all the Templars’ lands for the Crown. Within a few years lawyers moved into the vacated Temple precinct and soon grew so numerous that they were divided into the Inner and Middle Temples (and also an Outer Temple long disappeared), entered by Inn;r and Middle Temple Lanes respectively.

Templewood Avenue and Gardens (Hampstead 1). Temple Wood was the local name for the nearby Burgess Hill area until the last remains of the wood gave way to building. It was probably one of the medieval possessions of the Knights Templar, who are known to have held land in and near Cricklewood.

Tenison Court (Regent Street 7). Dr Thomas Tenison, later Archbishop of Canterbury, was rector of this parish, St James Westminster, in the 1680s, a period of rapid development and sharply rising population in the area east of Regent Street. Since the parish church had become insufficient and free schools for the poor were completely lacking, Dr Tenison bought a plot on the north side of present day Tenison Court and built a chapel-cum-charity school there. The chapel is now dedicated to St Thomas in honour of its founder and the school has become Archbishop Tenison’s Grammar at Kennington Oval.

Tenniel Close (Queensborough Ter­ race, Paddington). Sir John Tenniel (1820-1914), a Punch cartoonist and thr illustrator of Alice in Wonderland, lived close by at 10 Randolph Avenue from about 1857 until 1909.

Tenterden Street (Mayfair 7). So called by 1718. Origin unknown.

Terminus Place (Victoria 8) faces the terminus of the former London, Chatham & Dover and London, Brighton & South Coast Railways, opened in 1860. It is also London’s closest approximation to a central bus terminus.

Tetcott Road (Chelsea 6). Tetcott is a Devon place-name. Connection with this district unknown.

Thackeray Street (Kensington 6). William Makepeace Thackeray lived close by for several years in Young Street the house is now marked with a plaque. Vanity Fair was among the novels written there.

Thavies Inn (Holborn 5). John Thavie of the Armourers’ Company leased out his house in Holborn as an Inn or hostelry for students of law, and demised it to them at his death in about 1348. It was probably the oldest of the Inns of Chancery and has survived in name at least, although the lawyers had moved out by 1771 and the site was completely bombed in 1941.

Thayer Street (Marylebone 3). Anne Thayer was the wife of Jacob Hinde.

Tbeobalds Road (Holborn 4). Tbeobalds in Hertfordshire was the home of the great Tudor statesman Lord Burghley and his family, where Elizabeth I and James I were given ‘entertaynment such and so costly as hardly can bee expressed’. So impressed was James that he decided to keep the house, and Burghley’s son had to relinquish it with as much grace as he could muster. This street was part of the King’s private route across the fields from Westminster towards Theobalds.

Thistle Grove (South Kensington 6). The name must once have been descriptive. This used to be a country lane through the fields to Kensington Village.

Thorney Street (Westminster 7) was named in 1931 in memory of Torneia, or Thorney, the remote ‘thorn island’ on which Westminster Abbey stood by the eighth century. The island, lying about a quarter of a mile north of this street, was formed by two mouths of the River Tyburn which enclosed the site of the Abbey and the Houses of Parliament.

Thorngate Road (Paddington 2). Probably a vaguely ruralistic name designed to attract buyers to this street when it was newly built in 1875.

Thrale Street (Southwark 5). After Henry Thrale and his wife Hester, the owners of the Anchor Brewery in Park Street. The Anchor was a flourishing business when Henry inherited it from his father in 1758 and at first it kept him in affluent circumstances. Mrs Thrale could afford to devote her leisure to literary activities, and after being introduced to Dr Johnson she set aside special apartments for him at the brewery. Dr Johnson became almost a member of the family, ‘interesting himself in all its activities, business, social and domestic’. The Thrale home was a meeting place for such writers, artists and actors as Reynolds, Goldsmith, David Garrick and Edmund Burke. By Henry Thrale’s death in 1781 the initial profits from the business had dwindled, and the Anchor was sold to Robert Barclay, founder of the present company on the site, Courage Barclay & Simonds Ltd.

Threadneedle Street (City 5) is probably derived from a sign-board depicting three needles. If used as a shop-sign, it would have been connected with the activities on the premises. Inn- and house-signs, on the other hand, often had some local association. In the former case the three needles would indicate needles for sale, or property of the Needlemakers’ Company, whose escutcheon showed three needles. If the latter, the publican or householder concerned was probably conveying symbolically that his address was close to the Merchant Taylors Hall, which has stood here since the fourteenth century.

Three Kings Yard (Mayfair 7). There was a Three Kings pub at the entrance to this yard until 1879.

Threshers Place (North Kensington 2). Thomas Swinfen Thresher was a Hammersmith silversmith who invested in some property here in 1853. He came to regret his purchase: ten years later he was writing to the local Parish Vestry in horror to point out that there were no made roads or drains around his land. The Vestry, quite unperturbed, replied that since buildings were only partly erected they were not bothering to make the road up. Threshers Place and its immediate neighbourhood rapidly became densely populated, but evidently the class of people who lived there were expected to manage without such luxuries as surfaced paths and sanitation.

Throgmorton Street (City 5) was named soon after the mysterious death in 1571 of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, Chief Butler of England and one of Elizabeth’s favourite ministers, thought to have been poisoned by Leicester, his rival for the Queen’s favour.

A turning out of Throgmorton Street is Throgmorton Avenue, described as a ‘handsome new thoroughfare’ in 1891.

Thurloe Square, Place and Street (South Kensington 6). The Thurloe Estate in South Kensington =, according to local tradition, was a gift from Oliver Cromwell to John Thurloe (1616-1668), his Secretary of State. Thurloe was one of Cromwell’s earliest supporters and played an important part in elevating him to the Protectorate. ‘In matters of great moment’ wrote a biographer, ‘Cromwell trusted none but his secretary Thurloe’. Whatever the truth of the origins of the estate it is certain that by 1713 the scattered fields in South Kensington belonged to Thurloe’s grandson John Thurloe Brace of Astwood, Bucks (hence Astwood Mews). Building on the estate was begun in 1826 by Brace’s great-grandson John Alexander, who was responsible for Alexander Place and Square. Lenthall Place commemorates William Lenthall, Speaker of the House of Commons in John Thurloe’s time. The Thurloe estate still belongs to John Alexander’s descendants.

Thurlow Terrace (Kentish Town 8) is probably connected with the Reverend Edward Thurlow of Lound Rectory and Reverend Charles Thurlow of Malpas Rectory, who were in negotiation with Lord Southampton over grants of his land here (see Fitzroy Square) in 1856.

Tilney Court (Old Street 5) is marked on Rocque’s map of 1746 as Tripe Yard, where tripes were probably prepared and sold, very likely a foul­ smelling alley littered with rotting entrails. In 1771 an improvement scheme was evidently under way, since that year Ann Tilney, spinster, is mentioned as the proprietress of
‘Thirteen New Built Messuages or Tenements . . . in a Certain new Court called Tilney’s Court’.

Tilney Street (Mayfair 7) lies partly on the land of the Berkeleys of Berkeley Square. John Lord Berkeley is recorded as granting some of his property to John Lord Tilney in the mid-eighteenth century, when the street first appears.

Timber Street (Old Street 5) was built in 1808 along with Baltic, Honduras and Domingo Streets, by a City timber merchant called Thomas Hacker who had bought the site the previous year. All his street names are connected with the timber trade. Memel Street, a later turning out of Baltic Street, is named from a timber­ exporting town on the Baltic. With timber still an essential building material, second only to brick in importance, there was a thriving trade in Baltic fir, which was cheaper than English oak. Mahogany from Honduras and San Domingo was in demand especially for hand-carved Georgian banisters.

Titchfield Road (Prince Albert Road 3) is built on the detached part of the Portland or Harley estate known as Portland Town. Origin of name : see Harley Street.

Tite Street (Chelsea Embankment 7) was formed soon after the death of Sir William Tite (1798-1873), an architect who had been closely concerned with the construction of the Thames Embankments.

Tokenhouse Yard (City 5). ‘Tokens’ were private coins worth either a halfpenny or a farthing, struck by tradesmen to provide small change for customers at a period when there was no official coin of value below a penny. They were issued by thousands of publicans and shopkeepers, and served as advertising as well as currency since they were stamped with the owners’ name and trade­ sign. The tokens were only redeemable in the shop concerned and others in the immediate neighbourhood, so they were essentially the coinage of the poor man shopping locally for low-value purchases.

In 1634 Lord Maltravers, whose father’s home was on the site of Tokenhouse Yard, was granted letters patent by Charles I permitting him to take under official control the issue and exchange of tokens. The scheme proved highly lucrative for its promoters but was a hardship for the trader, who was forced to buy his coins for considerably more than face value. The Token House remained a source of income for the Crown until 1672, when Charles II issued the first regal copper coins and proclaimed that henceforth any persons found using tokens ‘were to be chastised with examplary severity’.

Tolmer’s Square (Hampstead Road 4) was built in 1863 on the site of a large pond, originally an appurtenance of the Tottenharn Court (q.v.) and later used as a reservoir by the New River Company. Tolmers is a hamlet in Hertfordshire, not far from the source of the New River.

Tonbridge Street (King’s Cross 4) is part of a 30-acre estate donated to Tonbridge Public School by its founder, Sir Andrew Judde, in 1572. This was the period when innumerable provincial public schools were established by private enterprise in order to remedy the very low level of education in England after Henry VIII had dissolved the monastic schools. Many of the founders were successful City merchants who also endowed the schools with lands near London: see Bedford Row, Rugby Street, Aldenham Street and Lyon’s Place. Sir Andrew was a member of the Company of Skinners, who have run this estate and governed Tonbridge School since his death; hence the Skinners Arms in Judd Street. The land was laid out for building in 1807 by James Burton (Burton Street and Place), a young Scotsman who had already developed much of Bloomsbury and King’s Cross. Mabledon Place, Leigh Street and Bidborough Street were named after Kent villages just outside Tonbridge, and Thanet, Sandwich and Hastings Streets after places a little further afield in Kent and Sussex.

Took’s Court (Furnival Street 5) belonged to ‘Thomas Tooke of London Esquyre’ who sold all his ‘tenements houses yards grounds and hereditaments’ in Took’s Court and Furnival Street in 1683.

Tooley Street (Bermondsey 5) is a corruption of St Olave’s Street, from the church which stood here by the twelfth century but has now been combined with St John’s in Fair Street. ‘St Olave’s Street’, as it was recorded in 1598, had become ‘St Tooley’s Street’ in 1606 and ‘Towles Street’ by 1608. (A similar process of apheresis occurred with ‘St Audrey’ at whose fair ‘tawdry’ objects were sold, and perhaps accounts for ‘Ted’, the familiar form of’Edward’). Hence also St Olave’s Terrace off Tooley Street and St Olave’s Hospital, School and Wharf.

Topham Street (Clerkenwell 5) was the scene of a demonstration staged in May 1741 to celebrate Admiral Vernon’s capture of Carthagena: Thomas Topham, an Islington strong man, lifted three hogsheads of water, which together weighed over 1800 pounds, and raised them several inches from the ground.

Tor Gardens (Kensington 2). From a house which stood on Campden Hill Road in the 1850s: Tor Villa, the home of the Victorian painter James Clarke Hook.

Tothill Street (Westminster 7) was the medieval lane from Westminster Abbey out onto the marshy plain known as Tothill Fields, which covered the Victoria Westminster area. It took its name from a tote hill, or look-out hill, probably artificial, which stood here by at least the twelfth century. Its site can now only be guessed.

Tottenham Court Road (4). The court was the manor house of Totehele, or Tottenheale, as it was spelt in the eleventh century. The name may be derived from a Saxon owner called Totta, or perhaps from a ‘tote’, a ‘look-out post’, as in Tothill Street. The road, already in existence by the twelfth century, led from Oxford Street to the court.

In 1757, much of it was demolished to make way for the Euston Road, running right through the homestead. Enough halls and outhouses remain however to give an
idea of its former prominence. In feudal times it must have been important as the administrative and social centre of the Manor of Tottenhall, which stretched from Oxford Street as far as Highgate. But by the seventeenth century it had degenerated to a tea-gardens, its nearness to town making it a favourite resort for Londoners:

Love flies the dusty town for shady woods.
Then Tottenham fields with roving beauty swarm.

Tottenham Street (Bloomsbury 4). A turning out of Tottenham Court Road.

Tovey Place (Kentish Town 8). William Henry Rowe, an ambitious builder based at Gloucester Crescent, Camden Town, and his son James Tovey Rowe, the landlord of the Good Mixer pub round the corner in Inverness Street, bought up dozens of building sites in Camden Town and Kentish Town through the 1840s and 50s. In 1861 William Henry went bankrupt and had to negotiate with one of his creditors, a Hertfordshire farmer called George Dickenson; but after this setback the business eventually prospered so much that in 1867 James Tovey gave up his pub, styled himself ‘gentleman’, became a parish Vestryman, and retired to a villa in Camden Road. After granting part of his land to Miss Mary Jacomb Wilkin of Hampstead, who ran the Victoria High School for Girls there for many years, he  built Dickenson Street, Wilkin Street and Dalby Street, the latter also probably named after a sub-lessee.

Tower Bridge, Hill and Place (City 5). The Tower of London was founded by William the Conqueror to overawe not only potential foreign enemies sailing up the Thames but also the Londoners themselves, still surly after the Conquest. His successors added outer rings of bastions, walls and moat. The Tower was a hated symbol of despotism to medieval citizens, who saw unpopular kings take refuge in it to escape the mob, and well-known faces disappear through Traitors’ Gate and only reappear on Tower Hill long enough for their public execution, after a sojourn in the torture chambers.

Tower Bridge, London’s most spectacular bridge although rarely to be seen in its raised position except on postcards, was completed at great expense in 1894.

Tower Royal (Cannon Street, City) takes its name from a large medieval mansion later described as a tower. It was known in 1265 as La Riole, being the centre for merchants dealing in wine imported from La R6o1e at Bordeaux (still a thriving vineyard) in the English province of Aquitaine. There were close links between tills part of London and Bordeaux, so much so that the alderman of Cordwainer Ward, in which Tower Royal is situated, was elected Mayor of Bordeaux in 1275.

‘Le toure in Ie Rioll’ subsequently became Queen Philippa’s Wardrobe, then royal stables, and was finally divided into a block of tenements whose remains were destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666.

Tower Street (St Giles 4) contained a late seventeenth century Tower tavern, which survived until 1848.

Townshend Road (St John’s Wood 3) dates from about 1834. Origin unknown.

Trafalgar Square (7). The national monument to Nelson’s last victory. The Square was begun in 1829, twenty-four years after the Battle of Trafalgar, and not finished until the 1840s. Around the base of Nelson’s column, the focal point of the Square, are four bronze reliefs showing scenes from the hero’s life: the Battle of the Nile, the bombardment of Copenhagen, the Battle of St Vincent and death at Cape Trafalgar.

Transept Street (Marylebone 3). A transept is one of the arms of a cross-shaped church or chapel; Transept Street crosses Chapel Street. It was part of Lisson Street until 1968, when the building of Marylebone Flyover severed the two ends of the street.

Treadgold Street (North Kensington 2). This name was selected in 1885. Origin unknown.

Trebeck Street (Curzon Street, May­ fair) stands roughly on the site of the notorious Keith’s Chapel, where for the price of a guinea couples could be married instantly and no questions asked. The Reverend Keith, who was appointed in 1734, sometimes performed about 6000 marriages a year before the chapel was suppressed in 1754 by Dr Trebeck, the rector of the local parish church of St George’s Hanover Square. Keith was committed to the Fleet Prison, where he died in poverty in 1758.

Trevor Place, Square and Street (Knightsbridge 7) occupy the site of the house and grounds of Sir John Trevor, who died in 1717. Sir John, ‘infamous for bribery and corruption’, was of lowly birth and education but managed to study law. After being called to the bar he advanced rapidly, finally becoming Speaker of the House of Commons. But in this capacity he had the humiliating experience of having to propose the motion that he was guilty of accepting a £1,000 bribe to support a bill, and declaring the motion carried. He was then expelled from the House.

In 1820 Sir John’s descendants engaged a Chelsea stonemason named Lancelot Edward Wood to build the Square and surrounding streets, including Lancelot Place. The estate belonged to the family until 1909.

Trinity Church Passage (Fetter Lane, City) is a relic of a short-lived Holy Trinity Church, built here in 1827 but burnt down not long afterwards.

Trinity Place and Square (Tower Hill 5). Named after Trinity House, situated in the Square since 1795, the headquarters of the Tudor ‘Guild, Fraternity or Brotherhood, of the Most Glorious and Undivided Trinity’ whose object is to safeguard navigation in territorial waters. Trinity House controls all British sea­marks and lighthouses, and is responsible for aged sea pilots and their widows and orphans.

Triton Square (Euston 4) is part of an extensive post war redevelopment scheme. It was named in 1966 after the sea-god Triton because plans for the square included ten blocks of flats dedicated to British admirals: Anson, Beatty, Collingwood, Evans, Frobisher, Grenville, Hardy, Inch­ cape, Jellico and Morgan.

Trump Street (King Street, City) was probably the fourteenth-century home of the trumpet-makers, whose wares would have been in demand with heralds, watchmen and masters of the tournaments.

Tryon Street (Chelsea 7) was former­ ly part of Keppel Street, which led to an Admiral Keppel irm in Fulham Road. Keppel became a popular hero and a frequent subject of inn-signs after an engagement against the French in 1779, which would have been victorious had it not been for the disobedience of one of his subordinates. The inn was opened soon after Keppel’s death in 1786. Keppel Street was renamed in 1913 to end confusion with the street of the same name in WCl; the northern end became Sloane Avenue and the southern portion was given another Admiral’s name: Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon, who was drowned in the Victoria in 1893, after a collision during fleet manoeuvres.

Tudor Close (Hampstead 8). A twentieth-century development, presumably so called because the buildings are vaguely Tudor in appearance.

Tudor Place (Tottenharn Court Road 4). In 1820 George Tudor was admitted by court baron as a tenant of the Manor of Tottenham Court in respect of this yard, which he had just inherited. Tudor Place was originally an inn-yard behind the old Black Horse in Tottenham Court Road (finally demolished in 1968).

Tudor Street (City 5). An old name given to the approach to the Tudor Palace of Bridewell: see Bridewell Place, City.

Turk’s Head Yard (Turnmill Street 5). An early eighteenth-century Turk’s Head tavern, now a printer’s premises, stood on the corner with Turnmill Street.

Turk’s Row (Chelsea 7) is probably derived from a coffee house sign. The first London coffee house, Pasqua Rosee’s which opened in 1652, was alternatively known as the Turk’s Head, where ‘the right Turkie berry’ was drunk. Signs of the Turk’s Head then multiplied rapidly. Turk’s Row was so called by 1746.

Turnagain Lane (Farringdon Street City) was also known as Wendagayn Lane in the early middle ages, ‘for that it goeth down west to Fleet Ditch, from whence men must turn again he same way they came, for there it stoppeth’. The River Fleet no longer renders Turnagain Lane a dead-end, the open stream having been replaced by Farringdon Street, but those who venture to the end of the lane must still wend again, because now its other end is blocked, by Holborn Viaduct Station.

Turners Alley (Eastcheap, City). The site of Tmners’ Hall: see Philpot Lane, Fenchurch Street.

Turnmill Street (Clerkenwell 5). The    Turnmill Brook, otherwise known as the Fleet or the Holborn (qq.v.) runs beside this ancient path, although nowadays it is enclosed in sewer pipes beneath Farringdon Road. At one time the brook powered several watermills standing here on the bank, described as early as the twelfth century by Fitzstephen: ‘the flowing stream on which stand mills, whose clack is very pleasing to the ear’. The Tudor map shows the street beside the stream, its name there corrupted to ‘Turner Str.’ Mills for cotton­ spinning and grinding hair-powder were still functioning here in the 1740s.

Twisden Road (Kentish Town 8) dates from 1874. Origin of name unknown.

Tyburn Way (Marble Arch 7) crosses the site of the famous Tyburn Gallows, which stood in the middle of the junction of Edgware Road and Tyburn Road (now Oxford Street), so called because it bridged the River Tyburn. The name Tyburn apparently derives from a Frisian word meaning ‘boundary stream’; in the early middle ages the river served to define the boundary of Westminster. medieval gallows were frequently erected at lonely crossroads outside towns, where the rotting corpses served as a warning to approaching strangers. The Marble Arch site had been selected for this purpose by 1196, when one William Fitzosbert was dragged through the city to be hanged ‘ad furcas prope Tyburnam’. Later victims included Perkin War­beck in 1496, the Holy Maid of Kent in 1534 and Jonathan Wild in 1725; the latter drew a record audience of over 200,000 spectators who crowded into special galleries facing the triangular gallows and saw the arch-thief pick a corkscrew from the parson’s pocket on the very scaffold and die clasping it unrepentantly. The last execution at Tyburn took place in 1783.

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The word tyburn is Saxon in origin, and there are various theories pertaining to the origin of the name. The second syllable of the word is likely derived from burna, a word that refers to stream or brook. The first syllable, ty, could be derived from the name of the Germanic god Tiw, who was the god of law or refer to the union of two streams, or two streams dividing to surround an area of land. Tyburn could also have been called originally Teoburna, a stream referred to in the Charter of King Edgar in 951, in which case the word could mean ‘boundary stream.’ By the time the Domesday Book was written, Tybourne had evolved to refer to the area now known as Marylebone.
https://medievallondon.ace.fordham.edu/exhibits/show/medieval-london-sites/tyburn
****

Udall Street (Vauxhall Bridge Road 7). Part of the Chapter of Westminster’s land.

 

Ulysses Road, NW6

Undershaft (City 5) leads to the church of St Andrew Undershaft in St Mary-Axe, before whose doors a tall shaft, or maypole, was erected every May Day, its height dwarfing the church which came to be known as under the shaft. The last occasion the shaft was raised was Evil May Day 1517, when violent riots broke out between native apprentices and the foreign residents of the parish. It was taken away and hooked under the eaves of a nearby row of houses thenceforth called Shaft Court (recently renamed Shaft Stairs).

32 years later the shaft was dragged from this resting-place and hacked to pieces by the residents of Shaft Court, after a fervent Protestant curate known as Sir Stephen had preached a public sermon pointing out the heresy of implying that St Andrew’s was inferior to the worldly maypole. ‘I heard his sermon at Paules cross’ wrote Stow, ‘and I saw the effect that followed; the neighbours and tenants over whose doors the said shaft had lain, after they had well dined, to make themselves strong, gathered more help, and with great labour raising the shaft from the hooks, they sawed it in pieces, every man taking for his share so much as had lain over his door … Thus was this idol (as he termed it) mangled, and after burned’.

Unicorn Passage (Bermondsey 5). An old name, derived from an inn or shop-sign. The horn of the unicorn, although purely legendary, was very highly prized as late as the seventeenth century because of the tradition that it would sweat in the presence of poison and also cure the ague. The sign was commonly adopted by inn-keepers, to indicate that the traveller was safe from poison, by goldsmiths as a symbol of great value, and by apothecaries because of its medicinal attributes.

Union Court (City 5) is an alley leading from Wormwood Street to Old Broad Street. ‘Union’ used to be a common name for alleys which simply connected one road to another and had no distinguishing features of their own.

University Street (Bloomsbury 4). The University of London was founded in 1826 on revolutionary new principles: tolerance for all religious faiths, and even, later, tolerance for women, who had to leave lectures at the half time avoid unseemly social intercourse. Part of Hans Mortimer’s field (see Mortimer Market) was chosen for the site, which was approached by the path that has become University Street. The original university is now University College, just one of the dozens of scattered institutions that make up the modern UL, and the administrative headquarters have moved to Senate House in Malet Street.

Upbrook Mews (Bayswater 3). An abbreviation of Upper Brook Mews. The Westbourne brook runs directly underneath.

Upcerne Road (Chelsea 6). Upcerne is a village in Dorset. Connection with Chelsea unknown.

Upper Ground (Southwark 5). The land between here and the Thames was an artificially raised embankment built up to protect the low-lying fields behind from flooding at high ttde. The lane dates back to Norman times and possibly earlier. See also Bankside and Broadwall.

Upper Woburn Place (Bloomsbury 4) is part of an old footpath through the Dukes of Bedford’s property, and isnamed after their Bedfordshire seat: see Bedford Square. The 4th Duke widened it to form a private carriageway connecting with the new Euston Road which was built in 1757, leading through the fields from Bedford House to the ‘New Road from Paddington’. Unfortunately the northern extremity of the path belonged to the Fitzroys, Earls of Euston, the neighbouring landowners and old antagonists of Bedford’s. Fitzroy henchmen nightly sabotaged Bedford’s progress, and gangfights hroke out between the two sets of workers. Until 1891 a gate across Upper Woburn Place maintained the privacy of Bedford’s road and marked the dividing line between the properties.

The Vale (Chelsea 6) stands mainly on the site of a large paddock known as the Vale, attached to Vale Grove (demolished 1912), a villa in Old Church Street.

Vale Close (St John’s Wood 3). A turning out of Maida Vale.

Vale of Health (Hampstead Heath 1) used to be a disease-ridden swamp called Hatches Bottom, uninhabited except for a few paupers in charity cottages. But in about 1800 the hollow was drained, the parish poor forcibly removed and some respectable mansion erected. The name was then changed to attract new residents.

Vandon Street (Westminster 7). Cornelius Van Dun, a native of Breda in Holland, was Yeoman of the Guard to Henry VIII and his children. In 1577 he founded two sets of almshouses near this street, one in Petty France at the Buckingham Gate end and the other on St Ermin’s Hill. They were abolished in the 1850s.

Vane Street (Westminster 7). Part of the Chapter of Westminster’s estate: see Chapter Street, Westminster.

Vauxhall Bridge Road (Pimlico 7). The manor that later became Vauxhall was once the property of Lady Margaret, the wealthy heiress of the Earl of Devon. King John forced her to marry his notorious henchman Falkes de Breaute (died 1226) and all her possessions automatically passed to her husband: hence the name Faukeshall, Falkes’ ball or manor. Fa1kes was ‘a greedy, cruel and overbearing man’, ‘of mean and illegitimate birth’, ‘able, unscrupulous and godless’, who gained the favour of King John by laying waste the eastern counties and burning the suburbs of London in 1215 when war broke out with the barons.

Vauxhall Bridge was opened in 1816 to take patrons to the famous Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. Incidentally, Vauxhall Station has given its name to the Russian word
‘voksal’ meaning ‘railway station’.

Venables Street (Marylebone 3). The Reverend Edward Venables was appointed rector of nearby Christ Church in 1889. This street was named after him immediately after his death in 1891.

Vere Street (Oxford Street 4). The de Veres, Earls of Oxford, were medieval lords of Tyburn Manor, and it may have been a twelfth­ century de Vere who founded the church of St John Tyburn which stood by the site of this street where the River Tyburn crossed Oxford Street (see Marylebone). The line died out in 1703. By coincidence, Edward Harley of Harley Street, a later Earl of Oxford but no relation, acquired the same manor-by then known as Marylebone-and decided almost immediately to build a street named after his predecessors in the earldom and in the lordship of the manor.

Vernon Place (Bloomsbury 4). Mistress Elizabeth Vernon was one of Queen Elizabeth’s Maids of Honour until she became the Earl of Southampton’s secret mistress and left court most dishonourably to conceal her impending maternity. The earl’s decision to marry her did not save him from her majesty’s grave displeasure; as always, the queen was most annoyed to discover that affaires were conducted at court without her knowledge. The couple became ancestors of the Dukes of Bedford, owners of this site: see Bedford Square, Bloomsbury.

Vernon Yard (Portobello Road, Notting Hill). It was Admiral Vernon who captured Portobello (q.v.) from the Spaniards in 1739.

Verulam Street (Gray’s Inn Road 4). Sir Francis Bacon, philosopher, scientist, essayist and statesman, was also the foremost lawyer of his time. He was Treasurer of Gray’s Inn (where the Walks he laid out are still enjoyed today) which is why he is commemorated here. In 1618 he was appointed Lord Chancellor, the highest office in the state, and created Lord Verulam, but success was not to last: three years later rivals had him convicted of bribery and corruption, and Verulam was banished for life from Court and Parliament.

Vicar’s Road (Kentish Town 8) and neighbouring Dale Road are on the site of a field owned by the local parish church of St Pancras. It was built up in the 1860s, like the rest of this area, and dedicated to the Reverend Thomas Dale, Vicar of St Pancras from 1846 until 1860.

Vicarage Gate and Gardens (Kensington 6). There has been a vicar at Kensington since the year 1260, when the monks of Abingdon Abbey, owners of the church and Lords of the Manor (see St Mary Abbot’s Place) ceased to carry out the parochial work themselves. Instead they employed a ‘vicarius’, a ‘proxy’, whose payment was a piece of glebe land. This was almost certainly the site of Vicarage Gate, where Kensington Vicarage is still standing.

Victoria. Queen Victoria, whose long and popular reign coincided with a period of rapid expansion in the London suburbs, has been a very productive source of street names. The A to Z Atlas of London lists 31 current Victoria Roads, 7 Victoria Avenues, and dozens of further variations on the name; and these are but a few compared to the number there were before the London County Council drastically reduced duplicated names in the 1930s. Within the area covered by this book, the most frequent occurrence of the name is in Kensington, with its Victoria Grove, Gardens and Road (2) all in the neighbourhood of Kensington Palace, where the Princess Alexandrina Victoria was born in 1819. Victoria Square (Buckingham Palace Road 7) was formed in 1837, as soon as the 18-year-old queen came to the throne. Victoria Street      (Westminster     7), carved through the notorious slums around Westminster Abbey 1844-1851, gave its name to the railway terminus at its western extremity, which in turn has caused the surrounding neighbourhood to be known simply as Victoria. The Victoria Embankment (vn) was the first of the Thames Embankments, and reclaimed some 30 acres of land from the river. It was begun in 1862 and opened by the Prince of Wales as proxy for his mother eight years later. At the City end the Embankment links up with Queen Victoria Street. Finally, Victoria Avenue, a malodourous little alley leading out of Bishopsgate in the City, was named after the queen on the occasion of her death in 1901 very doubtful honour.

Vigo Street (Mayfair 7) was patriotically named soon after the -British captured Vigo, a Spanish naval base, in 1719.

Villiers Street (Strand 4). After George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham: see Buckingham Street, Strand.

Vincent Square and Street (Westminster 7). Part of the Chapter of Westminster’s estate.

Vine. The London area was once noted for vines, Holborn in particular being mentioned for its vineyards in the Domesday Book. Through the middle ages most religious and noble houses cultivated their own vineyard: for instance Vine Street, near the Minories 5), was the sheltered spot alongside the City wall tended by the Minoresses of St Clare (see Minoriesl. In Holborn the Bishops of Ely (see Ely Place) paid workers twopence a day to harvest grapes in the vineyard attached to their palace. Its site was probably Vine Hill (5), which is approached by Vine Street Bridge. Vineyard Walk, Clerkenwell (5), was part of the precinct of Clerkenwell Nunnery (see Clerkenwell Close); in its natural state Vineyard Walk was sloping ground known as the Mount, bear­ ing row above row of vines. They are shown as late as 1752 on Bowles’ Prospect of London, but soon after­ wards the rich soil was sold for an immense sum, the ground flattened, and the street built. Vine Lane, Bermondsey (5), found as Vine Yard on the earliest maps, probably has a similar origin; it may have been the vineyard attached to the wealthy riverside palace of the Abbot of Battle (see Battle Bridge Lane) or the Prior of Lewes (see Abbots Lane), or to Bermondsey Abbey itself.

Vinery Villas (St John’s Wood 3). A mid-Victorian terrace whose name is probably merely fanciful.

Vintners Place (Upper Thames Street 5) adjoins Vintners’ Hall, founded in 1357, and stands in Vintry Ward, the medieval quarter of the vintners, or wine merchants. The twelfth-century monk Fitzstephen mentions its wine-shops ‘kept in ships and cellars’ and describes with pride a public eating-house, conveniently situated in the same neighbourhood. (He considered the restaurant the last word in civic amenities, and explains how useful such an institution proves when travellers arrive unexpectedly). Wines shipped from the claret country of Gascony and Aquitaine, then in English hands, had to be sold within forty days of arrival here, either from quayside stalls or from the boat itself, because of the lack of warehousing facilities. This unsatisfactory state of affairs lasted until the year 1300, when ‘many fair and large houses, with vaults and cellars for stowage of wines, and lodging of the Burdeaux merchants’ were erected. Vintners still dominated the district when Stow wrote his Survey of London in 1598, but have since deserted it; nowadays most London wholesale wine merchants are to be found in the East End or Southwark, or at Crutched Friars in the City.

Violet Hill (St John’s Wood 3) is all that remains of a medieval lane leading from Lisson Village to Kilburn Priory (q.v.). Both the lane and the flowers which gave it its name dwindled and died when the parallel Abbey Road was cut in the nineteenth century. Although the track itself has largely vanished, its former line still serves as the boundary between the Eyre estate and the Harrow School estate.

Viscount Street (Barbican 5). After Viscount Brackley, son of Lord Bridgewater: see Bridgewater Street, City.

Waithman Street (Pilgrim Street, City). In memory of Robert Waithman, Alderman of this ward, Farringdon, and five times MP for the City. The shawl shop he ran on the corner of Fleet Street and New Bridge Street was so well known that the locality was called Waithman’s Corner. He was buried close by at St Bride’s, Fleet Street, in 1833, where a monument called him ‘the friend of liberty in evil times’.

Wakefield Street (King’s Cross 4). The little area between here and Gray’s Inn Road used to be known as the Hamlet of Pindar a Wakefield, from an old inn in Gray’s Inn Road. It is said that the inn stood there as early as 1517, and certainly not many years later it was described as ‘one great Bricke howse . . . called the Pinder of Wakefield’. The Pinder or Poundkeeper of Wakefield was one of the heroes of the Robin Hood ballads:

In Wakefielde there lives a jolly Pindar,
In Wakefielde all on the greene.
‘There is neither knight nor squire,’ said the Pindar,
‘Nor baron so bold, nor baron so bold,
Dares make a trespass to the town of Wakefielde,
But his pledge goes to the Pinfold’.

In a freak hurricane of 1724 the inn was blown down, burying the landlord’s daughters in the wreckage.

After that the meadows attached to it were let as brickfields to Daniel Harrison, whose grandson built Harrison Street there in about 1802. The Pinder of Wakefield was re-established on the other side of Gray’s Inn Road, where its modern successor still stands.

Wakley Street (Finsbury 5). Shortly after Thomas Wakley was elected MP for Finsbury in 1835, he came to the public notice for his part in the ‘Tolpuddle Martyrs’ affair, when he obtained a pardon for the six Dorset labourers condemned to 14 years transportation simply for resisting a lowering of their wages. Wakley also founded the Lancet, which at first raised a storm of resentment by its attacks on nepotism in the medical profession. He was best known as Mr Coroner Wakley; as a coroner his eccentric habit of holding inquests on the inmates of prisons, workhouses and almshouses caused angry embarassment in high places until his medical and social reforms came to be accepted.

Walbrook (Cannon Street 5) bears the name of a ‘fair brook of sweet water’ flowing down the valley between Cornhill and Ludgate Hill to the Thames. It must have become an open sewer instead of a ‘fair brook’ at an early date, since royal proclamations ordered it to be cleared of ‘dung and other nuisances’ in 1288 and on countless later occasions. It was gradually arched over and had quite disappeared from view by the time of Elizabeth, but has literally popped up again in recent times when the foundations of Cannon Street Underground Station and various modern buildings along its course were being dug.

The name Walbrook, meaning ‘Brook of the Britons’, is of Germanic origin, and probably referred to the pocket of Britons who took refuge on its banks as invading German tribes swept north and south past the deserted City, driving the rest of the native population to the west, where they set up their own kingdoms of Cornwall and Wales. ‘Wealh’ originally meant ‘foreigner’, and was used to describe the non-Germanic Walloons in Belgium and Wallachians in Romania. In Anglo-Saxon it meant both ‘Briton’ and ‘slave’, which indicates the low status of the Britons who did not escape the conquerors.

Walcott Street (Westminster 7). So named shortly after the death of the Reverend Mackenzie Walcott (1822-1880), the curate of St Margaret’s Westminster and a local historian, whose Memorials of Westminster appeared in 1851.

Wallgrave Road (Earl’s Court 6). In 1856 Charles William Wallgrave of King’s Road Chelsea invested in this plot of land at Earl’s Court. Four years later he decided to build Wallgrave Road, and wrote to the local Parish Vestry in some perplexity to say that the drains at Earl’s Court appeared to be blocked, since all the sewage from the cottages in Kenway Road was overflowing onto his ground. The vestry blithely replied that this was not surprising, since there were no sewers at Earl’s Court. Nor did they intend to do anything about it – clearly a class of people so depraved as to live in houses without sanitation must be left to suffer from the folly of their ways.

Wallingford Avenue (North Kensington 2) was so named in 1905 by the London County Council for a very devious reason: medieval Kensington belonged to the Earls of Oxford (see Earl’s Court), and the lOth Earl was Steward of V\Tallingford Honour in 1375.

Walmer Road (North Kensington 2) first appears on the maps in 1852, the year the great Duke of Wellington suddenly died at Walmer Castle in Kent.

Walpole Street (Chelsea 7). The great Georgian minister Sir Robert Walpole lived at what is now the Royal Hospital Infirmary in nearby Royal Hospital Road from 1723 until his death in 1745. There the cynical statesman could relax and become a charming host. Pope, a frequent visitor to Chelsea, described him in his happier hour:

Of social pleasure, ill-exchanged for power;
Seen him uncumbered by the venal tribe,
Smile without art, and win without
a bribe.

Walterton Road (Maida Hill 2) was begun in 1867. Origin of name unknown.

Walton Place and Street (South Kensington 6). After George Walton Onslow: see Onslow Square, South Kensington.

Warden Road (Kentish Town 8). So named in 1864, probably after its builder or owner.

Wardour Street (Soho 7). An ancient highway, dating back to Tudor times and beyond, when it was usually called Colman Hedge Lane. In 1631 Colman Hedge Close, the field which had given the lane its name, was purchased by Sir Edward Wardour, a prominent official of the Exchequer. Sir Edward died in 1647 and the Close descended to his grandson, another Edward Wardour, who developed the property in the 1680s with the help of Thomas Green, a paviour, Richard Hopkins, a plasterer and Richard Tyler, a brick­ maker: hence Green’s Court, Hopkins Street and Tyler’s Court on the site of Colman Hedge Close.

Wardrobe Place and Terrace (Queen Victoria Street, City) wind through the site of the sprawling Royal Wardrobe, purchased by Edward III in 1359 to house ‘cloaths of state, beds, hangings and other necessaries’ for the royal family and their official guests. The Wardrobe was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666.

Warlock Road (Maida Hill 2) was built in 1868. Origin unknown.

Warner Street (Clerkenwell 5) was originally a country path beside the River Fleet. It passed through Coldbath Fields, the property of Walter Baynes: see Coldbath Square. By 1720 John Warner esquire of St Clement Danes had purchased a joint share in the land, which he left to his son Robert at his death in 1721. Baynes and Robert Warner divided the fields into building lots and leased them to Richard Baker, a carpenter from St Pancras, who built Warner Street and Baker’s Row three years later. Part of Coldbath Fields belonged to the Warner family until 1811.

Warrington Crescent (Paddington 3) dates ftom 1864. Connection with Warrington in Lancashire unknown.

Warwick Court (High Holborn 4). Here stood the town mansion of Robert Rich, an Elizabethan lawyer of Gray’s lnn, who was admitted into the peerage owing to his great wealth under the title of Earl of Warwick. The house descended to his son the 2nd Earl, a Republican leader in the Civil War, and in 1673 to his grandson, Earl of Warwick and Holland and Baron Kensington, who gave his name to Warwick Gardens and Road in Kensington. After that Warwick House in High Holborn was abandoned in favour of the newer Holland House in Kensington, and in about 1688 it was demolished to make way for this street.

Warwick House Street (Trafalgar Square 7). Sir Philip Warwick, a Royalist supporter throughout the Civil War and the Commonwealth, was rewarded for his loyalty at the Restoration when Charles II granted him a plot of land at the end of this lane as a site for his town house (now replaced by the United Service Club). It was situated conveniently close to the Treasury, which, to his contemporaries’ bemusement, Sir Philip controlled for many years without lining his own pockets unduly: ‘I honour the man with all my heart’ said Pepys. It was probably at Warwick House that Sir Philip wrote his major work, the Memoires of the Reigne of King Charles I, with a continuation to the happy Restauration of King Charles II.

Warwick Lane (City 5). On the east side of this street stood the town house of the Earl of Warwick, ‘the Kingmaker’. In the Wars of the Roses Warwick first fought to put Edward IV on the throne, then changed his mind and restored Henry VI. Edward had his revenge, defeating and killing Warwick in 1471. At the height of his power, Warwick lodged 600 retainers at Warwick Lane, and old chroniclers tell of breakfasts there when six oxen were consumed at a sitting.

Warwick Street (Soho 7). Origin unknown. So called by 1681, although the road existed at least a century earlier, being part of an ancient track from Oxford Street to the Haymarket (now Kingly Street, Warwick Street and Glasshouse Street).

Warwick Way (Pimlico 7) was the earliest path across the swampy wastes of Pimlico, being the track from Westminster Abbey to the Abbot’s medieval country residence, the Neat Manor House at the western end of Warwick Way: see Neathouse Place. For centuries the path was known as Willow Way, a name preserved in nearby Willow Street (q.v.). Origin of present name: see Tachbrook Street, Pimlico.

Warwick Yard (Whitecross Street 5). An old yard of unknown origin.

Water Street (near the Strand). Several Water Streets used to lead down to the Thames before the Embankments were made, but this is the only one which has survived. At the bottom of the lane was a flight of steps descending to the water, and a map of 1720 drawn for Strype’s Survey of London shows a cluster of boats tied up there. Strype describes Water Street as ‘a Place much pestered with Carts and Carrs, for the bringing of Coals and other Goods from the Wharfs by the Water side’.

Watergate (City 5) was originally one of London’s many Water Streets, running down to the Thames before the Embankment was built.

Watergate Walk (Buckingham Street, Strand 4) was the north bank of the Thames until the building of the Embankment. Halfway along stands the watergate erected in 1626 for George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who had recently acquired a riverside mansion here. The stone gate now stands high and dry some 150 yards from the river, but once Buckingham, James I’s angel-faced young favourite, used to step through it from his gardens into the boat that would take him to his adoring king at Whitehall. Only two years later, still in his prime but detested by the people for his corrupting influence over the king, Buckingham was assassinated in a Portsmouth dockyard.

Waterloo. Waterloo Bridge (4) was opened on June 18th 1817, the second anniversary of Wellington’s great victory. The bridge is approached by Wellington Street on the north and Waterloo Road on the south. Waterloo Place, Regent Street (7), was begun shortly after the battle.

Watling Street (City 5). Various attempts have been made to connect this Watling Street in the City with the Roman Dover-Chester road of the same name, now called Edgware Road, but it is unlikely that the two were ever part of the same route since it now appears that the Dover­ Chester road by-passed the City altogether. Moreover, until about 1300 the City thoroughfare was known as Atheling Street, i.e. Prince’s or Noble Street (cf. Addle Hill), which was corrupted to Watheling, then Watling.

Watson’s Mews (Marylebone 3). Unlike nearby Sherlock Mews, this has no connection with Conan Doyle’s characters: see Harcourt Street, Marylebone.

Wavel Mews (Hampstead 1). In a detailed Survey of Hampstead made in 1838, Thomas Bruce Wavel was shown as the owner of several scattered fields in the parish.

Waverley. The Waverley Novels of Sir Walter Scott were published 1814-1831. Scott died in 1832, and Waverley Place (St John’s Wood 3) was completed soon afterwards.

Waverley Road, Terrace and Walk (Westbourne Green 2) followed a year or two later.

Waverton Street (Mayfair 7) lies partly on the Grosvenor estate: see Grosvenor Square, Mayfair.

Weaver’s Lane (Berrnondsey 5) was so called at least 300 years ago. Its name may be occupational: cf. adjacent Potters Fields.

Wedderburn Road (Hampstead 1). After Alexander Wedderburn, Earl of Rosslyn: see Rosslyn Hill, Hamp­ stead.

Weech Road (North Hampstead 1) belonged to Henry Weech Burgess: see Burgess Hill, North Hampstead.

Weedington Road (Kentish Town 8). Thomas Weeding, a City merchant, started to buy up a number of plots here in 1840 when the manorial lands at Kentish Town were auctioned in lots. He began the street shortly afterwards, and for some time Weedington Road remained deep in the country, surrounded by fields. Perhaps Weeding envisaged a whole complex of streets belonging to him, a Weeding Town, and therefore added ton to the street name. If so, the project had not materialised by the time of his death in 1856.

Weighbouse Street (Mayfair 7). The King’s Weigh House Chapel moved here in 1891. Its original premises in 1697 were at Little Eastcheap in the City, in a room above the King’s Weigh House, where all ‘Merchant Strangers’ had their goods compulsorily weighed by the King’s Beam so that their customs dues could be estimated.

The most celebrated minister at the Weigh House was Thomas Binney (1798-1874), described as ‘the great Dr Binney’, ‘the great Dissenting bishop• and ‘a giant every way’, defender and protagonist of nineteenth-century dissent. Binney Street, a turning out of Weighhouse Street, was named after him in 1939.

Weir’s Passage (Somers Town 4) probably took its name from Alexdander Weir, the landlord of a tavern in Euston Road backing on to this passage when it was first formed in about 1800.

Welbeck Street and Way (Maryle­ bone 4). After the dissolution of the monasteries, Welheck Abbey in Nottinghamshire came into the hands of the Cavendish family, and was part of the dowry of Lady Henrietta Cavendish when she married Edward Harley: see Harley Street.

Well Court (Queen Street, City) was a source of public water supply in Roman times. Seven Roman wells, dating from the 1st to the 3rd century, were found on the site of Aldermary House adjoining Well Court. Just opposite is the Bank of London & South America, where 14 Roman wells have been discovered.

Wells continued to be dug in the area through the middle ages, and this alley had gained its name from them by 1677.

Well Road, Walk and Passage (Hampstead 1).
Drink Traveller and with Strength renewed
Let a kind Thought be given
To her who has thy thirst subdued
Then render Thanks to Heaven

reads the inscription on the dried-up fountain in Well Walk. After this spring was discovered in 1698, the Lady of the Manor, the mother of the 3rd Earl of Gaiosborough, donated it with six acres of surrounding land ‘for the sole use, benefit, and advantage of the poor of the Parish of Hampstead’. She increased the charity’s income by exploiting the spot as a spa, similar to Tunbridge Wells and Bath. A fashionable pump room and Assembly Rooms were opened, a bowling green and pleasure gardens
occupied the site of Gainsborough Gardens, and the well water was sold in flasks all over London: see Flask Walk. Later when the spring became contaminated the fountain had to be stopped up, but these streets and Gainsborough Gardens still belong to the Wells Charity.

Wellers Court (King’s Cross 4) occupies a small field built up by William and Richard Weller, described as pump makers of Portpool Lane, in 1788. It was a time of rapid
ribbon development radiating from King’s Cross.

Wellesley Place and Road (Kentish Town 8). Begun in about 1852, the year Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, died.

Wellington. The Duke of Wellington provided such a productive source of street names for nineteenth-century builders that he almost came to rival the royal family in this respect. The A to Z Atlas of London lists nearly forty Wellington Avenues, Crescents and so on, besides 17 streets inspired by the Duke’s family name of Welles­ ley.The battles of Salamanca, Douro and Waterloo have all left their names on the London map, and there are still over thirty Wellington or Duke of Wellington pubs in London. After Waterloo, Wellington, like Churchill after the 2nd World War, lost a lot of support during an unsuccessful term as Tory Prime Minister, and there were violent demonstrations near Apsley House, his town home at Hyde Park Corner.

However, also like Churchill, public respect for his military leadership remained undiminished, and streets and pubs named Apsley and Walmer, after his country residence of Walmer Castle in Kent, continued to appear through his declining years.

Wellington Street, Strand (4), is an approach road to Waterloo Bridge, q.v. Wellington Road, St John’s Wood (3), was formed in the late eighteenth century to provide a new way to StJohn’s Wood Farm on the site of StJohn’s Wood Station, but it was not named until a few years after Waterloo. Wellington Close, Notting Hill (2), adjoins a Walmer Castle pub which opened in about 1852, the year the Duke died at the Castle. Wellington Square, Chelsea (7), also dates from shortly after 1852, and was named to commemorate the fact that the body was brought to Chelsea Hospital for the lying-in-state before the funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral.

Wells Rise (Prince Albert Road 8) was designed to lead up to Barrow Hill Reservoir and was originally called Reservoir Road. The present name may refer to the reservoir, or there may have been an older well on this site.

Wells Street (Oxford Street 4). When Josias Berners (see Berners Street) purchased the field on the east side of Wells Street in 1654, the land was described as ‘nowe or late in the occupacon of George Wells or his tenant or tenants’. At that time the street was an access-way to the fields, and was known as Wells Lane.

Wesley Street (Marylebone 3). Charles Wesley came to 1 Wheatley Street, a few yards from here, in 1771, and used it as his base for the remaining 17 years of his life. He wrote and taught the hymns that thousands of villagers sang to keep alive the message of his brother John; among them were Hark the Herald Angels sing and Jesu lover of my soul.

Wesleyan Place (Kentish Town 8). A little Wesleyan Chapel, removed in 1828, used to occupy the site of this alley.

West Central Street (Holborn 4)was so named in 1894, being almost on the boundary between the WCl and WC2 postal districts. The Postmaster-General divided London into the postal divisions (W, NW, SW, N, E, SE, WC and EC) in 1856, announcing that ‘it must be obvious that the general use of the correct initials would very much contribute to a rapid and accurate delivery of letters’. The innovation provided some means of distinguishing between the 42 King Streets, 32 John Streets, 25 Queen Streets and 24 William Streets that existed in London in 1856.

West Cottages (Hampstead I) is situated at the heart of the old hamlet of West End, and used to face the village green and the local pond in the middle of West End Lane. West End retained its isolated village-like character until the end of the nineteenth century.

West End Lane (West Hampstead 1). West End was formerly an isolated little hamlet clustered round the point where the Kilburn stream crosses the Lane. In a survey of the monastic lands made for Henry VIII, ‘le Westende’ was recorded as a simple ‘tenement or ferme’ held by the nuns of Kilburn Priory. It was situated at the western end of Hampstead parish: see also South End and North End, Hampstead.

West Harding Street (City 5). Widow Agas Hardinge owned gardens and fields stretching from Shoe Lane to Fetter Lane, which she bequeathed to the Goldsmiths’ Company in 1513 on condition ‘that they should yearly give and pay, weekly, for ever, to two poor widows of goldsmiths, one penny each’. The Goldsmiths built East and West Harding Streets and the surrounding neighbourhood in the 1650s, showing remarkable lack of foresight in the names of the other streets : New Street Square and Hill, and Great and Little New Streets. Pemberton Row, however, is named in honour of Lord Mayor Sir James Pemberton, who left £200 for the poor of the Goldsmiths’ Company exactly a century after Mistress Hardinge, in 1613. The Goldsmiths are still ground landlords here, but the weekly twopence for the poor widows has been diverted to other causes.

West Heath Road (Hampstead 1). Hampstead West Heath lies open on the north side of this old road.

West Mews (Pimlico 7). So named in 1936; previously Warwick Place Mews West.

West Poultry Avenue (Smithfield 5) is the roadway through the poultry section of Smithfield Meat Market.

West Smithfield (City 5). Named to distinguish it from East Smithfield, the Smooth Field just east of the City, by the Tower: see Smithfield Street, City.

West Street (Charing Cross Road 7) was part of the medieval highway from St Giles-in-the-Fields village to Charing Cross, the main route north from Westminster until Charing Cross Road was built.

Perhaps so called because it lies on the western boundary of the parish of St Giles.

Westbourne Park (2-3) The early medieval village of ‘Westeburne’ was the settlement lying west of the bourne, or stream, as opposed to its sister village, Paddington, on the east bank; the bourne marked the boundary between the two manors.

This river rises in Hampstead, where it is called the Kilburn; further south it was originally known as the Bayswater Rivulet, and later as the Westbourne, taking over the name of the village.

Leaving Hyde Park, where it was dammed in 1730 to form the Serpentine, it passes under Knightsbridge to enter the Thames beside Ranelagh Gardens. Now called the Ranelagh Sewer all along its length, the Westbourne still drains the rainwater from its original catchment area-the outfall into the Thames is visible at low tide. See also Bourne Street.

Westbourne Park Road is an ancient lane which used to wind through the fields of Westbourne Farm. The other streets in this area, Westbourne Bridge, Crescent, Gardens, Grove, Grove Terrace, Park Villas, Street, Terrace and Terrace Road, to name only the most important, are of Victorian origin, and have spread over to the east side of the bourne.

Western Mews (Kensal Town 2). A turning out of Great Western Road.

Westminster (7) takes its name from its Abbey, the minster or monastery to the west of London, perhaps so called to distinguish it from St Paul’s Cathedral in the east. There was a church here on Thorney Island (see Thorney Street) by the eighth century -a charter dated 785 mentions ‘Torneia in loco terribili, quod dicitur aet Westmunster’-but the real founder of the abbey was Edward the Confessor who started to build his great edifice on the site of the present church in about 1050.

Westmoreland Buildings (Aldersgate Street 5) marks the site of Westmoreland House, the town residence of the Nevills, Earls of Westmoreland, one of the many aristocratic man­ sions which lined Aldersgate. In 1657 Aldersgate was renowned for ‘the spaciousness and uniformity of buildings, and straightness thereof, with the convenient distance of the houses; on both sides whereof there are divers fair ones’. But conditions had changed by the time of Seymour’s Survey of London eighty years later, when ‘the politeness of the Town is far removed from hence.’ Westmoreland House was therefore demolished in about 1760 after having been long divided into apartments.

Westmoreland Street (Marylebone (3) was built and named in the late eighteenth century. Origin unknown.

Weston Rise (Pentonville 4). John Weston lived in a large house in Penton Rise, and leased the field behind it, on which he built Weston Street in about 1790, from the Penton family.

Weymouth Street (Marylebone 4). The 3rd Viscount Weymouth married Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, ‘an agreeable, engaging creature’, whose main asset was probably her brother’s rich estate at Marylebone, then being developed. Weymouth made his share of the profits from the estate by undertaking to build houses on plots of land which he leased­ naming a street after himself in the process.

Wharncliffe Gardens (StJohn’s Wood 3) was built in 1896 by the Wharncliffe Dwellings Company to house some of the three thousand Londoners whose homes were destroyed when the Marylebone terminus of the Great Central Railway was constructed. The 3rd Baron Wharncliffe was then chairman of the Great Central, the railway his grandfather, the 1st Baron, had founded sixty years before.

Wharton Street (Clerkenwell 4) dates from the 1820s. Origin unknown.

Wheatley Street (Marylebone 3) was named in 1935 after a former Marylebone resident: Francis Wheatley, a successful painter of small portraits and the illustrator of The Cries of London, who came to live in Marylebone at 23 Welbeck Street in 1795. A few years later he moved a short distance to Queen Anne Street, and he died in 1801 in Mortimer Street, Marylebone.

Whetstone Park (Holborn 4). In about 1636 William Whetstone, a Holborn tobacconist and a Vestryman of St Giles-in-the-Fields, built up the narrow strip of vacant land between High Holborn and Lincoln’s Inn Fields, in defiance of the Royal Proclamations forbidding new suburban development. His property soon became a notorious nursery of vice and crime, being a secluded alley conveniently near the wealth of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. A playwright of 1675 punned that there were no deer in this ‘park’, but does [i.e. prostitutes) aplenty if one had a mind to them.

Whidbourne Street (King’s Cross 4). In 1891 the slum properties on the north side of Cromer Street were purchased by the East End Dwellings Company, whose ‘improved industrial dwellings ‘ still occupy the site. Four parallel streets intersect the dwellings and are called Whidbourne, Midhope, Taukerton and Loxham, probably after directors of the Company.

Whitcher Place (Camden Town 8). John Whitcher of Camden Road leased a plot of land from Lord Camden in 1864. It was then described as ‘garden ground, coach-house and stables’.

Whitcomb Street (Soho 7), dating back to Tudor times, is first found under its present name in 1675. William Whitcomb was a brewer by trade who went into the speculative building business. He started to lease plots for development along the west side of this street from Sir James Oxenden and Thomas Panton (see Oxendon Street and Panton Street) in 1673.

White Bear Place (New End, Hamp­ stead). Ye Olde White Bear, dating back to 1704, is one of the oldest of Hampstead’s inns.

White Conduit Street (Pentonville 5). The ‘White Conduit was ‘a neat little cottage-looking building of white stone’, rebuilt in 1641 on the site of a medieval conduit (see Conduit) which piped water to the monks of the Charterhouse at Clerkenwell. Beside it was the White Conduit Tavern, a popular country tea-garden within easy reach of town, featuring concerts, archery, balloon ascents and bowls. The tavern was demolished in 1849, having long out-lived the conduit itself, and Culpeper Street was built across the grounds. A later White Conduit pub now occupies part of the site.

White Hart Court (Bishopsgate, City) marks the former courtyard of the Whyte Harte, ‘a fair inn for receipt of travellers’ built in 1480 and demolished in 1829 to make way for Liverpool Street. There is a smaller modern White Hart beside the Court.

White Hart Yard (Borough High Street 5) was the stable-yard behind the White Hart inn, probably founded during the reign of Richard II (1377-1399), whose emblem was a white hart. In 1450 Jack Cade established the headquarters of his rebellion at the White Hart, and filled the inn with the slain and the condemned dragged in by his fol­ lowers. Dickens’ Mr Pickwick first meets Sam Weller at the White Hart, as Sam cleans boots early ·in the morning before anyone stirs in the double tier of galleried bedrooms, although down below the yard is already prepared for the day’s waggoners and carriers arriving and departing with their loads. The White Hart was demolished in 1889.

White Horse Street (Piccadilly 7) was built in about 1737 and named after an inn on the corner with Piccadilly. Piccadilly was lined with inns and taverns at that period (see Half Moon Street), no less than three of them known by the sign of the White Horse, the emblem of the royal House of Hanover.

White Horse Yard (Coleman Street 5). From a long-vanished White Horse Inn which stood on the west side of Coleman Street in the seventeenth century.

White Kennett Street (City 5) commemorates Dr White Kennett, the rector at nearby St Botolph Aldgate from 1700 until 1707, who later became a well-known Bishop of Peterborough.

White Lion Court (Cornhill, City) marks the site of the White Lion tavern, burnt to the ground in 1765- after being sold for £3,000 the previous day.

White Lion Street (Islington High Street 5). The White Lion inn on the comer with Islington High Street is very much older than the street, which was built 1770-1780. A ‘Whyte Lyon’ stood here on the busy road to Sruithfield by at least 1594 and perhaps earlier. The present building -now boarded up and empty, like its famous neighbour, the Angel­ has two carved white lions outside marked with the dates of reconstruction, 1714 and 1898.

Whitecross Street (City 5) was Whitecruchestrete as early as 1226, named from a white stone cross here. A cross is drawn on Agas’ map of about 1560 in the middle ‘of the road at the point where ‘Whitcros Str’ meets ‘Olde Str’.

Whitefriars Street (Fleet Street 5). The Friars of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (hence Carmelite Street), known as White Friars from their white robes, carne to England in 1241 and settled on the land between this medieval lane and the Temple. Within the walled precinct was firstly their cemetery alongside Fleet Street, then to the south of the cemetery a church on the site of the Punch office in Bouverie Street, then the monastic buildings-a portion of which can still be seen in the cellars of the News of the World premises­ and gardens stretching to the Thames. A relic of their shaded cloister walks survives in the name Ashentree Court, off Whitefriars Street. The privilege of religious sanctuary linw gered at Wbitefriars long after the Friary was dissolved.and the precinct became a den of debtors and law­evaders: see Lombard Lane.

Whitehall (7), now a street name, was originally the name of the riverside Palace of the English kings from Henry VIII to William III. It was previously York Place. the medieval town palace of the Archbishops of York, including Cardinal Wolsey, who lived there in sumptuous splen· dour. At Wolsey’s downfall in 1529 it passed into the hands of the king, as Shakespeare relates in Henry VIII:

You must no more call it York­ Place; that’s past;
For, since the Cardinal fell, that title’s lost:
‘Tis now the King’s, and call’d Whitehall.

It may have been named from the whiteness of its stones, but apparently ‘whitehall’ was the usual sixteenth­ century term for a banqueting hall.

The rambling palace was burnt to the ground in 1698 and never rebuilt, and by chance the only portion to survive was the Banqueting House, at present the Royal United Service Institution.

Whitehall Court and Place were not part of the palace precinct and have only been so called since fairly recent times; they were originally in Scotland Ground: see Great Scotland Yard. Whitehall Gardens is on the site of the King’s Privy Gardens in the palace.

Whitehaven Street (Marylebone 3) was Little Carlisle Street (see Carlisle Mews) unti1 1937, when Carlisle was replaced by another Cumberland town because the London County Council was trying to eliminate prefixed street names.

Whitehead’s Grove (Chelsea 7). In 1810 William Whithead, a builder, leased Chelsea Common from Lord Cadogan, the Lord of the Manor, and immediately laid out this street and the surrounding neighbourhood for development. The Whiteheads’ family home was 27 Whitehead’s Grove unti1 1869.

Whitestone Lane (Hampstead 1) and the Whitestone Pond take their name from the old white milestone standing half hidden by bushes in a little enclosure just south of the pond. It reads ‘IV Miles from St Giles’ Pound;

4½ Miles, 29 yards from Holborn Bars’.

Whitfield Street (near Tottenham Court Road 4). George Whitefield (1714-1770), the evangelist, founded Whitefield’s Tabernacle in Tottenham Court Road in 1756. He was a few years younger than John Wesley, and like him was ordained in the Church of England, but expelled from it because of his unorthodox ideas. Also like Wesley he travelled around the country for years preaching the Methodist doctrines and contributed greatly to the evangelical revival. The original Tabernacle is shown on Rocque’s map of 1761; it was destroyed by bombs in the 2nd World War but has since been reopened.

Whittaker Street (Pimlico 7). John Whittaker acquired this site for development from the Grosvenor family, the ground landlords, in 1836. He was a builder based at premises just round the corner in Bourne Street.

Whittington Avenue (Leadenhall Market 5). Richard Whittington, the Gloucestershire country boy who made an enormous fortune as a City Mercer and became Lord Mayor of London at least three times, has gained immortality as a pantomime hero largely because of his lavish bequests to the City. He died in 1423 but many of ills charities, such as the Whittington Almshouses now in Sussex, are still administered by the Mercers’ Company. Whittington is commemorated in this street because there is a tradition that he purchased the Leaden Hall here in 1408, and gave it to the City as a market.

Widegate Street (City 5). An old lane which probably took its name from a gate into the Artillery Ground situated at its east end: see Artillery.

Wigmore Place and Street (Marylebone 4). In 1601 the Harley family purchased Wigmore Castle in Herefordshire, once the baronial hall of the powerful Mortimers, one of whom became Edward IV. Statesman Robert Harley was later created Baron Harley of Wigmore and Earl Mortimer. His son Edward, who married the heiress of Marylebone Manor, then built Wigmore Street and Mortimer Street on her land.

Wilbraham Place (Chelsea 7). Origin unknown.

Wilby Mews (Nolting Hill 2) is probably connected with Benjamin Wilby of Soho Square, who was involved in several development schemes in this area in the early nineteenth century.

Wild Court and Street (Holborn 4). In 1640 Humphrey Weld, wealthy son of an ex-Lord Mayor of London, bought a newly built mansion standing alone in a field called Aldwych Close. At that time Wild Street was just a cart-track approaching the house, but within a few years rapid suburban expansion saw the street completely built up and corrupted to its present name. Hollar’s map of 1658 shows Weld House, large and imposing, built around two courtyards, surrounded by rows of lesser houses. Humphrey Weld was still living there in 1675, but soon afterwards Weld House was subdivided into a number of smaller apartments.

Wildwood Grove (North Hampstead 1) and Wyldes Close are part of the district originally known as ‘Weildes’ or ‘ Wildswoode\ first mentioned in 1450. The name probably derives from weald, ‘forest’ or ‘woodland’, still appropriate in this rural spot.

William Street (Knightsbridge 7). After William Lowndes.

Willingham Close and Terrace (Cam­ den Town 8). Probably named after the builder of the Terrace (c.1870).

Willoughby Road (Hampstead I) was once part of the grounds of Carlile House, which became the home of a lawyer called Edward Carlile in 1814. His daughter Janette married Benjamin Edward Willoughby, and their five children inherited the estate jointly. The Willoughbys sold the house and gardens in 1875 to the British Land Company, who cleared the site for building development. The other streets on the estate – Denning, Carlingford and Kemplay Roads and Rudall Crescent-were probably named after trustees or associates of the British Land Company.

Willow Place (Westminster 7). So called because it was a turning out of the ancient Willow Walk, now prosaically renamed Warwick Way. The Willow Walk was the main track to Neat Manor House (see Neathouse Place) and is first found on a plan dated 1614, although it is probably very much older than that. The walk crossed low-lying swamp ground drained by a network of ditches; a ditch ran along either side of the track, and beside each stretched a row of pollard willows, which disappeared when the area was prepared for development in the 1830s.

Willow Road (Hampstead 1). A row of willows still lines the north side of this old street.

Wilmington Square and Street (Clerk­enwell 5): see Northampton Square, Clerkenwell.

Wilmot Place (Camden Town 8) was erected in the 1840s and probably named after its builder.

Wilsham Street (North Kensington 2). This name was chosen by the landowner in 1920, but its derivation is unknown.

Wilton Crescent, Place, Row, Road, Street and Terrace (Belgravia and Pimlico). Part of the great Grosvenor estate.

Wimpole Street (Marylebone 4). Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire was purchased by John Holies, Duke of Newcastle, in 1710, the year he also bought the Manor of Marylebone. The Hall became part of the dowry of his daughter Henrietta, who married Edward Harley. Harley, an avid bibliophile, enlarged and improved the Library at Wimpole, but his book collection devoured so much of his fortune that in 1740 he had to sell Wimpole to pay off a debt of £100,000. By that time he had built and named this street.

Winchester Square and Walk (Southwark 5). The first Bishop of Winchester to be concerned with Southwark was St Swithun, Chancellor to King Ethelwolf, who founded a Priory (now Southwark Cathedral) adjoining this site in about AD 862. One of his successors, Bishop William Gifford, built Winchester House here next to the Priory in about 1107. It was a large manor house in the traditional style, with a Hall and outbuildings placed round a courtyard which is now called Winchester Square. Beyond were orchards and kitchen gardens, crossed by the path that has become Winchester Walk.

It was at Winchester House that Thomas a Becket stopped to visit the Bishop of Winchester before his fatal journey to Canterbury. The last Bishop to live here was Lancelot Andrewes, who died in 1626. After that the house was not demolished but subdivided, and parts of the medieval walls still exist in the old buildings in Clink Street and Win· chester Square. Besides the house, the Bishops owned a large stretch of Southwark known as Winchester Park: see Park Street, Southwark.

Windmill Hill (Hampstead 1). On the crest of the hill stood Hampstead’s manorial windmill, where fourteenth-century feudal tenants were required to take their com to be ground by Jolm the Miller. From the careful accounts he submitted to the Lord of the Manor, it appears that the mill was a valuable one, worth 33 shillings yearly in dues paid by the peasants. A windmill remained on the hill until the early eighteenth century.

Windmill Street (Tottenharn Court Road 4) perpetuates the memory of an early windmill, perhaps the feudal mill of the Manor of Tottenham Court, which stood where Charlotte Street now meets Windmill Street. The street was originally part of a Tudor path across the fields to the mill, now traceable as Store Street, the passage through London University’s Senate House and Guilford Street. The mill was still standing in about 1745, when Nollekens the sculptor was taken there on country walks as a boy, and had to pay the miller a halfpenny for permission to cross his grounds.

Windsor Place (Westminster 7). From the Windsor Castle pub (now The Cardinal) on the corner with Francis Street.

Wine Office Court (Fleet Street 5). The office for licences to sell wine stood here until it was burnt down in the Great Fire of 1666.

Winnett Street (Wardour Street, Soho) was called Upper Rupert Street until 1935, a period when the London County Council abolished a large number of names prefixed by ‘Upper’ or ‘Lower’. It was renamed as a memorial to the late William Winnett, an ex-Alderman of the City of Westroinster, whose family business, Winnett and Son, had been situated here.

Winsland Street (Paddington 3) leads to St Mary’s Hospital, whose foundation stone was laid in 1845. Builders were then invited to send in estimates for its construction; nine were submitted, and Mr Winsland’s accepted, it being the lowest tender offered.

Winsley Street (Oxford Street 4) was built in 1746. Origin unknown.

Winterton Place (Chelsea 6). In 1797 one William Winterton esquire leased from the Cadogan family, Lords of Chelsea Manor (see Cadogan), a plot of ground for ‘a new intended street to be called Winterton Row’.

Wither’s Place (Whitecross Street 5) was built in about 1730, when William Wythers Esquyre’ is recorded as a property owner in Whitecross Street.

Wood Street (Cheapside 5), so called as early as 1156, was probably the part of Cheapside market where firewood was sold.

Wood’s Mews (Mayfair 7). One Richard Wood of Hampstead leased plots of building land here from the Grosvenor family in 1731, when the Grosvenor Square district was being developed.

Woodchester Square (Westbourne Green 3) and Cirencester Street were built in the 1850s by Heury Daniel Clarke, a London plumber and glazier, on behalf of the owner, Richard Clarke, perhaps his father, who was a farmer at Woodchester near Cirencester in Gloucestershire.

Woodfall Street (Chelsea 7) was named after a distinguished Chelsea resident, Henry Sampson Woodfall, journalist, who was made editor and printer of the Public Advertiser at the age of 19. On retiring from the paper in 1793, 35 years later, he came to live in Cheyne Walk, where he stayed until his death in 1805.

Woodfield Gardens, Place and Road (Westbourne Park 2) were built in the 1840s on the Wood Field, one of the fields of Westbourne Farm. On the other side of Harrow Road were the Elm Field, the Oak Tree Field and the Ashgroves, which survived until about 1868.

Woodstock Mews (Westmoreland Street, Marylebone). The Dukes of Portland, once owners of the Harley estate at Marylebone, are also Viscounts Woodstock: see Harley Street.

Woodstock Street (Oxford Street 4). When the district immediately west of New Bond Street was laid out for development in 1719, Thomas Woodstock, a Soho bricklayer, contracted to erect houses on several dozen building plots. He began Woodstock Street in about 1721.

Worcester Place (Upper Thames Street 5). Here stood Worcester House, the home of John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester and Constable of England. He is remembered for his great brutality in 1470, when he hanged, drew, quartered, beheaded and then impaled Warwick’s supporters, ‘for the whiche the peple of the londe were gretely displeysyd’ and nicknamed him ‘Butcher of England’. He was beheaded for high treason on Tower Hill a few months later. After the death of his son in 1485 Worcester House was divided into tenements.

World’s End Passage (Chelsea 6). A very old path from the Thames to the World’s End Inn in King’s Road. The World’s End was a well-known resort by the time of Charles II, and was probably So called from its position beyond the outskirts of Chelsea village.

Wormwood Street (Bishopsgate 5) skirted the strip of wasteland just inside the city Wall that was left clear of houses to a depth of 16 feet for defensive purposes. Medieval Londoners grew medicinal herbs on these strips; wormwood was used as a tonic and also in the preparation of wine: the word ‘vermouth’, a wine flavoured with wormwood, is a French corruption of ‘wormwood’. See also Camomile Street.

Wornington Road (North Kensington 2) was built by the Land & House Investment Society in 1867, and probably named after one of the Society’s directors or trustees.

Woronzow Road (St John’s Wood 3). Count Simon Woronzow, born in Moscow in 1744, was sent to England as Russian Ambassador, and decided to settle in Marylebone. When he died in !832 he left £500 for the parish poor, which was spent on almshouses in St John’s Wood Terrace, and this adjoining street was named after the benefactor.

The almshouses were rebuilt in 1965.

Worship Street (Finsbury 5). This Tudor lane took its name from John Worsop, an Elizabethan merchant tailor who held land beside it in 1567.

Wren Street (Gray’s Inn Road 4). So named in 1937 by the local Council ‘after Sir Christopher Wren’ who had no connection whatever with this area. The choice of name is presumably meant to be educational.

Wrestlers Court (Camomile Street, City). The Wrestlers was the sign of a large Tudor house in Camomile Street, donated to the Brotherhood of Parish Clerks as a residence for their chaplain. This Court led from the Wrestlers to the Clerks’ Hall in Clarks Place (q.v.).

Wright’s Lane (Kensington 6). After Gregory Wright esquire, who built houses at the southern end in about 1774. Before that it was a nameless country footpath, leading through the fields from Kensington High Street down to the court house at Earl’s Court.

Wyclif Street (Clerkenwell 5). Wyclif Court, a block of flats in Wyclif Street, stands on the site of the Smithfield Martyrs’ Memorial Church dedicated to the protestant martyrs who died for their faith nearby at Smithfield stake. Although John Wyclif himself did not suffer martyrdom, he was a forerunner of the Reformers who did.

Wyldes Close (North Hampstead I) was the ancient Wilds Woode: see Wildwood Grove, North Hampstead.

Wyndham Place, Street and Yard (Marylebone 3). A Portman family name.

Wynnstay Gardens (Kensington 6) belonged to J. W. Kynaston, who built the street in 1881. The Kynastons were an old-established family based in Denbighshire and Shropshire, and Wynnstay is a Denbigh village near the Shropshire border.

Wythburn Place (Marylebone 3) was North Cumberland Mews, leading to Great Cumberland Place, until 1890, when it was given the name of a district in the county of Cumberland.

Yarmouth Place (Brick Street, Mayfair). 104 Piccadilly, which backs on to Yarmouth Place, was the town house of the Earl of Yarmouth at about the time of the Regency.

Yeoman’s Row (Brompton 6) first appears in the parish ratebooks io 1768, and was probably named after its original builder.

York. The source of nearly all urban York Streets was the ‘Grand Old Duke of York’, destined to be immortalized among children as the inefficient leader of pointless military exercises. He was HRH Frederick, eldest brother of the Prince Regent and also the Regent’s heir apparent for most of his life, born in 1763, appointed Bishop of Osoabrück in infancy and later created Duke of York and Albany and Earl of Ulster. In 1793 he was made Commander of the English Forces fighting the French in the Netherlands, where he encountered disastrous defeats, retreats and scandal. He was tried (though acquitted) with his notorious mistress Mary Anne Clarke, for running the Army at a vast profit by se1Iing commissions in return for bribes.

Most of the York Streets inspired by him have since been renamed to avoid confusion (for instance York Street in Southwark is now called Bedale Street, after a village io the county of York), but there is still a York Street in Marylebone (3), dating from about 1793. York Way, King’s Cross (4), an ancient track to Hampstead, took its name from two of the earliest rows of houses to be built along the track, York Terrace and Albany Terrace. Until 1937 it was called York Road, which explains York Road Station in York Way. York Rise, Highgate (8), runs alongside the northern continuation of York Way (at that point now named Dartmouth Park Hill).

The Prince is well represented on his brother’s estate of Regent’s Park: York Gate and Terrace (4), Osnaburgh Street, Ulster Place and Albany Street. His town house in Piccadilly has been adapted into the select chambers known as Albany. In Kentish Town is York Mews (8), originally a carttrack to the fields behind York Terrace (now part of Kentish Town Road), which was built in 1794. See also Regent’s Park and Albany.

York Buildings and Place (off the Strand 4) are on the site of York House, the mansion granted by Mary I to the Archbishop of York. The Archbishop lived there only from 1556 until Mary’s death two years later, but the name stuck. Later the Duke of Buckingham acquired York House by rather dubious means, and most of the streets now built there are named after him.

York House Place (Kensington 6). The block of flats here called York House stands on the site of a much earlier York House, where one of the Prince Regent’s sisters died in 1848.

Yorkshire Grey Yard (Eagle Street, Holborn). From a long-vanished Yorkshire Grey tavern recorded here in 1721. The Yorkshire Grey has always been a popular inn sign; there are still eight of them in London, despite the disappearance of these coaching horses from the streets.

Young Street (Kensington 6). Thomas Young, the builder of much of Kensington Square, started Young Street in 1685.

Young’s Buildings (Old Street 5) was recorded in 1743 as the property of Francis Young of Westminster and his wife Lydia. Their descendants erected the original Buildings about 40 years later.

Zoar Street (Southwark 5). Here stood the Zoar Chapel, built by the Baptists of Southwark in 1687. It is believed that John Bunyan preached there shortly before his death the following year. Zoar was the Dead Sea city where Lot sheltered when the Cities of the Plain were destroyed, and is used to mean ‘refuge’ or ‘sanctuary’.

2 comments

    • Sam Waylen on August 17, 2020 at 10:52 am
    • Reply

    IS THERE ANY IDEA AS TO HOW WAYLEN STREET GOT ITS NAME ?

    1. Not sure that we know of a Waylen Street. Do you know which district it is in?

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