thestreetnames

Moving on from the scatological, today is the turn of some of the names that aren’t what they seem. And what they are can sometimes be a bit yukky.

Take, for instance, Pudding Lane, which was where the Great Fire of 1666 started. Given that the fire started in a baker’s house (the king’s baker), pudding sounds like something you’d find at a baker, right? Wrong. The lane, once part of the meat centre of London, earlier had the name of Red Rose Lane, but it was on the route where the ‘puddings’ – parcels of offal – were transported to be thrown into the river.

Along those lines is Seething Lane, which is nothing to do with anger. There are other theories as to the derivation of the name, but the one that suits today’s theme is that the area was once said to be a centre for making soap and glue; this involved the boiling of animal skins and the smelly, steaming cauldrons gave rise to the name of Seething. Samuel Pepys lived here and was awoken one night by his maid who told him of the great fire that was raging to the west.

Like Pudding Lane, the derivation of Bunhill Row’s name is not as appetizing as it might first appear. It comes from the nearby fields of the same name (Bunhill Fields, where Daniel Defoe was buried), originally Bone Hill Fields. The fields were a burial ground dating from 1549 when a thousand carts full of bones from the over-crowded charnel houses at St Paul’s dumped their loads there.However, the name was in use before then, so it seems likely that people had historically taken advantage of the marshy land there for dumping various items, presumably including bones.

Less disgusting, but still not what people might think (and probably an equal contender for the Animal London names), is Huggin Hill, a popular sign for cuddling couples looking for a photo opportunity. It is, however, nothing to do with cuddling or hugging. It was Hoggenlane in the 14th century, probably from the old English ‘hoggene’ – a lane where hogs were kept.

Along the same lines, and also a contender for Animal London, is Swain’s Lane in Highgate, which is, alas, nothing to do with gallant pastoral gentlemen. In the 15th century it was known as ‘Swayneslane’ but later forms of the name show bluntly its derivation: for a long time it was more commonly known as Swine Lane.

Golden Square, which works for London’s gemstones and precious metals street names category, yet to come in this blog, is also nothing to do with what the name suggests. The site upon which the square stands was known as Gelding’s Cross in the early 17th century when the land was used for farming. (Like Bunhill Fields, the square was also a plague burial pit).