London place names

What’s in a name?…Upminster…

by exploringlondon

Known to many as the eastern end of the District Line, Upminster is located some 16.5 miles to the north-east of Charing Cross and is part of the London Borough of Havering.

Historically a rural village in the county of Essex, its name comes from Old English and means a large church or “minster” located on high ground.

The Church of St Laurence in Upminster. PICTURE: Bob Comics (licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The church is said to have dated at least as far back as the 7th century and to have been one of a number founded by St Cedd, a missionary monk of Lindisfarne, in the area. It was located on the site occupied by the current church of St Laurence (parts of which date back to the 1200).

The nearby bridge over the River Ingrebourne shares the name Upminister and is known to have been in existence since the early 14th century.

Once wooded, the area was taken over for farming (cultivation dates as far back as Roman times) and by the 19th century it came to be known for market gardens as well as for some industry including windmills and a brickworks.

Development was initially centred around the minister and nearby villages of Hacton and Corbets Tey. It received a boost in the 17th century when wealthy London merchants purchased estates in the area.

Improved transportation links also helped in later centuries including the arrival of the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway in 1885 – it was extended from Barking – and the underground in 1902 via the Whitechapel and Bow Railway.

Landmarks include the Church of St Laurence, the redbrick Clock House (dating from about 1775), the 16th century house Great Tomkyns, the Grade II*-listed Upminster Windmill, built in 1803 and considered one of England’s best surviving smock mills, and the 15th century tithe barn (once owned by the monks of Waltham Abbey and now a museum).

The Upminster Tithe Barn. PICTURE: diamond geezer (licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Upminster Hall, which dates back to the 15th and 16th century (and, once the hunting seat of the abbots of Waltham Abbey, was gifted by King Henry VIII to Thomas Cromwell after the Dissolution), is now the clubhouse of the Upminister Golf Club.

Hornchurch Stadium, the home ground of AFC Hornchurch, is located in the west of the area.

It was in Upminster that local rector Rev William Derham first accurately calculated the speed of sound, employing a telescope from the tower of the Church of St Laurence to observe the flash of a distant shotgun as it was fired and then measuring the time before he heard the gunshot using a half second pendulum.

What’s in a name?…Theobolds Road…

by exploringlondon

This north London thoroughfare, which runs north-east from Southampton Row through Holborn to Gray’s Inn Road is named for the destination it once led to – a country house in Hertfordshire known as Theobolds which once belonged to King James I.

View down Theobolds Road at its northern end. PICTURE: Courtesy of Google Maps

The house, which has been rebuilt many times and is now a conference centre, was actually where King James I died. Prior to his residency, it was home to Queen Elizabeth I’s advisor, William Cecil, Lord Burghley, and then his son, Robert Cecil, the first Earl of Salisbury.

The road, which the modern Theobolds Road forms part of, was apparently also known as the King’s Way due to its royal traveller – this royal connection is still retained in the nearby roadway known as Kingsway.

Among the famous residents of Theobolds Road was Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli who was born at number 22 in 1804 (and is now commemorated with an English Heritage Blue Plaque, although this one is actually brown).

What’s in a name?…Nunhead…

by exploringlondon

This district of London, which lies to the south-east of Peckham in the London Borough of Southwark, is believed to owe its name to a local tavern named, you guessed it, the Nun’s Head on the linear Nunhead Green (there’s still a pub there, called The Old Nun’s Head, in a building dating from 1905).

The Old Nun’s Head near Nunhead Green. PICTURE: Google Maps

There may well have been actual nuns here (from which the tavern took its name) – it’s suggested that there was a nunnery here which may have been connected to the Augustinian Priory of St John the Baptist founded in the 12th century at Holywell (in what is now Shoreditch).

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A local legend gets more specific. It says that when the nunnery was dissolved during the Dissolution, the Mother Superior was executed for her opposition to King Henry VIII’s policies and her head was placed in a spike on the site near the green where the inn was built.

While the use of the name for the area goes back to at least the 16th century, the area remained something of a rural idyll until the 1840s when the Nunhead Cemetery, one of the “Magnificent Seven” cemeteries of Victorian London, was laid out and the area began to urbanise.

The chapel at Nunhead Cemetery. PICTURE: Owen Barritt (licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

A fireworks manufactory – Brocks Fireworks – was built here in 1868 (evidenced by the current pub, The Pyrotechnists Arms). The railway arrived in 1871.

St Antholin’s Church was built in 1877 using funds from the sale of the City of London church, St Antholin’s, Budge Row, which was demolished in 1875. St Antholin’s in Nunhead was destroyed during the Blitz and later rebuilt and renamed St Antony’s (the building is now a Pentecostal church while the Anglican parish has been united with that of St Silas).

There’s also a Dickens connection – he rented a property known as Windsor Lodge for his long-term mistress, actress Ellen Ternan, at 31 Lindon Grove and frequently visited her there (in fact, it has even been claimed that he died at the property and his body was subsequently moved to his home at Gad’s Hill to avoid a scandal).

Nunhead became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell in 1900. These days, it’s described by Foxtons real estate agency as “a quiet suburb with pretty roads and period appeal”.

What’s in a name?…Angel…

by exploringlondon
The Angel Hotel, built in 1903. PICTURE: Des Blenkinsopp (licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

Located just north of Clerkenwell, this inner city district is centred on the intersection of Islington High Street and Pentonville Road.

Its name come from a building that once stood on that site – the Angel Inn, which was existent in the early 17th century. The building has since gone through several incarnations with the current structure on the site, the Angel Hotel, built in 1903, and now used as offices. A modern pub, called the Angel, is adjacent.

The district encompasses both the triangular Islington Green in the north and Chapel Market in the west.

Angel is also the name of a Tube station on the Northern Line. Other landmarks include the Angel Wings sculpture in Liverpool Road.

The Angel Islington is also, of course, a property on the Monopoly board (one of the cheapest in reflection of the area’s standing at the time of the game’s creation, before the gentrification that took place there in the 1980s).

The story goes that it was in 1936 that Victor Watson, founder of the game’s manufacturers John Waddington Ltd, who decided to include the property whilst taking tea at the cafe when occupied the lower floors of the Angel Hotel.

What’s in a name?…London Wall…

by exploringlondon

The name of this street is self-explanatory – it follows the line of part of the wall that once surrounded the City of London, of which only fragments now remain.

The wall dates from as far back as Roman times and this street – which runs from the intersection with Aldersgate Street to the west to Old Broad Street in the east – broadly follows the course of its northern edge.

View from the west end of London Wall. PICTURE: Romazur (licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

The road was re-laid out – it features dual carriageways at the east and west ends – after the area was devastated by bombing during World War II.

A roundabout at the western end of London Wall – named the Rotunda – provides a link with Aldersgate Street, which runs perpendicular, and in the centre was built the Museum of London (which is now being relocated to West Smithfield).

Looking toward the eastern end of London Wall with All Hallows on the Wall to the left. PICTURE: Keith Murray (licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

The western end of the street, part of which is straddled by the hulking early 1990s building known as Alban Gate, has until recent years also featured a series of raised walkways which were part of the post war redevelopment of the area (and partly integrated with office buildings).

Known as ‘pedways’, some of them are now in the process of being replaced with a more modern take on the idea (such as can be seen at London Wall Place).

Part of the Roman gate, known as Bastion 14, near the western end of London Wall. PICTURE: Ethan Doyle White (licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

The street features a number of remnants of the actual wall along its length including the remains of a Roman gate close to the western end (on the street’s north side, it’s known as Bastion 14) and in St Alphage Gardens (St Alphage, London Wall is one of several now lost churches along the street – St Olave, Silver Street is another).

Close to the eastern end of the street is the church of All Hallows-on-the-Wall which dates from 1767 (replacing an earlier church that had survived the Great Fire of London).

Other prominent buildings on London Wall include the Brewer’s Hall, the Carpenter’s Hall and the Plaisterer’s Hall.

What’s in a name?…Gunnersbury…

by exploringlondon

There is a tradition which holds that this tiny district in west London was named after Gunhilda, a niece of King Canute.

While that story may be merely apocryphal, the name Gunnersbury does apparently mean the ‘manor of Gunhilda’, so it follows there was a Gunhilda who once lived here.

The manor – said to have been held by Alice Perrers, mistress to King Edward III, for a time as well as by the bishops of London – was located in what is now Gunnersbury Park.

It was rebuilt in the Palladian-style in the mid 17th century for Sir John Maynard, legal advisor to King Charles II, and a century later was used by Princess Amelia, the daughter of King George II as a summer residence (during which time William Kent is said to have improved the gardens; a ‘Temple’ built in the gardens during that time survives today).

The house was demolished in 1801 and the estate divided into two with two new properties built – Gunnersbury Park and Gunnersbury House. Both properties subsequently passed into the hands of the Rothschild banking family and, after part of the estate was sold off for housing, the houses and surviving estates were acquired by local municipalities.

These days 185 acres, the park – jointly run by the Boroughs of Houslow and Ealing – is now open to the public and since 1929, the Grade II-listed house, Gunnersbury Park, has contained a museum dedicated to local history.

The area also lends its name to the Gunnersbury Triangle, a three hectare nature reserve which was saved from development in the early 1980s.

Gunnersbury previously had its own Church of England parish church – built in 1886, St James’s was located on Chiswick High Road until it was demolished in the late 1980s (another church, Gunnersbury Baptist Church stands in Wellesley Road and a Russian Orthodox Cathedral stands on Harvard Road).

There is also a Gunnersbury Tube station which offers a link to both the Underground and Overground. Located on the District Line, it sits under the 18 story high British Standards Institution building.

PICTURE: The large mansion in Gunnersbury Park in 2006 (Lancey/licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0)

What’s in a name?…Seething Lane…

by exploringlondon

The name of this narrow throughfare in the City of London has nothing to do with anger. Rather the moniker comes from an old English word meaning ‘full of chaff’ – ‘sifethen’.

The reference relates to the presence of corn market which in medieval times was located nearby in Fenchurch street. The chaff apparently blew down from the market to the laneway. Hence ‘Sifethen’ or ‘Seething’ Lane.

The lane, which runs north-south from the junction of Hart St and Crutched Friars to Byward Street, is famous for being the former location of the Navy Office. Built here in the 1650s, it was where diarist Samuel Pepys worked when appointed Clerk of the Acts of the Navy.

Pepys, who later became Secretary of the Admiralty, was given a house in the lane. The church where he worshipped, St Olave, Hart Street, is still located at the north end of the lane.

Having survived the Great Fire of London in 1666, the Navy Office burnt down in 1673 and was rebuilt soon after to the designs or Sir Christopher Wren or Robert Hooke. It was eventually demolished in 1788 when the office moved to Somerset House.

There’s a now a recently redeveloped garden where the Navy Office once stood in which can be found a bust of Pepys. The work of late British sculptor Karin Jonzen, it was first placed in an earlier garden on the site by the Pepys Society in 1983.

The garden, which is now part of the Trinity Square development, also features an English Heritage Blue Plaque commemorating the Navy Office and a series of scenes carved into stone by Alan Lamb depicting scenes from Pepys’ life and diaries.

All Hallows-by-the-Tower stands at the south end of the partly pedestrianised street.

PICTURE: Top – Google Maps (image lightened); Right – The bust of Samuel Pepys in the Seething Lane Gardens (Dave Bonta/licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

 

What’s in a name?…Mile End

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This east London district was recorded as far back as the 13th century when it was a rural area. The name comes from the obvious – it was located on the old London to Colchester Road about a mile east of Aldgate.

Its location so close to London – and the fact it was common land – meant Mile End was favoured as a recreational space by Londoners eager to escape the confines of the city.

It was here in 1381 that Jack Straw camped with the men from Essex during the Peasant’s Revolt and it was here that, even as Was Tyler and his men murdered Simon of Sudbury in the Tower of London, King Richard II famously met with the leaders of the revolt.

The area, which became known as Mile End Old Town (an unconnected area to the west was known as Mile End New Town), was gradually developed from the 16th century and attracted working class housing and, thanks to its affordability, a relatively high number of immigrants. The Mile End Tube station opened in 1902.

The area suffered in the Blitz during World War II and the first V-1 flying bomb to hit the city landed next to the Grove Road railway bridge on 13th June, 1944, killing eight civilians and injuring 30.

Famous figures connected to Mile End include explorer Captain James Cook, who lived in a now demolished house on Mile End Road between 1764-76.

Landmarks include the Trinity Almshouses (built in 1695, they’re the last survivors of several almshouses built in the area) and the Frederick Arthur Walters-designed Guardian Angels Roman Catholic Church which was built 1903 by Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 15th Duke of Norfolk, as a memorial to his youngest sister, Lady Margaret Howard.

The People’s Palace – a five acre entertainment and educational facility which included a library, swimming pool, gym and winter garden – was completed in 1892 on Mile End Road. Destroyed by fire in 1931, it was rebuilt but finally closed in 1954.

The two halves of the 79 acre linear Mile End Park, which bisected by Mile End Road, is joined by The Green Bridge over the road.

PICTURES: Top – Mile End Road featuring The Guardian Angels Catholic Church on the right and Mile End Park on the left (Matt Brown /licensed under CC BY 2.0); Below – Mile End Tube Station (Chris Jones/licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0)

What’s in a name?…Knightrider Street…

by exploringlondon

No, the name of this City of London street, which runs between Godliman Street and Addle Hill just to the south of St Paul’s Cathedral, has nothing to do with the TV series of the 1980s starring David Hasselhoff (although there is a very tenuous connection – more on that in a moment).

In fact, according to the 16th century historian and antiquarian John Stow, the explanation for its name is believed to be quite simple – knights once rode along this street on their way to Smithfield where tournaments were held in the 12th century.

Much of the street was demolished in the 1860s to make way for Queen Victoria Street and many of the buildings which once graced it are along gone. These include the German Church, which dated from the mid 1660s, the law society known as Doctor’s Commons,  and the Church of St Mary Magdelen – which were all demolished in the 1860s.

Other famous premises include number five, which was the site of a house where Thomas Linacre founded the Royal College of Physicians. The street is still home to The Centre Page pub (apparently David Hasselhoff’s favourite pub).

PICTURE: Google Maps.

What’s in a name?…St Martin’s-le-Grand…

by exploringlondon

This City of London street is named for a church which once stood to the east of the thoroughfare.

The church was founded as part of a monastery the 11th century by brothers Ingelric and Girard – the former was apparently a man of some influence in the courts of King Edward the Confessor and King William the Conqueror (although there is apparently a tradition that the church was founded earlier, by the Saxon King Wihtred of Kent, in the 7th or 8th century).

The collegiate church, which had the job of sounding the curfew bell in the evenings to announce the closing of the city gates during the reign of King Edward I (the right later moved to another church), gave special rights to the precinct in which it stood including that of sanctuary for certain types of criminals. Indeed, by the 14th century, it was the largest area of sanctuary in England.

This was particularly useful for those making what was supposed to be their final journey from Newgate to their execution at Tower Hill – the precinct lay along the route and, yes, some were said to have escaped into the district as they passed by. But perhaps the most famous said to have sought sanctuary in the precinct were Miles Forrest, one of those accused of murdering the so called “Princes in the Tower” – King Edward V and his brother Richard, Duke of York.

The institution was dissolved during the reign of King Henry VIII and demolished in the mid-16th century but the name lived on in the precinct where it once stood – during the Elizabethan era it was apparently famous for its lace.

The site of the church was later the site of the General Post Office, built in 1829, which was eventually demolished in 1911 and replaced by a premises located to the west.

The street, which becomes Aldersgate Street in the north and runs into Cheapside in the south, was also once home to the The Bull and Mouth Inn, destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, and a French Protestant Church. The latter was built in 1842 but demolished in 1888 to make way for more Post Office buildings.

PICTURES: Looking south (top) and north (below) from St Martin-le-Grand (Google Maps).

What’s in a name?…Denmark Hill

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This area in the south-east of London derives its name from a royal connection – Prince George of Denmark, the husband of Queen Anne, is said to have owned a hunting lodge on the east side of the hill.

Originally named Dulwich Hill (given its proximity to Dulwich), its name was changed in honour of the prince after his marriage to Queen Anne in 1683. The residential area centres on the street of the same name – Denmark Hill.

Landmarks include Ruskin Park, named after Victorian art critic John Ruskin, who lived the street, as well as Maudsley Hospital – built in 1915 – and King’s College Hospital, which moved here in 1913.

The Salvation Army’s iconic William Booth Training College, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and completed in 1932, is also located here.

PICTURE: View from the top of William Booth Tower looking north towards the City of London (diamond geezer/licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) 

 

What’s in a name?…Gospel Oak

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Yes, the name of this inner north-west London district – which sits between Hampstead and Kentish Town – does originate with an oak.

Up until the early 19th century, the tree was apparently used as a marker between the parish boundaries of Hampstead and St Pancras. So that’s the oak part.

The gospel part comes from the use of the term to describe the medieval custom of ‘beating the bounds’ – an annual event in which residents would walk around their parish boundary and literally beat prominent boundary markers as a way of conveying to a then largely illiterate people where the borders were located. The oak, said to have stood on the corner of Southampton and Mansfield Roads, was one such marker.

As well as the beating part, the event would also involve the singing of hymns and, yes, the reading of sections of the gospels while standing under the oak. Hence Gospel Oak.

The oak was also apparently used as a site for open-air preaching at other times and it’s said that St Augustine, 14th century Bible translator John Wycliffe, John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, and fellow evangelist George Whitefield are among the many who preached under the oak (although many of these claims can be taken with a grain of salt).

The area was predominantly rural until the mid-1800s when local landowners  Lord Mansfield, Lord Southampton and Lord Lismore began selling off the land for development. The houses built here were apparently at the more affordable end of the market, perhaps not surprising given the area became criss-crossed with railroad lines. Devastated by bombing during World War II, large parts of Gospel Oak were rebuilt in the mid-20th century.

The (now) London Overground station which bears the name Gospel Oak (pictured below) was opened in 1860, originally with the name Kentish Town (but quickly renamed Gospel Oak when Kentish Town was used elsewhere). Other landmarks include St Martin’s Church in Vicars Road (pictured above), which has been described as one of the “craziest” of London’s Victorian churches, and All Hallows Church in Shirlock Road.

One of the area’s more famous residents, Michael Palin, has lived in the area since the 1960s and reportedly planted a new oak in Lismore Circus in 1998 but the tree has apparently not survived.

PICTURES: Google Maps

What’s in a name?…Cockfosters…

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No more than the name of a Tube terminus (the north-east end of the Piccadilly Line) to many Londoners, Cockfosters has an interesting origin story.

The area in north London, which lies partly in the London Borough of Enfield and partly in the London Borough of Barnet, owes its name to its location on the edge of what was the royal forest of Enfield Chase.

In the 15th century, the forest was protected by foresters housed in three lodges – one of which was located where the West Lodge Park hotel, built in 1838, now stands.

(An interesting side note is that after the foresters stopped using the original lodge, it became, at one stage, the home of King Charles II’s Secretary of State, Henry Coventry. Diarist John Evelyn is among those who visited him.)

The ‘fosters’ part of the name is apparently derived from an Elizabethan-era variant of the word forester while ‘cock’ is a old word for leader or chief. Cockfosters, then, literally means the home of the chief or head forester.

The modernist Tube station, designed by Charles Holden and opened in 1933, is a key landmark as is the stately, Grade II-listed property Trent Park which is located on a remnant of Enfield Chase.

Other notable buildings include Christ Church Cockfosters, founded in 1839, and The Cock Inn, which opened in Chalk Lane in 1798.

PICTURED: Top – Trent Park House (© Christine Matthews/licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0; below – Cockfosters Tube Station (Steve Cadman/licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0).

What’s in a name?…Poppin’s Court…

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This narrow City of London street, which runs from Fleet Street to St Bride Street, apparently has nothing to do with Mary Poppins. In fact, it’s named after a bird.

The name is said to be a corruption of ‘popinjay’, an archaic word for parrot (and later used to describe someone who is vain). So, what’s that got to do with London?

Well, the bird was apparently featured on the crest of the Abbot of Cirencester and in medieval times, their London property – a hostel or inn – stood where the court now stands and was given the name of Popyngaye.

In later years Popinjay Alley became Popinjay Lane, Popinjay Court and, eventually, Poppin’s Court.

The north end of the alley was cut off in 1870.

There was once a relief of a carved parrot over the entrance to the court to remind people of its history but it’s long gone.

PICTURE: jansos (licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0/image cropped)

What’s in a name?…Belgravia

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This well-to-do district of west London owes its name to the family of Hugh Grosvenor, the 7th Duke of Westminster and owner of the Grosvenor Estate, the land upon which Belgravia is located.

The country estate of the duke’s family – the Grosvenors – is known as Eaton Hall and it lies just to the south of Chester. Various names related to the estate appear on the London map. Among them is Belgravia.

Belgravia take its name from the tiny village of Belgrave which lies within the estate’s boundary (the word Belgrave, incidentally, comes from the Old French for “beautiful wood”).

The London residential area now known as Belgravia, meanwhile, was formerly known as Five Fields and used for grazing. The Westbourne River meandered through it, crossed by “Bloody Bridge”, so-called because it was a known haunt of robbers.

It later became the site of market gardens and houses began to appear in the area following King George III’s move to what was then Buckingham House but development of the area didn’t begin in earnest until the 1820s when Robert Grosvenor, later the first Marquess of Westminster (pictured here in a statue in Belgrave Square), began developing the estate with the aid of builder Thomas Cubitt.

Designed with Belgrave Square at its centre, the new development immediately became associated with the more affluent end of society, a connection which continues to this day.

As well as Belgrave Square, the district, which straddles both the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, includes Eaton, Chester and Lowndes Squares (the first two names associated with the duke’s country estate; the third named after William Lowndes, a politician and Secretary to the Treasury under King William III and Queen Anne.

Palatial terraced houses aside, landmarks include the Grade II-listed St Peter’s Church, located at the east end of Eaton Square, which was first built in the 1820s and rebuilt in the 1830s. The area is also home to numerous embassies and consulates including those of Norway, Spain, Malaysia and Egypt, and, in keeping with the international feel, also boasts several statues of notable foreigners including Simon Bolivar and Christopher Columbus.

Famous residents have included former Prime Ministers Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain and Margaret Thatcher (the first two lived in Eaton Square; Thatcher in Chester Square), Louis Mountbatten, who lived in Wilton Crescent, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who lived in Upper Belgrave Street, as did Lord Lucan who mysteriously disappeared in 1974 after his children’s nanny was found murdered.

PICTURES: Top – Terraced homes in Grosvenor Crescent, which runs off Belgrave Square (Google Maps); Right – Statue of Lord Robert Grosvenor, first Marquess of Westminster (David Adams).

What’s in a name?…Abbey Road…

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Famous for its Beatles connection (and a particular pedestrian crossing), Abbey Road in London’s north-west takes it name from, you guessed it, a former religious house.

Kilburn Priory was founded at what is now the road’s northern end under the auspices of Westminster Abbey in about 1130 AD. It was eventually dissolved on the orders of Henry VIII in 1537.

The religious house gave its name not only to Abbey Road but also the intersecting Priory Road and Priory Terrace, and nearby Abbot’s Place, to name a few.

Of course, Abbey Road is famous for being the location of EMI’s Recording Studios (later renamed the Abbey Road Studios, they are located at number three at the southern end in St John’s Wood) where the Beatles and many others, including Shirley Bassey, Yehudi Menuhin, Max Bygraves and Cliff Richard, recorded albums (it’s also been used for recording film scores including for Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Harry Potter films).

The Beatles named their last studio LP after the street and the album’s cover shows the four of them walking across the aforementioned famous zebra crossing just outside the studio. The crossing, which attracts a steady stream of tourists year round, was given Grade II-listed status in December 2010. The studios are also Grade II-listed.

Abbey Road was also the site of the founding of the Abbey National Building Society, now Santander UK, which was founded in a church here in 1874.

PICTURE: Looking northward up Abbey Road across the famous crossing (the studios are just beyond the crossing on the left) (WillMcC/licenced under CC BY-SA 3.0/image cropped)

 

What’s in a name?…Hanover Square…

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This west London square was laid out in the early years of the reign of King George I and therein lies the clue to its name.

King George I, formerly Elector of Hanover in what is now Germany, was the first king of the British House of Hanover, and had been invited to take the Crown after the last of the Stuarts – Queen Anne – died in 1714 without leaving behind any surviving children (despite the fact that she’d had 14 pregnancies and given birth to five live children, all of whom died before her).

And so it was only logical – if not a bit sycophantic – that developer Richard Lumley, the 1st Earl of Scarborough – a keen supporter of the Hanoverian succession, named Hanover Square after the new king’s royal house. Thanks to the new king sharing his name with England’s patron saint, the nearby church was also named St George’s, Hanover Square (located just to the south – pictured below) as was the street that leads to it – St George Street.

Early residents in this Mayfair square included military figures like the generals Earl Cadogan and Sir Charles Wills. The square, which features a central park, was also home to the renowned concert venue, the Hanover Square Rooms (later the Queen’s Concert Rooms) until 1900 when they were demolished (JC Bach, Haydn, Paganini and Liszt all performed here as did Mark Twain who spoke on ‘Our Fellow Savages of the Sandwich Islands’ in 1873).

The square has been pretty comprehensively reconstructed since those days and is now home almost exclusively to offices including that of the UK offices of Vogue.

Monuments in the square include a statue of former PM, William Pitt the Younger.

PICTURES: Top – Google Maps/Below – Regency History (licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0)

 

What’s in a name?…Bishopsgate…

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This major London thoroughfare (and ward of the City of London) owes its name to one of the eight former gates of the City of London – that’s right, Bishopsgate.

Located at what’s now the junction with Wormwood Street (and marked by a mitre which appears on a building there), the gate was the departure point for Ermine Street which ran from London to Lincoln and York.

The gate and hence the road – which runs northward from the intersection of Gracechurch Street and Cornhill to where it becomes Norton Folgate Street (which links into Shoreditch High Street) – is believed to have been named for the 7th century Bishop Erkenwald (Earconwald). It was he who apparently first ordered its reconstruction on the site of a former Roman gate.

By Tudor times, the street had become known for the mansions of rich merchants – among those who had their homes here were Sir Thomas Gresham, Sir John Crosby and Sir Paul Pindar (Crosby Hall was later re-erected in Chelsea and the facade of Sir Paul Pindar’s house, is in the V&A). The street also become known for its many great coaching inns, all of which were eventually demolished.

Bishopsgate was the first street in London to have gas lighting when it was introduced about 1810 and, about 1932, became the first in Europe to have automated traffic lights (at the junction with Cornhill).

The City of London ward straddles the site of the old London wall and gate and is accordingly divided into “within” and “without” sections.

While there are a number of churches associated with the street – St Ethelburga Bishopsgate, St Helen’s Bishopsgate and St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate, these days it is largely lined by office buildings including the former NatWest Tower. Other notable buildings include that of the Bishopsgate Institute and the busy Liverpool Street Station is also accessible from Bishopsgate.

The name Bishopsgate is also synonymous with an IRA truck bombing which took place in the street on 24th April, 1993, in which one man was killed and 44 injured.

PICTURE: Top – Looking southward along Bishopsgate in 2014. (stevekeiretsu; licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0); Right – The Bishop’s mitre marking the location of the former gate (Eluveitie/ licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0).

What’s in a name?…Hammersmith

by exploringlondon


A fairly self-explanatory place name, Hammersmith, a district located in London’s west, records the fact there was once a blacksmith’s forge here.

The name, which also refers to the westernmost of London’s inner boroughs – since 1979 under the combined name of Hammersmith and Fulham, derives from two Anglo-Saxon words and dates back to at least the 13th century.

The village of Hammersmith sprang up along the major roads leading out of London and its roads, including some of the busiest in the city, still dominate the area’s landscape.

There’s been a chapel of ease in the village of Hammersmith since the early 1660s but in 1834 it became the parish church. The current Grade II-listed church, St Paul’s Hammersmith, dates from 1883 and contains some monuments from the original building.

Other significant sites in Hammersmith include St Peter’s Church which, built in 1829, is now the oldest church, the Lyric Theatre which has origins going back to the 1880s, and, The Dove, which was listed by Guinness World Records as having the smallest bar in the world.

Hammersmith Bridge, which runs across the River Thames to Barnes, is a Grade II* suspension bridge designed by the civil engineer Joseph Bazalgette and opened in 1887. It replaced an earlier bridge designed by William Tierney Clark and opened in 1827 (it was the first suspension bridge across the Thames).

PICTURES: Above – Hammersmith Bridge (Matt Brown – licensed under CC BY 2.0); Hammersmith Underground Station (Peter Gasston – licensed under CC BY-ND-NC 2.0); The Dove  (Herry Lawford – licensed under CC BY 2.0).

 

What’s in a name?…Mincing Lane

by exploringlondon

The origins of this short and narrow City of London laneway, which runs between Fenchurch Street and Great Tower Street, have nothing to do with minced meat of any kind.

Rather it comes from the fact – according to 16th century historian John Stow – that houses along here were once the property of the nuns of St Helen’s Bishopsgate. The medieval word for a nun was ‘mynchen’ – ‘mincing’ is merely a corruption of that word.

Historically, Mincing Lane was known for spice and tea trading and was also apparently the centre of the opium trade in London as well as hosting businesses connected to the slave trade.

The Clothworkers Company is located in Dunster Court, just off Mincing Lane – the current building, which opened in 1958, is the sixth on the site.

Among more modern buildings hosted in the one-way lane today is the Minster Court complex, dating from the early Nineties, which features in the forecourt facing out to the lane, Althea Wynne’s sculpture of three larger than life-size bronze horses, apparently nicknamed “Dollar”, “Yen” and “Stirling” (pictured). The building featured in the 1996 film, 101 Dalmatians.

PICTURE: Mike Quinn / Wild horses wouldn’t drag me in here / CC BY-SA 2.0.