Street-Names

Many of our ancient towns still retain the old names of some of their streets, but many old names have been replaced by more modern ones and many more have disappeared completely, especially where widening and rebuilding have taken place and new streets have been made which do not always follow the line of their predecessors. Few street-names are mentioned by name in Old English sources. No London street-name now in use is recorded before the Conquest, though some of those found in twelfth-century documents must have originated in Saxon times. A charter of 605 gives us the names of two Canterbury streets, via of Burhgate, now Burgate St, leading to the town gate, and Drutingestræte, probably Ruttington Lane, perhaps ‘street of the people of Trutinton’, a place mentioned in 1227, the etymology of which is difficult. But, as the bounds were probably not included in the original charter which survives only in a fourteenth-century copy, it is doubtful whether these street-names were actually in use as early as 605. For Winchester, a charter of 909 gives us three street-names, none of which is still in use: pa ceap stræt ‘market street’, flæscmangerestræt ‘street of the butchers’ and scyldwyrtenastræt ‘street of the shield-makers’.