QUAINT STREET NAMES

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 148, 20 December 1930, Page 25

QUAINT STREET NAMES

Curious street names are far from rare in England. Old London is, perhaps, ..richer in them than anywhere else, for nothing could be quainter as a street name that "Piccadilly," unless it bo Pall Mall, which familiarity has robbed of its strangeness. The same applies, in a measure, to Petty Cury in Cambridge and Carfax in Oxford. A competition upon the subject of queer street names was -recently conducted by tho "Observer." It revealed that the N.orth of England is particularly well endowed with oddities of this kind. If any one stands out in surprisingness from the rest, it is Upper Whiskers, which is found in Northowram, near Halifax. But The Slonks, which is credited to Shotlcy Bridge, County Durham, must come very near to being the last word in nomenclature. Newcastle-on-Tyne is possessed of Pudding Charl, Two Ball Lunnon, and Darn Crook; and Bolton of Stich-mi-line, Salt Pie-yard, and Top o' th' Cow.

Hull's Land of Green Ginger has evidently a wide celebrity, and so have Oldham's Mumps and Norwich's Tombland. Bradford's Dole street sounds an invidious address in present circumstances. Hexham has a Pricstpopple, and Bridgnorth a Paw Puddinghill. Glasgow, in addition to the well-, known Cowcaddens street and Goosedubs, also boasts a Spoutsrnouth and a Butferbiggins road, while Dundee has. a Peep o' Day lane. In Beverley will be found Poll Gavel, and in Leeds Obededum terrace and The Calls. York suggests a derogatory turn, with its Bad Bargain lane and Mucky Peg lane —in contrast to Salubrious place, St. Ivcs. Plymouth's Penny-cum-quick appears to bo as celebrated as Leicester's Holy Bones street. Other southern curiosities are Manamead, Plymouth; Pitch and Pay lane, Bristol; Rock-a-Noro . road, Hastings; and Penny Farthing street and Wain-a-long road, Salisbury.