Names and the history that lies behind them (From The Northern Echo)

Names and the history that lies behind them

3:25pm Friday 5th June 2009 in Durham Memories By David Simpson

WHAT’S in a name? The answer to this age-old question is lots of history if we consider the street names of Durham City.

Street names, or at least the older ones, contain many clues to Durham’s past. In fact, those in the city often tell us exactly what was going on in a particular locality many centuries ago.

Some of the oldest streets in the city are those with names ending in “gate” – an old northern word for street which, rather surprisingly, seems to have nothing to do with defensive gateways in the city walls.

Walkergate was for example the street of cloth workers, who were known as walkers – but little remains of this tiny street near Durham Market Place.

Two other forgotten gates were the streets of Smithgate and Fleshergate that were respectively home to blacksmiths and flesh hewers in medieval times.

Today, we call flesh hewers butchers, who once apparently slaughtered animals in the street much to the disgust of visitors.

For those unfamiliar with these lost streets, Smithgate was the northern part of Silver Street where it joins Framwellgate Bridge. Fleshergate was the name given to the part of Saddler Street adjoining the Market Place.

Another lost street name is Souter Peth, meaning the shoemakers’ street.

A peth was a descending street often leading to a river crossing and this particular one was the short street linking Elvet Bridge with Saddler Street. It is now regarded as part of Elvet Bridge.

Staying on the theme of medieval occupations, if we move further out of Durham towards the modern university colleges that dominate the south of the city, we find Potters Bank. Here, the city’s medieval potters are said to have manufactured their wares.

Street names of more recent centuries can likewise reveal the occupations of former residents.

For example, on the northern edge of the modern Newton Hall housing estate are Pit Lane and Old Pit Terrace.

These 19th century cottages lie close to the site of Framwellgate Moor Colliery and were once home to miners.

Closer to the city centre, there were mines in the vicinity of Aykley Heads and Crook Hall, just off Framwellgate.

Here we find Diamond Terrace, a reminder of days when the black diamond – better known to you and I as coal – was mined.

In a city such as Durham, we might expect strong religious themes in the names of streets.

Thus we have Mount Joy Crescent, named from the terminus of a pilgrimage, and Palmer’s Garth, from a pilgrims’ enclosure.

Nearby Hallgarth Street is named from the farm belonging to the monastery of Durham Cathedral, while Anchorage Terrace was the site of the home of a medieval anchorite, or hermit, who lived near St Oswald’s Church.

The city’s churches have given their names to streets.

Gilesgate is named from St Giles’ Church. Giles was the patron saint of lepers and cripples and the church dedication was probably chosen because of the medieval hospital that was built close by.

Less obvious is the busy street called Margery Lane linking Crossgate to Quarryheads Lane. It is named from the neighbouring church of St Margaret.

Quarryheads Lane, at the southern tip of the Durham river peninsula, was the place where sandstone for the building of Durham Cathedral was quarried.

Other stone came from the Baxter Wood area of Crossgate Moor.

Here, Baxter is a corrupted form of bakestone since the stones of the neighbourhood were thought suitable for ovens.

This area can be reached by Quarry House Lane (not to be confused with Quarryheads Lane) but may also be reached from neighbouring Toll House Lane.

Toll House Lane is the road to Bearpark and was once the site of a tollhouse where coach travellers, in the days of old, were charged for the privilege of using the road.

Street names like this often refer to lost historic features or buildings. For example, just up the Great North Road from Toll House Road is a street and area of the city called Whitesmocks, named from a long-forgotten coaching inn. The inn was apparently named from the white coats of waggoners on the Great Road.

Other lost features recalled in Durham’s street names are a possible medieval oven house recalled in the name of Owengate near the cathedral.

It is thought Owengate was once Ovengate, but the street was confusingly known as Queen Street in Victorian times.

Staying on the theme of ovens, a lost manorial bakehouse belonging to St Giles parish is remembered in the name of Bakehouse Lane, just off Claypath.

Nearby is Mayorswell Street and Mayorswell Field, apparently named from a well or spring. This was either the well of St Mary or was named from a family called Maire, who held land hereabouts in the 1500s.

In the North End area of the city, a well or spring indirectly gave rise to the names of Springwell Avenue and Springwell Road.

There were farms called Springwell hereabouts and a Victorian mansion called Springwell Hall stood nearby.

The hall is now part of St Leonard’s School.

The Fram Well from which the street of Framwellgate takes its name was a medieval spring, well or fountain in the vicinity of the viaduct near Crook Hall, just off the street of Framwellgate.

Framwellgate’s name is thought to derive from Old English “road or street from the vigorous stream or spring”.

The name is slightly controversial because some maps and signs occasionally spell Framwellgate’s old street, peth and bridge with one L, which was once a common inconsistency in English place-names.

Strangely, Framwellgate Moor is always spelled with two.

A superstructure that once covered the ancient spring called the Fram Well has stood alongside Framwelgate Peth near Diamond Terrace since 1959 and was brought here from its earlier site close by.

Most of Framwellgate, the street, was knocked down in the 1930s and is now the A691 dual carriageway through the city.

Old-style houses called Highgate stand alongside this road but these houses and the name Highgate belong to the 21st century.