The Names of Now

The title means the names in use at present rather than just modern names. It is one of the sad features of rapid urban development that old names, which are so often revealing of former periods and ways of life, fall out of use as the few who used them die off or move out to continue a rural life elsewhere. Maps and estate documents are then forgotten graves of such names, though a few are given a memorial of sorts - an enamelled street-name sign. Who nowadays refers to Greet Mill Hill, or Green Bank (alias 'the Rialoto hill') ? Have today's unisexers even heard of the Nine Stiles Walk ? Can anyone direct me to Four Ways or Six Ways ? Even 'Robin Hood' is less used than formerly.

Many street-names are given by officials or developers who do not know or do not care about even the recent past. True, it is often difficult to find enough names of local relevance from an unexciting rural community's store - and we must not repeat the mistake which gave ancient names from all over Yardley to one estate in Billesley ! There is always some reason for a street-name, though it may be a selection by pin from a 'phone book or the builder's wife's rich uncle's name : if only one knew why each was chosen. As we don't and can't, let us concentrate on the few we can explain.

The Stratford (street-ford) Road, highway to the Avon crossing of a Roman road, has been so called for two centuries only ! Before that it was the way of Leomann's folk (972), the highway to Henley (1495), and the Edgehill Turnpike (1727), even sometimes the London Road - and it was certainly the preferred way to Warwick. Probably it was Stratford's development as terminal port of the Avon Navigation which brought its name into use.

Robin Hood Lane takes its name from a small inn that once stood near Six Ways - but in Shirley Road, be it noted. Webb, Scribers and Baldwins Lanes, Morrisford Croft and Barton Lodge Road are all named after local farming families. Topography is recalled in Sandgate Road, Lakey Lane and Pool Farm Road. Several farms are remembered only in street-names : thus Broomhall, Shaftmoor, Paradise, Cole Bank (Hall Green Bilateral School site), Fox Hollies (Curtiss Gardens), Cateswell (opposite Hall Green Station), Gospel and Pool Farms, Hall Green Stud Farm (Studland Road) and Hiron Hall. Redstone Farm Road is an oddity, for the farm was on Warwick Road, more than a mile away. Trittiford is one of several variants chosen by the Corporation, but the millers preferred Titterford.

Severne Road reminds us of the family which owned Hall Green Hall in later Victorian times. 'The Hamlet' whose substantial brick and terra-cotta houses in and near Hamlet Road date from the 80's and 90's, is a monument to the Severnes. Since Marston Chapel changed its name (twice) this century, there is no commemoration of the beneficent Job who lived in the Hall and left a bequest for the chapel's building.

No name survives to remind us of the Victorian race-course (east of 'The Hamlet'), unless the Greyhound Stadium is its natural heir. Yardley Wood Station's name may bother some who think it should be across the river, but in fact the whole of our Association area once included in the wooded south part of Yardley. Municipal estates have with one exception been given old names, that of Pitmaston being a little-used alien import. If fancy names were given by private developers, to their estates, these have not survived, because everyone prefers a Hall Green address !