Greencroft Street, Salisbury

Greencroft Street is in the centre of Salisbury. It runs from Bourne Hill, opposite the Council House to Winchester Street.

It’s called ‘Greencroft Street’ because for about half its length it runs along the western edge of the Greencroft itself.

Greencroft Street was originally called Melemonger Street. A ‘melemonger’ was a ‘seller of meal’¹

It was known as ‘Greencroft Street’ by 1533²

A ‘croft’ in this context would probably mean ‘a small piece of land’³ – fullers racks were

the frames known as tenter-racks upon which broadcloth was stretched taut to dry ‘on tenterhooks’⁴.

The Greencroft was also used as a place of execution⁵.

Footnotes

1. Melemonger Street – Salisbury and Stonehenge [↩]
2. ‘Salisbury: St Edmund’s parish’, A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 6 (1962), pp. 83-85. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=41786 Date accessed: 05 January 2012. [↩]
3. The Greencroft – Salisbury and Stonehenge. It was and is green because it’s open, park land. In 1533 it was on the edge of the city. Today it’s at the edge of the centre of the city – the Ring Road runs alongside the Eastern edge of the Greencroft, and beyond that is the largely Victorian development of Milford Hill.

   The Greencroft is now a public park, but when Salisbury was a centre for the production of cloth, fullers’ racks were stretched across itSalisbury – St Edmund’s parish | A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 6 (pp. 83-85) [↩]

4. Wiltshire Council – Wiltshire Community History Get Community Information [↩]
5. Salisbury – St Edmund’s parish | British History Online [↩]