Marsh Lane is to the north of Salisbury’s city centre – close to Sidney Street, Coldharbour Lane and Middleton Road.
Derivation of the name ‘Marsh Lane’
There are at least three possible derivations for the name ‘Marsh Lane’. It could be:
- named after a developer or land-owner, or
- named in reference to a prominent local person, or
- named because the ground in the area was ‘marshy’
Was ‘Marsh Lane’ named after a developer or landowner?
It could be that Marsh Lane was named after a developer or land-owner. The roads which are named with forenames could be references to members of the Marsh family.
Was ‘Marsh Lane named after a local ‘celebrity’?
It’s possible that Marsh Lane was named after either
- Matthew Marsh who was a local MP from 1857 until 1868 ([1]), or
- his father Canon Matthew Marsh who was Chancellor of the Diocese of Salisbury.
Canon Matthew Marsh emigrated to Australia where he bought land in New England which he called ‘Salisbury Plains’. He was a Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council from 1851 until 1855 – not quite ovelapping with his son’s parliamentiary career.
The dates for both men might be appropriate for them to have had a road dedicated to them at the time of the building of Marsh Lane – the Victoria County History tells us that the houses in the area were built towards the end of the century[2]
Was Marsh Lane named because the area was ‘marshy’?
Marsh Lane is both low-lying and fairly close to Summerlock Stream. It could be that the ground was ‘marshy’. This doesn’t seem particularly likely to me. You wouldn’t describe most of the ground in the Avon Valley as marshy. Also, if I was a developer I wouldn’t be inclined to advertise that the houses I had built were on or near a marsh.
Conclusion
I think that Marsh is most likely to be a reference to the name of a developer or landowner, but this is really only a guess. Please leave me a comment if you have a better idea.
Visiting Salisbury?
For accommodation, see the Hotels in Salisbury page.
Footnotes
- Salisbury (UK Parliament constituency) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [↩]
- It says that “Further development east of Wilton Road followed the closing of the county gaol in 1870; (fn. 13) by 1879 part of its site, bounded by Gas Lane, Meadow Road, and St. Paul’s Road, had been built with terraces of small houses, (fn. 14) and these were extended east to Middleton Road by the 1890′s.” (Salisbury: The expansion of the city; Milford’, A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 6 (1962), pp. 90-93. URL: Salisbury – The expansion of the city; Milford | British History Online Date accessed: 19 November 2009.) [↩]