Primrose Road is on the Northern outskirts of Salisbury. Primrose Hill is on the Eastern edge of Wilton. They are both on the same side of the Devizes Road hill, but probably a couple of miles apart. The Postcode plants database lists the primrose as a ‘native flora recorded’ in SP2 The Postcode Plants Database – Search results
Etymology of ‘primrose’
The word primrose derives from the Latin prima rosa, meaning ‘first rose’ – so called because it is one of the first flowers of spring.
The primrose path
The primrose path, or, less commonly the ‘primrose way’ is an expression which means a lifestyle of luxury and idleness – frequently leading to a bad end. The phrase may have been coined by Shakespeare. The old porter in Macbeth refers to:
the primrose way to the everlasting bonfirehttp://www.huntingtonbotanical.org/Rose/Subrosa/41/primrose.htm
Shakespeare uses the same idea in Hamlet where Ophelia warns her brother:
….. But, good my brother,
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whiles, like a puff’d and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.
The Primrose League
The ‘Primrose League’ was an organization set up by the Conservative Party to promote Conservative ideals.
It was named after the favorite flower of Benjamen Disraeli.
The League borrowed some of the stylings of the Orange Lodges and the Freemasons, but was a comparatively open and benign organization, with more than two million members by 1910 The Primrose League – LoveToKnow 1911. It folded
