Ramleaze Drive SP2

Ramleaze Drive is on the Fugglestone Red estate to the North of Salisbury. The names of the roads on the estate don’t seem to have any particular theme.

‘Ramleaze’, in itself though, is relatively straightforward. ‘Leaze‘ is an old word for

Pasture; pasturage; meadow-land; common¹

.

‘Ram’ almost speaks for itself in context with ‘leaze’. However there are a couple more things to say:

Ramleaze in Swindon

There seems to be an area in Swindon (or at least a road) called ‘Ramleaze’ ². Ramleaze is not shown as an area on the map as such, but ‘Middleleaze’, ‘Westlea’ and ‘Eastleaze’ are.

Further, the road names in the area of Ramleaze Drive in Swindon are repeated on Fugglestone Red. Both areas have an Angler Road, and an Ayrshire Close

Ram or raven

‘Ram’ as part of a word can mean ‘raven’. ³. John Chandler suggests that ‘Ramsbury’ means ‘the fortified place of the Raven (a personal name or nickname)’⁴

However, together with ‘leaze’ as meadow, the ram seems more likely than the raven, especially given that ‘leaze’ is also found in the word ‘Eweleaze’⁵

Footnotes

1. Oxford English Dictionary lease, n.1, leaze [↩]
2. http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&q=ramleaze&ie=UTF8&ll=51.561171,-1.813087&spn=0.070647,0.154495&z=13&iwloc=addr [↩]
3. Ram: Information from Answers.com [↩]
4. Wiltshire County Council – Wiltshire Community History Get Population/Census Information [↩]
5. EWELEAZE FARM – Camping by the sea on the south coast of Dorset, UK – beautiful campsite located near osmington, Weymouth with wonderful sea views open during August for tent camping. [↩]