Lime Kiln Way is close to the Ridings Mead estate in Harnham. I think it’s part of a later development than Ridings Mead itself.

A lime kiln is an oven for converting . . . → Read More: Lime Kiln Way, Salisbury]]> Lime Kiln Way is at the Britford end of Harnham – close to the Ridings Mead estate, but I think perhaps part of a later development.

Lime Kiln Way is close to the Ridings Mead estate in Harnham. I think it’s part of a later development than Ridings Mead itself.

A lime kiln is an oven for converting chalk or limestone into lime. Lime is used in construction (historically it’s been a key component of cement), and many other industries¹.

The 1915 Kelly’s Directory has a reference to ‘The Harnham Lime Works’ ².

Lime Kiln Way is therefore probably named in reference to the Harnham Lime Works.

Footnotes

1. British Lime Association – The Trade Association for the UK Lime Industry
2. Kelly’s Directory, 1915, page 203 – the Directory is browsable on-line at the Historical Directories website

It’s an odd name for the road, because it’s basically a cul-de-sac. It doesn’t really link anything. It could be that at some stage in the past it did link two roads.

Whenever I see the road or hear it’s name I can’t help but . . . → Read More: Link Way, Salisbury]]> Link Way is on Bishopdown, to the north of Salisbury city centre.

It’s an odd name for the road, because it’s basically a cul-de-sac. It doesn’t really link anything. It could be that at some stage in the past it did link two roads.

Link Wray

Whenever I see the road or hear it’s name I can’t help but be reminded of Link Wray, who was a great rockabilly guitarist. He sadly died a couple of years ago.

Most of Link Wray’s work was instrumental. His best known track was ‘Rumble’ which was on the soundtrack of the film Pulp Fiction, although not on the CD. I would guess that if you like the other guitar instrumental from Pulp Fiction, Dick Dale’s ‘Miserlou’, you would probably like ‘Rumble’.

Famously ‘Rumble’ was banned by some radio stations¹, because it was thought that it would incite gang violence. I’ve always thought that this may have been a story put about to generate publicity for the record – perhaps I’m overly cynical. Anyway a ‘Rumble’ in the context of 1950s gangs meant a fight², but also the atmosphere of the song is, to quote I think Dave Marsh, “the musical equivalent of football’s forearm shiver’³

At the time of writing there are performances of Rumble on Youtube here:

• Link Wray – Rumble
• Link Wray – Rumble

And other Link Wray tunes here:

• Link Wray – Hillbilly Wolf
• Link Wray – Fatback

Link also added the atmospheric guitar parts to Terry Jack’s version of a Jacques Brel song, ‘Seasons in the Sun’ which reached Number One in the UK in the early 1970s:

• Terry Jacks – Seasons in the Sun

Link Wray obviously has nothing at all to do with Link Way. However, I can’t help faintly hearing the chords of ‘Rumble’ whenever I’m there.

Footnotes

1. The Pop History Dig » “Rumble” Riles Censors 1958 -1959
2. WordNet Search – 3.0
3. The Heart of Rock and Soul, Dave Marsh, page 306 in the Penguin Original edition

It’s outside of the typical geographical limits of the website – Little London might be closer to Shaftesbury than it is to Salisbury, but I’m including it because I like the name and because there is a family connection.

There . . . → Read More: Little London]]> Little London is a group of half a dozen houses to the west of Broadchalke.

It’s outside of the typical geographical limits of the website – Little London might be closer to Shaftesbury than it is to Salisbury, but I’m including it because I like the name and because there is a family connection.

Why ‘Little London’?

There are many ‘Little Londons’ both in the UK and beyond. For example there is a Little London in Hampshire¹ and another in Jamaica².

In the Wikipedia entry for the Hampshire Little London, there are two or three suggestions as to how it got its name:

‘Little London’ is a common village name in England, assumed by some to have its origins in the quantity of seasonal Londoners who would camp for the harvest season. However in common with many ‘Little Londons’ approximately 50 miles or so from London, it has also been claimed that the name was given by settlers escaping the Great Plague of London of 1665. Alternatively, it could have been corrupted from ‘Little Loddon’, the name of a stream that marks the Southern extent of the village. Nobody really knows!³

All of these derivations seem unlikely for the Broadchalke ‘Little London’ – it’s too far from the capital, and there’s no River Lodden nearby.

Another suggestion is that the name is ironic. The settlement is so small and so remote that giving it the name of London is a kind of a joke.

In any case, it’s a charming name.

The family connection is that my grandparents lived there until moving into Broadchalke.

Little London and the Suez Crisis

I don’t think that my grandparents would mind me saying that they lived in fairly modest conditions at Little London.

A couple of the neighbours were, however, rather grand.

Clarissa Churchill at ‘Rose Bower’

Clarissa Spencer-Churchill moved into ‘Rose Bower’ in Little London in 1942. Reading a bit about her life I would agree with the Daily Telegraph that she seems ‘more like a character from a novel than a real person.’ ⁴.

She was the niece of Winston Churchill, the wartime Prime Minister. She recalls in the 1930s at Chartwell sitting ‘around the luncheon table endlessly listening to Winston telling us there was going to be a war and we would all get gassed’⁵

During the 1930s she went to Oxford to be privately tutored. While there she befriended Isiah Berlin. Antonia Fraser says that she was “the dons’ delight, because she was beautiful and extremely intellectual”⁶

She spent part of the war working at the Foreign Office, trying to decode enemy communications⁷.

In 1942, at Cecil Beaton’s suggestion, she bought the cottage in Little London, reportedly for £3000⁸. She wrote at the time that ‘‘I am so excited I cannot sleep. I have never owned a bit of earth before’.

She worked in both publishing and the film industry. She became Orson Welles ‘dinner companion’ while working on ‘The Third Man’⁹

She also knew Anne and Ian Fleming, Lucien Freud (who painted her portrait), the Mitfords, Evelyn Waugh¹⁰ and Noel Coward.

Anthony Eden at Little London

Clarissa Churchill first met Anthony Eden before the war.

They seem to have begun a relationship in the post-war period. Eden divorced his first wife in 1950, and married Clarissa in 1952.

At the time of the marriage Eden was Foreign Secretary, under Sir Winston as Prime Minister. The wedding breakfast was held at 10 Downing Street.

Eden succeeded Winston Churchill as Prime Minister in 1955.

Anthony Eden’s premiership was dominated by the ‘Suez Crisis’. The ‘crisis’ arose when Eden decided to bomb Egyptian forces when Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal. This has been widely seen as a mistake. Although it is usually referred to as ‘the Suez Crisis’, I notice that at the time of writing the passage on the official Number 10 website is headed ‘the Suez disaster‘¹¹.

The Edens kept the cottage at Little London throughout this time – there is a reference in one of the accounts of the crisis to the couple being away ‘in Wiltshire’ at some critical point.

Clarissa Eden famously commented that

For the past three months I have felt as if the Suez Canal was flowing through my drawing room.¹²

Footnotes

1. Little London, Tadley, Hampshire – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
2. Little London, Jamaica – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
3. Little London, Tadley, Hampshire – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
4. Clarissa Eden’s road to Suez – Telegraph
5. Random House : Book extract from The Goldfish Bowl: Married to the Prime Minister
6. Clarissa Eden: A witness to history – Telegraph
7. Clarissa Eden: A witness to history – Telegraph
8. Full text of “Portrait Of A Statesman”
9. Random House : Book extract from The Goldfish Bowl: Married to the Prime Minister
10. Waugh had declared himself to have fallen in love with her, but ‘fell out’ when Clarissa married – see Random House : Book extract from The Goldfish Bowl: Married to the Prime Minister
11. Sir Anthony Eden | Number10.gov.uk – on 23rd June 2010
12. The guardian of Eden – Times Online

The roads on the estate are mainly named after birds. Typically with the name of the bird being joined to a word which is typically part of a road name. So other roads on the estate are Ravenscroft and . . . → Read More: Linnetsdene, Salisbury]]> Linnetsdene is to the south of Salisbury, on what I think is called the Ridings Mead estate.

The roads on the estate are mainly named after birds. Typically with the name of the bird being joined to a word which is typically part of a road name. So other roads on the estate are Ravenscroft and Swallowmead.

Etymology of the Linnet

Both the English and the Latin names for the Linnet are derived from its favourite foods.

The word ‘linnet’ has the same root as linen ¹ because linen flax seed is often part of the birds diet.

The second part of the Latin name ‘Carduelis cannabina is derived from the linnet’s fondness for hemp seeds².

The Linnet on the Curragh of Kildare

The linnet is mentioned in one of my favourite folk songs, the Curragh of Kildare. It’s known as an Irish folk song, but may have been written by Robbie Burns³. The Curragh of Kildare is the location both of an Irish Army camp and of the Irish Derby. The song is sung before the running of the Derby.

It’s been recorded by many artists, including Finbar and Eddie Furey, the Johnstons and Christy Moore. The Pogues used a speeded up version of the melody for their single ‘White City’.

Chorus:
And it’s straight I will repair
To the Curragh of Kildare
For it’s there I’ll find tidings of my dear

Ah the winter it is past and the summer’s come at last
And the birds they are singing in the trees
Their little hearts are glad, ah but mine is very sad
Since my true love is far away from me

The rose upon the briar and the waters running deep
Bring joy to the linnet and the bee
Their little hearts are blest, ah but mine can know no rest
Since my true love is far away from me

For those who are in love and cannot be denied
I pity the pains that you do endure
For experience lets me know that your hearts are full of woe
A woe that no mortal can cure

A livery I’ll wear, ah and I’ll tie back my hair
And in velvet so green I will appear
And it’s straight I will repair to the Curragh of Kildare
For it’s there I’ll find tidings of my dear

At the time of writing the Johnstons version of the song is on Youtube here:

The Johnstons – Curragh of Kildare

Green Linnet Records

Green Linnet is a folk music label, specializing in Celtic music. It was founded 30 years ago, and has published music by dozens of musicians. ⁴.

The ‘Green Linnet’ in the Irish folk tradition was a euphimism for Napoleon Bonaparte, who was seen as an ally against the English ⁵

A flighty bird

According to the RSPB, the linnet is a member of the finch family. They used to be kept as caged birds, because they both sing and look quite pretty.

In researching the linnet, I found that the RSPB website says that the linnet ‘can be flighty‘⁶. I’m sure this has some technical meaning which I’m unaware of but to a layman like me being ‘flighty’ seems part of the avian condition.

Wordsworth’s Green Linnet

William Wordsworth published his poem ‘The Green Linnet’ in 1803.

The Green Linnet

BENEATH these fruit-tree boughs that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of Spring’s unclouded weather,

In this sequester’d nook how sweet
To sit upon my orchard-seat,
And flowers and birds once more to greet,
My last year’s friends together!

One have I mark’d, the happiest guest
In all this covert of the blest:—
Hail to thee, far above the rest
In joy of voice and pinion!

Thou, Linnet! in thy green array
Presiding spirit here to-day
Dost lead the revels of the May;
And this is thy dominion.

While birds, and butterflies, and flowers,
Make all one band of paramours,
Thou, ranging up and down the bowers,
Art sole in thy employment;

A life, a presence like the air,
Scattering thy gladness without care,
Too blest with any one to pair,
Thyself thy own enjoyment.

Amid yon tuft of hazel trees
That twinkle to the gusty breeze,
Behold him perch’d in ecstasies
Yet seeming still to hover;—

There! where the flutter of his wings
Upon his back and body flings
Shadows and sunny glimmerings,
That cover him all over.

My dazzled sight he oft deceives—
A brother of the dancing leaves;
Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves
Pours forth his song in gushes;

As if by that exulting strain
He mock’d and treated with disdain
The voiceless form he chose to feign,
While fluttering in the bushes.
⁷

Footnotes

1. Online Etymology Dictionary
2. BBC – Wildlife Finder – Linnet (video, facts and news)
3. The Curragh Of Kildare
4. Green Linnet
5. Green Linnet Records – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, and also The Green Linnet
6. The RSPB: Linnet
7. 242. Green Linnet. W. Wordsworth. The Golden Treasury

It is mentioned in the Victoria County History:

In 1790, the year of inclosure, we read of four fields: Church, North, Middle, and St. Ann’s Stile (or Little) Fields. (fn. 205) Long Lands or Brick Field may perhaps be reckoned a fifth.1

The next footnote . . . → Read More: Longland, Salisbury]]> Longland is to the west of Salisbury, just off from the Wilton Road.

It is mentioned in the Victoria County History:

In 1790, the year of inclosure, we read of four fields: Church, North, Middle, and St. Ann’s Stile (or Little) Fields. (fn. 205) Long Lands or Brick Field may perhaps be reckoned a fifth.¹

The next footnote says:

Longlands in the extreme west of the par. is marked on the tithe map (1843). It was not then a brickfield.(²)

A brickfield is a place where bricks are made and sold ³

Presumably Longlands is a reference to the shape of the field. It could relate to the surname, which in turn is either about the shape of a field or from Langland in Scotland.

The surname was given originally either as a topographical name to a person resident by a long piece of agricultural land, or as a locational name for someone from the barony of Langland in Peeblesshire⁴

Footnotes

1. ‘Fisherton Anger’, A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 6 (1962), pp. 180-194. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=41809 Date accessed: 11 June 2010.
3. brickfield – definition of brickfield by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.
4. SurnameDB: Longland surname meaning

It’s been called ‘Love Lane’ for at least 500 years. According to the Victoria County History:

The names of Gigant Street and Love Lane both occur in the 15th century. In Gigant Street are various commercial premises, including the Anchor Brewery dating partly from the 18th or early . . . → Read More: Love Lane, Salisbury]]> Love Lane is in the centre of Salisbury, close to Brown Street.

It’s been called ‘Love Lane’ for at least 500 years. According to the Victoria County History:

The names of Gigant Street and Love Lane
both occur in the 15th century. In Gigant Street are various commercial
premises, including the Anchor Brewery dating partly from the 18th or early 19th century. In 1751 the bishop’s pound stood in Love Lane, but 100 years later a block of eight cottages stood on the site. ¹

There are three or four obvious possible derivations of the name ‘Love Lane’, although it’s possible that they are all wrong.

Prostitution

The first is that ‘Love’ here is a reference to prostitution.

This explanation would be supported by the fact that prostitutes did work in this area of Salisbury. Agnes Bottenham, the founder of the Trinity Hospital is believed to have owned a brothel both on the site of the restaurant the ‘Raie d’Or’ in Brown Street (which I would recommend both as a pub and as a Thai restaurant), and on the site of the Trinity Hospital (which is adjacent to Love Lane) itself:

This charity [the hospital] was founded in 1379 by brothel-keeper Agnes Bottenham. As an act of penitance she opened the hospital on the site of the brothel to provide for 12 poor residents, give temporary shelter for 12 poor visitors and care for the sick. It was among the charities brought under corporation control by the city charter of 1612. The current building dates from 1702 and is built around a courtyard, with its own chapel. ²

There are references, too, to prostitutes in the 14th Century working in Culver Street, one chequer across from Love Lane ³.

Further, other ‘Love Lanes’ have derived their names from prostitution. John Stow wrote in 1603 :

for so I find it of Record, in the parrish of S. Michaell Woodstreete, and beneath that is Loue lane, so called of wantons ⁴

The surname ‘Love’

So John Stow attributes the name of London’s ‘Love Lane’ to prostitution, but the author of the 1918 ‘Dictionary of London’ protests that it could just as easily have been named after a landowner called ‘Love’.

In ‘A Dictionary of London’ it says that Love Lane is:

So called of wantons, Stow says (ed. 1603, p. 298). But why not after an owner named “Love”? ⁵

How likely is it that Salisbury’s Love Lane is simply named after a Mr or Ms Love?

It’s certainly possible, but there are a couple of reasons why I would tend to think it’s unlikely:

• First, it’s a fairly unusual name. Currently there are 220 people in a million called ‘Love’. Geographically they don’t particularly tend to be based in Wiltshire either⁶
• Second, there don’t seem to be any references to a Mr or Ms Love in the literature of Salisbury’s history. I’ve checked a few books, including the Victoria County History, and not found anything. In comparison it’s easy to find Richard Payne (Payne’s Hill), the de Bernewell family (Barnard Street) or Christopher Eyre (Eyres Way)

Faith, hope and love

A third explanation for the name ‘Love Lane’ is that it is a reference to the ‘Trinity’ of ‘Faith, Hope and Love’. This would ‘fit in’ with the adjacent Trinity Street and Trinity Hospital.

The word for ‘Love’ is often translated as ‘Charity’:

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the
greatest of these is charity. ⁷

However, this seems to be a recently adopted translation. Wikipedia says:

The English word love for the third and greatest of the virtues, agape, was used by all of the English translators of the Bible in the 16th Century, including Tyndale (1534), the Bishops’ Bible (1568) and the Geneva Bible (1560). It is also used by almost all current translations of the Bible, including the New King James Version, the New American Standard Bible, and the New International Version.

The King James Version (1611) and the Challoner Douay Rheims Bible (1752) prefer the more theological term Charity for the same idea of specifically Christian love.⁸

How likely is it that the name of Love Lane is derived from the trinity of faith, hope and love?

I think I would have to say that it’s fairly unlikely. If there was ever a Faith Street and a Hope Street, then that would be different, but I don’t believe there ever were.

Romantic love

It is possible that an owner or developer named the road ‘Love Lane’ simply because they were in love.

It is probably more likely that the developer would have named the road after the person they loved. For example, in Laverstock there is a Vanessa Avenue and near where I used to live in South East London there were a series of road names created by concatenating two girl’s names together making for example Elsiemaud Road and Amyruth Road ⁹

It is also possible that the owner or developer just thought it was a sweet name for a road – or possibly even an ironic name for a road.

My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that the road is probably not called Love Lane because an owner or developer thought it was a romantic name. Firstly because Love is too abstract for a 15th Century road name, and secondly because I don’t believe the names of roads in the 15th Century were necessarily ‘decided upon’ by owners or developers.

So, road names in the area, which dates back to the founding of the city, are usually functional. Some relate to ownership, for example Paynes Hill. Others relate to trades that were plied on that road, for example Catherine (from Carter’s) Street. Some were named ‘directionally’ (Winchester Street) and others were named for local landmarks (St Ann Street, after St Ann’s Gate).

Moreover I think road names tended to ‘evolve’ rather than be decided by one person or group of persons. So Exeter Street was known as variously, High Street, Drakehall Street, Dragon Street and Dragall Street. My feeling is that an abstract name like ‘Love’ would tend to be the product of a single person or a committee making a positive decision. I don’t think roads were named in that way until the 19th or 20th century.

Love Lane – A conclusion

My ‘favourite’ of the possible derivations of the name ‘Love Lane’ is that it was named in reference to the trinity of ‘faith, hope and love’. However without a corresponding Faith Street and Hope Street, this isn’t very likely.

The other three definitions are all possible, but because I can’t find a Salisbury landowner called Love and because road names of that era tended to be functional rather than abstract I would say, somewhat sadly, that it seems likely to me that ‘Love Lane’ is a reference to prostitution.

Footnotes

1. ‘Salisbury: St Martin’s parish’, A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 6 (1962), pp. 79-81. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=41784 Date accessed: 21 May 2010
2. Trinity Hospital in Salisbury – UK Attraction
3. The Pleasures and Treasures of Britain: a discerning traveller’s companion, David Kemp, page 52 and also English parish drama By Alexandra F. Johnston, Wim N. M. Hüsken page 62
4. ‘Cripplegate warde’, A Survey of London, by John Stow: Reprinted from the text of 1603 (1908), pp. 290-303. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=60047 (Cripplegate warde | British History Online) Date accessed: 19 May 2010.
5. ‘Love Lane – Lucas Lane’, A Dictionary of London (1918). URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=63213 Date accessed: 18 April 2010.
6. LOVE: Surname Data Summary | British Surnames, Surname Distribution and Surname Profiles
7. Corinthians:13:13
8. Theological virtues – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
9. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=elsiemaud+road+london&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=22.014656,56.425781&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Elsiemaud+Rd,+London+SE4,+United+Kingdom&z=15

Ernest Neville Lovett was born in 1869. He was ordained in 1892 and served in various parishes across the South of England.1

In 1912, while . . . → Read More: Lovett Green, Salisbury]]> Lovett Gardens is named after Neville Lovett who was Bishop of Salisbury from 1936 until 1949. Most of the roads in this area of Bishopdown are named, appropriately enough, after Bishops of Salisbury

Ernest Neville Lovett was born in 1869. He was ordained in 1892 and served in various parishes across the South of England.¹

In 1912, while rector at Farnham, he wrote a ‘Farnham Folk Play’. This was a historical piece about how the town lost it’s charter. The play was ‘witnessed by a large audience’ and ran for several days. ²

During the First World War he was rector of Saint Mary’s in Southampton. His ‘genial and lovable character made him popular alike with his parishioners and staff’³. He received a CBE for his work there.

He became the first Bishop of Portsmouth in 1927.

In 1936 at the age of 68, Lovett was appointed Bishop of Salisbury. It was Bishop Lovett who vacated the Bishop’s Palace in 1946.⁴

He died in 1951. There are schools named after Bishop Lovett in both Ryde on the Isle of Wight ⁵ and Fareham ⁶

Bishop Lovett and church vandalism at Imber

I found a Times article from September 1945 which mentions Bishop Lovett. He toured the village of Imber after reports of vandalism to the Church there, telling Lord Long of Wraxall that he was ‘very much disturbed by the vandalism’. ⁷

I found this interesting only because you would tend to see vandalism for it’s own sake as being a relatively recent phenomenon, but it plainly is not.

Footnotes

1. Neville Lovett – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
2. The Times, Tuesday, Nov 12, 1912; pg. 13; Issue 40054; col F – A FARNHAM FOLK PLAY.
3. The Times, Monday, Sep 10, 1951; pg. 6; Issue 52102; col D – Dr. Neville Lovett A Former Bishop Of Salisbury
4. History of Salisbury cathedral choir school – of choristers ancient and modern
5. WELCOME TO BISHOP LOVETT
6. Neville Lovett Community School
7. The Times, Wednesday, Sep 19, 1945; pg. 2; Issue 50251; col E “Vandalism At Imber – Bishop To See Army Commander”

Both Lower Folly and Lower Street have corresponding ‘Upper’ versions of their names. The ‘Folly’ probably refers to the building in . . . → Read More: Lower Roads in Salisbury, Quidhampton and Britford and Lower Folly Wilton]]> There are four road names which begin with the word ‘Lower’, two of which are actually called ‘Lower Road’. The five are:

• Lower Folly in Wilton
• Lower Road in Britford
• Lower Road between Bemerton and Quidhampton
• Lower Street in Harnham.html

Both Lower Folly and Lower Street have corresponding ‘Upper’ versions of their names. The ‘Folly’ probably refers to the building in the grounds of Wilton House, which is nearby.

Lower Road in Britford is probably named in distinction to the main Bournemouth Road, which in Britford is called the ‘High Road’

As far as I’m aware, though there is no ‘Upper’ or ‘High’ equivalent to Lower Road in Bemerton. I would say it’s the Lower Road in distinction to the main Wilton Road.

The picture below shows the Green Man in context. The foliage on the opposite corner of the . . . → Read More: Green Man at Wetherspoons]]> This is the Green Man which appears on the cover of Salisbury Civic Society’s ‘Salisbury in Detail‘ book. It is on the north-facing side of the Kings Arms pub – otherwise known as either ‘Spoonies’ or, formerly, the County Hotel.

The picture below shows the Green Man in context. The foliage on the opposite corner of the window is just foliage – there is no Jack o’ the Green hiding there as far as I can see.

There are seven other Green Men in Salisbury (out of more than 100 across Wiltshire) photographed on the rather wonderful Wiltshire Green Men website.

Incidentally, either there’s another version of the same Green Man at the Kings Arms or the picture was reversed for the cover of the book (which I would highly recommend).