City of London Street names: a dozen that don’t mean what you think
- London On The Ground
- Jun 1
- 7 min read
More peculiar and varied street names in the Square Mile.
The City of London is the oldest part of the metropolis. Because of its antiquity, many of its street names have been corrupted from their original designation into similar, but different, words.
Summer/Autumn 2025 walks available for booking
For a schedule of forthcoming London On The Ground guided walks, please click here.
This post looks at a dozen City street names that have a different meaning from what you might think when you first see them.
In each case I have illustrated them with a photo of the street's name sign, most of which I took between May 2020 and February 2021 during the covid-19 pandemic, when walking the City's streets became a regular and reassuring ritual for me.
Cloak Lane
This name conjures up images of shops selling theatrical and formal wear. However, the origin of the name of this street near Cannon Street station is a lot less glamorous.
It is thought to derive from 'cloaca', a Latin word meaning ‘sewer’.
Cloaca is also the zoological term for “the body cavity into which the intestinal, urinary and reproductive canals discharge in birds, reptiles, amphibians and many fishes” (source: Penguin English Dictionary).
You probably wish you didn’t know that now.
Before the mid-17th century the street was called was Horseshoebridge Street, after a bridge that crossed the River Walbrook at the eastern end of the street (see also Walbrook Wharf: the river, rubbish and Romans).
Clearly, this was a street whose fortunes deteriorated (just like those of the now underground river).
See also my short YouTube video on the the tiny garden visibly in the above photo: The smallest garden in the City of London?
Cripplegate Street
Cripplegate was one of the gates in the ancient City walls, originally built by the Romans but named by the Saxons. It is thought unlikely that the name relates to disabled people (although the nearby church of St Giles Cripplegate is dedicated to the patron saint of Cripples).
It is more likely that the name of the gate refers to a ‘crepel’, a covered way or a tunnel, which may have been used by Saxon sentries.
Cripplegate Street is now a pedestrian walkway on the northern edge of the Barbican Estate.
Crutched Friars
If this makes you think of limping monks, walking with the aid of a stick, dispel that image from your mind.
The street close to Fenchurch Street station is named after an order of friars, the House of the Holy Cross, established in London in 1249 near Tower Hill. The order’s Italian name, Fratres Cruciferi ('cross-bearing brothers'), was corrupted into 'crutched friars' in English (see also my post on a sculpture of two Crutched Friars).
Gutter Lane
Unlike Cloak Lane (above), the origin of this street name off Cheapside is not as bad as it sounds.
It is thought to refer to a family called Gutherun or Godrun (a name of Danish origin), who were either tenants or landowners in the lane in the eleventh century. It was known for several centuries as Gutherons Lane, which was eventually corrupted into Gutter Lane.
According to John Stow’s 1598 book A Survey of London, “fine silver, such as was then made into foil” was worked in Gutter Lane, where also he says the “inhabitants of old time were Goldbeaters”.
As Oscar Wilde wrote, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
Little Britain
This street near Smithfield and Barts Hospital predates Matt Lucas and David Walliams’ early 2000s BBC comedy sketch series of the same name by many centuries. They were poking fun at the peculiarities of Britain and its Little Englanders.
However, the street name is a reference to Robert le Bretoun, a 13th century local landowner, who may have come from Brittany. Some sources say it refers to the Dukes of Brittany, who had a mansion here from the early 14th century.
The name changed from Brettonestrete in 1329 to Britten Strete in 1547 and Lyttell Bretton in 1602. It was known for its booksellers from the 15th to the early 18th centuries. Benjamin Franklin lodged here while working for a printer when he first came to London in 1725, while John and Charles Wesley are said to have experienced their conversions in a house on this street.
In 1820 the American writer Washington Irving (author of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle) described the area around the street, also known as Little Britain, as “the stronghold of true John Bullism… with its antiquated folks and fashions”.
Pudding Lane
Famously the Great Fire of London started in Pudding Lane in 1666. One of the places the fire burnt out was Pie Corner, near Smithfield. This coinciding of pudding and pie led to a belief that the calamity must have been God’s punishment for the sin of gluttony.
However, Pudding Lane was named after the parts of animals that even the gluttonous would refuse to eat. ‘Pudding’ was the term given to unwanted animal entrails, which were taken down the lane from butchers’ shops on Eastcheap for disposal along the River Thames.
See also my short YouTube video: Pudding & Pie: The Great Fire Punished London's Gluttony?
Seething Lane
Believe me when I say that I have never encountered anyone on this street that is filled with intense anger or any other barely contained emotion. Neither is this street in the east of the City an intensely hot location.
In fact, there is a very pleasant and relaxing small park here, Seething Lane Garden.
Here, ‘Seething’ derives from the Old English ‘sifetha’, meaning chaff or siftings, from the time when there was a nearby corn market. By the 16th century it was known as Sything Lane.
The street assumed the current form of its name in the 17th century, when it was home to the diarist Samuel Pepys, whose bronze bust by sculptor Karin Jonzen can be seen in the Garden here.
Sherborne Lane
This street, not far from Bank station, has no connection to the market town in the Dorset countryside. I am afraid that we really are back in the gutter here.
The name evolved from Shirebourne Lane, which was an alteration of the Medieval Shittebore Lane, in reference to a public privy here.
Snow Hill
Before Holborn Viaduct was built in 1869, Snow Hill was a steep climb from the valley of the Fleet River up to Newgate.
Weary travellers arriving after a long journey would rest at the Saracen’s Head, a coaching inn on the north side of the street. It is thought that this gave rise to the street’s former name, Snore Hill or Snowrehill.
Staining Lane
Please do not let your mind wander where it should not on reading the name of this street.
At the corner of Staining Lane and Oat Lane, not far from St Paul’s, once stood the church of St Mary Staining, which was destroyed in the Great Fire in 1666 and never rebuilt. The street took its name from this church, which may have been dedicated to, or even owned by, men from Staines who came to work in the City.
On the site of the church today there is a small garden, where a protected plane tree influenced the design of an office block by architect Norman Foster (see Norman Foster vs the tree & Wren).
Stew Lane
This is not a reference to a nourishing, warming and comforting meal.
At least one source says that this lane off Upper Thames Street was once the location of a brothel, or ‘stew’, commonly found along both banks of the river from the 12th to the 17th centuries.
However, brothels were more commonly located on Bankside, on the Southwark side of the river. Stew Lane more likely served as a kind of taxi rank, where clients could book a waterman to row them across to the stews.
Today there is a pub overlooking the Thames at the end of the lane, named ‘Samuel Pepys’. The diarist may well have made use of Stew Lane to board the water taxis bound for the bawdy houses.
Threadneedle Street
This street name does, at least partially, mean what you think.
Now famous as the location of the Bank of England, there was once a needle shop in the street. The original name, ‘Three Needle Street’, came from the sign hanging outside the shop and this eventually morphed into Threadneedle Street.
Some sources suggest that the original name derives from the coat of arms of the Merchant Taylors’ Company, whose livery hall has been on the street since 1347. However the company’s shield portrays a pavilion and two mantles, so it would have been a misinterpretation of these items as three needles. It is also possible that the street took its name from the threads and needles of the Merchant Taylors.
Although the last of these dozen might restore your faith a little, you can see from many of these examples that you should never trust a City street name.
See also my first post on unusual street names: City of London Street names: a dozen of the best. This also included some examples of names that don't mean what you might think: Cannon Street, Cheapside, Fetter Lane, Huggin Hill, Mincing Lane and Trump Street.
Summer/Autumn 2025 walks available for booking
For a schedule of forthcoming London On The Ground guided walks, please click here.
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