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Saturday 16 April 2011

Descriptive London street names

Bread Street
Fig Tree Court
Fish Street Hill
Haymarket
Gropecunt Lane!!!!

Gropecunt Lane ran south from Cheapside, with Popkirtle Lane (literally pop-girdle as in tear your clothes off) on one side and Bordhawe Lane (Bordhawe means brothel) on the other. The groping of cunts was apparently the lowest form of prostitution where aged hags would charge a pittance for a punter to put his hand up their skirts and grope them. The street is no longer there but it ran roughly north to south just to the east of present-day Queen Street between Cheapside and Queen Victoria Street.
No wonder the Victorians changed its name!

1 comment:

Davie MacCallum Wylie said...

There's an area of Edinburgh called Davidson's Mains. It's quite a desirable area. In the C19th it was called 'Mutton Hole' on account of abbatoir-ial activities. Doesn't have the same ring of respectability, does it?