You know where you are with a British street name. I don’t mean literally. I mean there’s a tacit humility to our islands’ hodonyms: they are short, simple and unpretentious. Not for us the long-winded commemorations of national heroes or local worthies: no Avenue du Révérend Père Corentin Cloarec or Burgemeester Baron van Voerst van Lyndenstraat.
Our street names are soundest away from the city. The High Street is thriving: it’s the commonest name in England and Wales, while Main Street leads the field in Scotland. Great Britain has some 3,600 of the two. A ‘street’ used to refer to a properly paved road, a practice imported by the Romans for their great connecting roads (Watling, Ermine, Stane, Dere). Medieval journeymen stared in wonder at such ‘stone streets’, which flaunted a long-forgotten technology.
By the time of Henry I, streets were a protected brand: they should be wide enough for two carriages, or 16 knights on horseback.
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