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Macabre Place Names

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Anonymous

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I recently "learned" that a street near where I grew up, innocuously called Blagreaves Lane, was named after a corruption of the term "Black Graves", so named because it is built over the site of mass graves dug for victims of the black death. I say "learned" in inverted commas as it seems to be a fact that passed me by, and now all my friends from the area quote it as a Well Known Fact.
I was wondering if since this would be fairly common occurence in the Middle Ages whether anyone had come across this name themselves, could confirm this sounds reasonable, or tell of similar place names whose meaning has been corrupted over the years.
 
...reminds me of "Hob Lane" in Quatermass and the pit...I think there's one of those on the outskirts of Bury somewhere. Oh, and there's Boggart Hole Clough...strange name for a park...
 
It amazed me when housing developers called a local estate 'Darkwood ...(insert street, avenue,close etc.)'.

Moving there is just like going into the cellar in a horror film....!:eek:
 
David mentione 'Puckeridge'...

As in "Puck of Pook Hill" by Kipling.

Not sure if that's a real place, but there is a Pooksgreen in Hampshire. Also Puckington (Somerset) and Pucklechurch (Avon).
 
I have just found out the meanings of three places all a small distance from each other
1) Cassop (about 3 miles south west of durham) which means valley of the wild cats
2) Shincliffe(about a 1.5miles south west of durham) which means spectra or haunted place
3) Witch hill (on the oppisite side of the road to Cassop) which was a place that witches were tried and burned.
 
On another thread about Plague Pits Escargot turned up the following:
The main street in Conwy, N. Wales, UK, is called Berry Street. It is apparently a corruption of 'Burial' street, the road being, it is believed locally, dug up and used as a plague pit when residents were too weak to take their dead any further. If true, it's a horrifying idea.
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I know of a couple of places not too far away called Willey and Hoggrills End. :p

Intriguing is it not?
 
We don't have anything fun like that we do have Leech lake and a Lake Shady though!
 
As I've mentioned to a few people Aberdeen has a street called Guest Row. On old maps it's Ghaist Row, which means street of Ghosts or Spirits. Back then the houses on Ghaist Row had a clear vew of the local church yard and local supersticion had it that you could see the spirits of the dead hanging about there at night.

Cujo
 
We have a Puck Lane and a Dark Lane and a recent housing estate called Deer Park (guess what happened to the deer when they built the houses :( )

There's also the Wytchwood not far away. I could ramble on forever about the local legends surrounding that place!

Jane.
 
Oooh, I forgot... Queen Emma's Dyke. Not truely macabre but believe me growing up there was hell!

Jane.
 
Black Graves

Blackheath in London is also apparently so-called because it was a plague mass-grave.

Not sure I believe it though, the story came to me through rather "friend of a friend" roots.

There's a number of mass burial grounds from the period in London, and most are fenced off to prevent the playing of disrespectful ballgames, and not called "black" anything.

Someone else told me Blackheath is Blackheath because of the colour of the soil. (which looks-soil coloured to me :confused: )

Think the truth is, nobody is quite sure why Blackheath is Blackheath, but the plague reason is suitably chilling and evokative, so it's the most frequently quoted.
 
mejane said:
There's also the Wytchwood not far away. I could ramble on forever about the local legends surrounding that place!
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Having lived in a haunted inn near Wytchwood (as I related else where in these forums) I can safely describe it as: The inspiration for Ryhope Wood in Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood stories.

Niles "...'Escapee' from the 'Crawley Inn'..." Calder
 
Tombstone, AZ.

The founder was told "All you'll find out there is your tombstone and some Apaches".

When he found a rich vein of silver, he named it Tombstone.

Thenyou have the Sangre de Cristo mountains...

Morbid.
 
In Hornsea in East Yorks there's a grassy track leading from Hull Road to the Mere (largest lake in Yorkshire), called Bogeyman's Lane. As a kid, it used to be a dare to run down to the gated Mere end of the lane and back. Partly because of whatever it was we thought lived down there, but mostly 'cos of the bloke in the house at the side, who'd come out and shout at us for "trespassing"!

Not sure how long its had the name, or how it aquired it, but my Mum moved to Hornsea in the early 1950s, and it had it then.
 
There's a Dead mans Lane in Derby and in Stoke on Trent there is a Devils Lane.
 
There's a Gibbet Lane near Camberly (Surrey) and Gibbet Hill, complete with gibbet near Andover.
 
There is a gibbet hill above the Devils punchbowl at Hindhead, where some sailors who murdered some helpful bloke on the london - portsmouth road were hanged. There is a stone marking the place now and rumour says that if the stone is moved some terrible curse is enacted. Then again, I think the stone may have been moved to build the A3 when that happened, so it may not be so terrible a curse after all.
Having lived in a haunted inn near Wytchwood (as I related else where in these forums) I can safely describe it as: The inspiration for Ryhope Wood in Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood stories.
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Now that I would like to know more about...
 
When I was at Loughborough uni I lived not far from a little side street called Dead St. (or lane)

It goes behind the bus shelters and the co-op parking lot and it's not lit at all. It's creepy going down there at night, there's little alcoves and doorways at the back of the bus shelter. I was sure some tramp was going to jump out at me as I went down to the 24 hr garage for ciggies at 3am lol
 
Mortlake in west London supposedly got it's name due to the loading/unloading of bodies on boats during the plague. At least that's what they told us at school there. But then they told us a lot of stuff. :mad:
 
There's Upper and Lower Slaughter in Gloucestershire . . .

Carole
 
In Newcastle under Lyme there is a Gallowstree lane.
 
In Sussex there's a huge dry valley -- the biggest in the world, apparently -- called Devil's Dyke. It used to be an Iron Age camp and has a fairly hefty legend behind the name:

"The name comes from a legend that involves the Devil and an old woman from Poynings. The legend claims that the Devil decided to flood the Weald in order to destroy the churches and drown all the Christians living in the valley below. The Devil was digging the channel that would let in the sea when an old woman left her cottage to discover the cause of all the noise. The woman carried a candle and inspired by St. Cuthman, the flame became a great blaze. This light woke the cockerels, who began to crow to greet the dawn. When the Devil heard the cockerels and saw the light, he thought it was the breaking of the dawn and fled, leaving the Dyke incomplete. "

http://www.sussex-online.co.uk/Devils.Dyke.htm

I went there a lot as a child, and of course my fondest memory, of course, is of the Mister Whippy van there...
 
Caxton Gibbet, (complete with gibbet, but alas no body in chains, which has long been removed), in Cambridgeshire, where the A428 & A1198 cross.

Dead Woman's Lane, just west of the village of Preston, Near Hitchin in Hertfordshire, sorry but I can find no reason for this name!!!!!

Any number of Dead Man's Oak, or Dead Man's Cross etc in Bedfordshire, possibly the sites of gibbits, likewise Gallows Hill etc.

Oh! And Johnyboy.... We used to play the same sort of game i.e. running up a lane for a dare, in St Alban's.

The lane ran along the back yards of a row of houses & their privies backed onto it. The grown ups called it Privie Alley, us kids just called it Shitters Alley & the game was to see how far you could get up it while holding your breath!!!!!!

We made our own amusements in those days!!!!!:D
 
Not a place name, but field names found on the outskirts of Blackpool. Cuckstool field and meadow. Otherwise the local spot for the punishment of antisocial behaviour, especially nagging wives. It was a type of ducking stool. The name origin is interesting; it comes from cukken, to defecate + stool. (small chair, not the other sort!). Though the place name is found throughout Lancashire including the Pendle area, it does not mean that they were necessarily used for ducking witches.
 
David Raven said:
It amazed me when housing developers called a local estate 'Darkwood ...(insert street, avenue,close etc.)'.
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Developers often give names without realizing what they really mean. Not far from here is a street called Wendigo Trail. Hopefully no cannibalistic forest demons have been seen there lately.
 
There is an area up on the Quantocks called Dead Woman's Ditch , a murder victim was found there not too many years ago too !
An aside about plague pits , my Mother was reminiscing the other day about when Lewis' store was built in Broadmead,Bristol , when the foundations were dug they turned up a big plague pit,the bodies had been limed and some were still a bit fleshy and even had clothes still on them . The Irish diggers refused to carry on working there ( my mother thinks for religious reasons ) and special workers had to be drafted in to finish the job.
Marion
 
We have a murdering creek,and a slaughterhouse creek near us.
 
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