London England About Methodology
Britain's Street Name Archive

Every street
has a story.

The history and etymology of every street name in Britain — from Roman roads to Victorian terraces, told with depth and care.

Start with London About the project
198 streets now live — growing weekly
Victorian c. 1880
Edwardian c. 1901
Post-war c. 1948
Modern c. 1975
Covent Garden market, c.1880s
Covent Garden
Drury Lane, c.1901
Drury Lane
Trafalgar Square, c.1948
Trafalgar Square
Portobello Road market, 1970s
Portobello Road
Now live
Starting with London

14 inner London boroughs — researched from primary sources, published borough by borough.

172 streets
Southwark
T1 · T2
3 streets
Camden
In progress
3 streets
City of London
In progress
1 street
Greenwich
In progress
2 streets
Hackney
In progress
4 streets
Hammersmith & Fulham
In progress
1 street
Islington
In progress
3 streets
Kensington & Chelsea
In progress
44 streets
Lambeth
In progress
Coming soon
Lewisham
In progress
Coming soon
Newham
In progress
Coming soon
Tower Hamlets
In progress
Coming soon
Wandsworth
In progress
Coming soon
Westminster
In progress
Featured streets
Where to begin

Three streets that tell the full range of Southwark's history.

The Talbot Inn, Borough High Street, Southwark, c.1820
Tier 1 · Roman origin
Borough High Street

London's oldest arterial road — the Roman Stane Street — has been the gateway to the city for two thousand years.

Borough →
The Globe Theatre, Bankside, Southwark, engraving c.1800
Tier 1 · Tudor playhouses
Bankside

Shakespeare's stomping ground — bear pits, theatres, and the south bank of the Thames where London came to play.

Bankside →
Bermondsey Abbey, engraving
Tier 1 · Lost pub
Blue Anchor Lane

Named for a riverside pub that vanished two centuries ago, this lane preserves a piece of Bermondsey's waterfront past.

Bermondsey →
Borough High Street, c.1820
From the archive

Two thousand years on the same road

Borough High Street has been London's southern gateway since the Romans laid the Stane Street. Below the tarmac, the bones of medieval inns and Chaucer's pilgrims still define the route — unchanged in alignment for two millennia.

Read the full history
More from Southwark
Keep exploring
Bankside
Tier 1 · Tudor
Bankside

Bear pits, theatres, and Shakespeare's South Bank.
Blue Anchor Lane
Tier 1 · Lost pub
Blue Anchor Lane

A riverside tavern name that outlasted the tavern itself.
Tier 2 · Medieval
Bear Lane

One of Southwark's oldest surviving street names — traced to the bear-baiting grounds.
Tier 1 · Saxon
Bermondsey Street

The spine of one of London's oldest settlements, named long before the borough itself.
About the project

The names we walk past every day

Street names are the oldest layer of language still in active daily use. They carry Saxon field patterns, Norman estate boundaries, Victorian civic ambition and Georgian property speculation — often all on the same block.

Street Origin exists to make that history legible. Every entry is researched from primary sources: historical maps, court rolls, estate records, trade directories. No guesswork, no padding.

We started with Southwark — one of London's most historically layered boroughs — and we're expanding borough by borough, city by city, across Britain.

"A street name is a compressed history — a sentence that survived while everything around it changed."
Street Origin methodology