Gropecunt Lane

Gropecunt Lane was a name used in English-speaking towns and cities in the Middle Ages for streets where prostitutes conducted their business. In most cases, the name would appear to derive directly from the words grope (sexual touching), and cunt (female genitalia). At one point there were streets of this name in many cities in Britain and Ireland, though in most cases later sensibilities changed the name to some more polite variation.^[1]

A "Gropecuntelane" is the earliest citation in the entry for the word "cunt" in the Oxford English Dictionary, which dates the reference to about 1230.

In London

In London, the street that was Gropecunt Lane was near the present-day site of the Barbican Centre in the City of London. The street was called Grub Street in the 18th century, but renamed Milton Street in 1830.

In Oxford

Oxford's Gropecunt Lane became Grope Lane and then Grove Lane. It runs from The High between University and Oriel to Merton Street, and then on between Merton and Corpus down to Christ Church Meadow. The part north of Merton Street is nowadays called Magpie Lane, but the southern part is still called Grove Passage, and the building in the south-western corner of Merton is also called Grove. The presence of a number of trees in this area perhaps suggested the name — until it was leased in 1513 for building, the site of Corpus was planted as an orchard and used as a garden for the junior members of Merton.^{[citation needed]}

In Dublin

Dublin's Gropecunt Lane was located near where the Savoy Cinema is now.^{[citation needed]}

In other cities

Southampton, Hereford, Reading and Worcester had streets named "Grope Lane" in their town centres; the more explicit "Gropecunt Lane" was located in Bristol, London, York and Newcastle. Other similar names included Love Lane, Fondle Street and Puppekirty Lane (meaning "Poke Skirt Lane").

There is still a Grope Lane in Shrewsbury. It runs from where the market was once held, around the churches of St Alkmund's and St Julian's, to the High Street. Many of the rest of the streets called Gropecunt Lane, or similar, were altered to more innocent-sounding variants, most commonly "Grape Lane".^{[citation needed]}

Historical aspects

Historian Richard Holt and archaeologist Nigel Baker, of the University of Birmingham, studied sexually suggestive street names around England using the Historic Towns Atlas as a source.^[2] They attempted to show that mediaeval prostitution was a normal aspect of urban life. According to Dr Baker, "Our study is that these lanes seemed to be centres of prostitution and all the ones we can track down are associated with the market place or high street. The news is that prostitution was not banished to the suburbs – it was going on in the town centre as part and parcel of normal marketing activity".

The association of all these streets with mediaeval prostitution is, however, disputed. In some cases they may simply have been explicitly named "lovers' lanes". In other cases the words may originally have had different meanings, or referred to non-sexual forms of "groping". The Grope Lane in Shrewsbury is very narrow and dark, bending round in such a way that it is difficult to see ahead, so the name may merely have referred to the need to grope one's way along it. Likewise, another street with a similar history in Southwark is Horselydown Lane. It has been suggested that this derives from "whores lie down"; however it is far more likely to derive, like other instances of Horsely or Horsley, from "horse lea" — a lea (meadow) for grazing horses.^[3] All the same, there is evidence that the Shrewsbury lane was recorded as "Gropecountelane" in 1561 and that the "cunt" part was dropped by the early nineteenth century.^{[citation needed]}

There was also a Gropecunt Lane in a small village in Stubbington, Hampshire. This was later named 'The Grove' and now is one of the most used roads in the area, connecting Plymouth Drive and Crofton Lane.^{[citation needed]}

The Gropecunt Lane of Durham is now Grape Lane, though any indication of what it may once have been like has disappeared, as the street was redeveloped in the mid-20th century.^{[citation needed]}

References

^ "St. Pancras Soper Lane 145/39". Centre for Metropolitan History. Retrieved 2005-08-09.
^ Baker, N & Holt, R. (2000). "Towards a geography of sexual encounter: prostitution in English medieval towns". In L. Bevan (ed.). Indecent Exposure: Sexuality, Society and the Archaeological Record. Cruithne Press: Glasgow. pp. 187–98.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^ page stating origin of the Horselydown name

External links

Shuts of Shrewsbury — article and photographs of Grope Lane, Shrewsbury, can be found here
Virtual Shropshire — photograph of Grope Lane, Shrewsbury

[bh2005-1] "St. Pancras Soper Lane 145/39". Centre for Metropolitan History. Retrieved 2005-08-09.

[baker2000-2] Baker, N & Holt, R. (2000). "Towards a geography of sexual encounter: prostitution in English medieval towns". In L. Bevan (ed.). Indecent Exposure: Sexuality, Society and the Archaeological Record. Cruithne Press: Glasgow. pp. 187–98.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[3] stating origin of the Horselydown name

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