The origin of street names in Stratford sub Castle and adjacent roads of Salisbury.

The dates are of naming or earliest recorded use, mostly from Hart [1]

 

BUTTS ROAD 1925 This is a term from archery. It can refer to the protective wall or mound behind the target, or the target or as butts, the target range. There was such an area north of the city. Regular practice was compulsory from 13th to 17th Centuries. Cricket in the 15th and football in the 16th C were frowned on as distractions from archery.

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CAPULET ROAD 1965. The Hathaway Estate was being developed by Tenmen Developers in 1964 the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth. There was already a Montague Road in Harnham for Romeo’s family so Juliet’s family name was used here.[1]

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CASTLE KEEP 1965 Refers to the Keep at Old Sarum Castle. It is linked to Old Sarum by the old Roman Portway, see below.

 

CHANCELLOR’S FARM 2017  Hazeley Developments. The land was church owned but held by the Chancellor of the (third = modern) Cathedral in the 14th and 15th C. In the 18th and 19th C it was known by the name of Squire’s Estate after related tenants called Squire. [2]

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CHATHAM CLOSE. 1963 There have been two Earls of Chatham. The title was granted to William Pitt the Elder in 1766 and died with his eldest son, John’s, death in 1835. William’s grandfather was Thomas Pitt of Mawarden House, benefactor of the local church, William’s son, younger brother to John was William Pitt the Younger.

 

DOUGLAS HAIG ROAD 1929 Commemorates the British Commander on the Western Front 1915-18 who died in 1928. He was involved in the forming of the British Legion.

 

FAIRFIELD ROAD 1926. The name simply refers to a field in which a fair is held. Which fair and when is unknown.

 

GRADIDGE LANE Date is thought to be after 1921 when the RFS Coggan came. Originally it was Grabbage Lane. Local lore records the hedge along it was unkept and would grab at passers by, Grab Hedge Lane. The lane to a “grand ditch” is another theory with nothing to support it. As a family name Gradidge has strong links to Hampshire but none has been found to Stratford. No Gradidges appear in Church records or Census. H Gradidge & Sons were manufacturers of cricket bats and later golf clubs but again with no obvious local link. It's possible the switch to Gradidge was when the lane was adopted by the Council, as a Non - Principal Unclassified Road official number 133205. It was Gradidge Lane in formal Council notice in 1968. [3] The name has not been used by the Ordnance Survey and did not appear in the 1839 Tithe map. 

 

HATHAWAY ROAD 1961. Shakespeare’s wife (see Capulet Road).

 

HUDSON ROAD 1937. John Hudson had opened this council estate ten years earlier. He was Mayor and later Alderman of Salisbury and editor of the Salisbury Times. Plans were already underway to develop the open fields we now know by his name when he died in 1935 and a bequest in his will to match any funds put up by the Council saved this area for public use today. [1]

 

HULSE ROAD 1905. Commemorates Sir Edward Hulse 6th Baronet [2] who committed suicide in 1903. He had been MP for Salisbury. The family seat was and still is at Breamore House.

 

MILL LANE 1962. The lane led to mills, there have been mills in Stratford since the 11th C, site unknown. The current site has certainly been that of a mill from the 18th C, it appears in a 1773 map. [4]

 

MILLERS CLOSE 1987. See above

 

PARK LANE 1905. Though the villas were built in the 19th C the lane wasn’t named till the early 20th. The name refers to the nearby Victoria Park.

 

PARSONAGE CLOSE 1984 is on the site of Parsonage Farmyard. The Parsonage Farm estate was a successor to the medieval Stratford Parsonage manor. [2]

 

PHILLIPS LANE Date unknown? 18-19th C. Officially this is the C56. John Philips was a “Rotten Borough” burgage holder along the Portway and steward to Thomas (Diamond) Pitt  See   www.stratfordfordsubcastle/phillips-lane

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SHELLEY DRIVE 1965. The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) (no local connection)

 

ST LAWRENCE CLOSE 1972.  St Lawrence is the patron saint of our village church but this lies at the other end of the village, once Stratford Dean. This end, Stratford Common or Canon probably had its own church, now lost.

 

STRATFORD ROAD 1895  See www.stratfordsubcastle.org.uk/stratford-sub-castle-name-origins The current route is shown on the 1773 map, west of the church but an earlier route ran to the east of it. It was probably along the line of the footpath today.

 

THE PORTWAY 14th C, ? earlier. Today’s Portway is not the original but is the route shown in 1773. [4] The original and Roman route lies to its west and roughly parallel to it, then running under Castle Keep. Port could mean ports in the maritime sense but here meant trading towns, linked by this trading route. See www.stratfordsubcastle.org.uk/silchester

 

VERONA ROAD 1965. Two Gentlemen of Verona. See Capulet Road

 

WATERS ROAD 1926. Edward Waters lived in Stratford sub Castle and was a Councillor 1886 to 1921 and Mayor in 1887. [1]

 

Kerry O’Connor

July 2022 Updated March 2023

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[1] Salisbury and Wilton Street Names by Peter H L Hart (of Cape Town) 2002

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[2] Stratford-sub-Castle, in A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 6, ed. Elizabeth Crittall (London, 1962), pp. 199-213. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol6/pp199-213 [accessed 1 June 2022].

 

[3] The London Gazette, 19th April 1968. New Sarum City Council p 4559

 

[4] Wiltshire Record Society, Andrews’ and Dury’s Map of Wiltshire, 1773: A Reduced Facsimile, edited by Elizabeth Crittall. http://www.wiltshirerecordsociety.org.uk/map/wrs_v08_map_05.jpg

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