'Witches are people who look up,' says (I think) Granny Weatherwax somewhere, which is interpreted in its context to mean witches look up from the daily round to think about its deeper meaning. After the success of looking up in Worcester yesterday, I was hoping that doing the same in Shrewsbury would pay off, but unfortunately the street names in Shrewsbury are much less quaint.
They don't even have another little plaque underneath to say what they used to be called, as they do in Worcester, which is a pity, because the case of Grope Lane would certainly be interesting:
'A street called Grope Countelane existed in Shrewsbury as recently as 1561, connecting the town's two principal marketplaces. At some date unrecorded the street was renamed Grope Lane, a name it has retained. In Thomas Phillips' History and Antiquities of Shrewsbury (1799) the author is explicit in his understanding of the origin of the name as a place of "scandalous lewdness and venery", but Archdeacon Hugh Owen's Some account of the ancient and present state of Shrewsbury (1808) describes it as "called Grope, or the Dark Lane". As a result of these differing accounts, some local tour guides attribute the name to "feeling one's way along a dark and narrow thoroughfare".' (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_Lane)
The latter attempt at derivation is of course delicate nonsense: Grope Lane is in the regular place (in the town centre, near the market) for a place of prostitution advertised in mediaeval fashion by the name of the street. In fact there were loads of them:
'Gropecunt Lane /ˈɡroʊpkʌnt ˈleɪn/ was a street name found in English towns and cities during the Middle Ages, believed to be a reference to the prostitution centred on those areas; it was normal practice for a medieval street name to reflect the street's function or the economic activity taking place within it. Gropecunt, the earliest known use of which is in about 1230, appears to have been derived as a compound of the words grope and cunt. Streets with that name were often in the busiest parts of medieval towns and cities, and at least one appears to have been an important thoroughfare.' (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_Lane)
The 'groping in the dark' tale is trotted out on the Shrewbury Tourist Information website (http://www.shrewsburyguide.info/shrewsbury_tour/tour_02.shtml) with a denial that there is any ruder meaning, but there was another man photgraphing the sign when I was, who found it hilarious. I didn't think this would turn into a 'spirit of place' post of any depth, but perhaps it has, if these two competing explanations for 'grope' represent different facets of the town's spirit. On the other hand, the Love Shrewsbury website is very proud that this is the last surviving remnant of 'Grope' in the country (http://www.loveshrewsbury.com/article/history-lesson-shrewsburys-town-crier). As it happens it seems the prostitution derivation is supported by the facts, as reported by at least one academic historian (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5864981/Street-names-date-back-to-brothels-and-red-light-districts.html) so this may well also be one of those posts about the phenomenon of people who simply will not see what's in front of their own faces!
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