Always amused me that they gave this name to - as you correctly point out - the SHORTEST street in York. Been causing headaches for mapmakers ever since...
One of the shortest streets in Berlin is ‘Thusnelda-Allee’, which sounds reasonable to English speakers but bizarre in German because ‘Allee’ usually means something like ‘boulevard’
@@daphnepk I remember being confused by that as a middle schooler, when my social studies texbook included a photo of Karl-Marx-Allee in East Berlin and it was this massive double road lined with grand buildings and greenspace.
Jago, that streets/gates/bars sentence has to be one of the most beautifully constructed opening lines I've ever heard you say - got me laughing out loud and I think a couple of my flatmates are now slightly concerned 😂
It's very good. :) The same sort of 3-item chain used to be heard years ago, but it's hard to make a really good one. I think Jago's is one of the best.
I went to York earlier this year and the tour guide I went around with made that joke. I think the river boat skipper may have too. Made me smile to hear it again here.
“And his employees already are entrenched at the corner of Whip-me-Whop-me Street at Mrs. Cresswell's old Flagellites Club." Aurelia raised her eyes. "Surely in such a sweet old house it would feel almost vulgar to be alive!” from Vainglory by Ronald Firbank, 1915.
Several years ago I did a sponsored “visit as many amusingly named streets in West Yorkshire in one day via public transport” for comic relief. Highlights included: Tickle Cock Bridge in Caslteford Bottoms in Halifax Titty Bottle Park in Otley Old Cock Yard in Halifax There were more but I can’t remember off the top of my head.
@@RGChandler I remember that story being in the national press in the late '60s/early '70s, with the police wanting to change the street name. A schoolfriend lived by the police station. His father had an incredible organ that we liked to play with. Hammond, I think it was. With a lesbian speaker. Or did I mishear that?
I see that you ended up on 'The Shambles'. The Shambles is mentioned in the Domesday Book as Butchers Street. The Shambles is one of the best preserved medieval streets in Europe. Formerly called the Fleshammels, the street of butchers: the shelves in front of the shop windows and the hooks above are for displaying meat, and the east-west line of the street and overhanging buildings meant the meat was in cool shade for most of the day. The shop dwellings used to have a yard at the rear for the slaughtering of cattle on the hoof. The Butcher's Hall is still at No.40. No.35 is Margaret Clitherow's House, now St. Margaret of York, she was a butcher's wife who was cruelly pressed to death in 1586 for hiding Jesuit priests in her house. This house is now a chapel to her memory. At the rear of The Shambles is an open market.
Most medieval towns had a street of butchers called a Shambles. I was in the shambles in Kendal earlier this week. It might be Norse derived, but I'm not sure of that.
A shambles was once the correct term for a butcher's block. Naturally a shambles would be covered in entrails from time to time - hence the colloquial usage for something messy. Calling a street full of butchers, The Shambles is a bit like calling a street full of bakers, The Oven.
The Domesday Book is all about land ownership and valuation. It lists who held the land in 1066, who has it in 1086, how much arable land, how many ploughs, mills and churches. It is just lists though - it doesn't identify locations or give the names of streets.
Not a place name - it derives from "flesh shammel" - literally "meat shelf" - which became a term for a butcher's shop and, since in those days butchers killed animals on their premises, a slaughterhouse and by extension a bloody mess.
And the winner of the award for the "how many panning shots of the same street scene from different angles can you permutate...?" Goes to Jo Go Hazzard!
Ooh, travel! You're really going places, you. And as a language nerd, thank you for including the small note about the origin of this sense of "gate" in English.
Back in '68 the Bash Street Kids did a walking tour of Britain, visiting actual places, which appeared in about twenty successive issues of the Beano. One episode ended on this very street, with Teacher administering a well-deserved whacking to them all, right next to the sign. (You wouldn't be allowed to print that now.)
I now live in Yorkshire and visit York regularly having been born in Balham well over 60 years ago. One of the strangest street names in Yorkshire has to be The Land of Green Ginger in Hull which was the name given to one of the new Hull Trains class 800 units. Keep the videos coming, they are always interesting and often amusing
@@horsenuts1831 Seeing that name brought many memories of wandering around there on a lunch time break from doing my "tickets" at Queens Gardens Nautical College. 🙂
I remember Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate from years ago. The company I worked for used to have a customer with that address. I saw it once much later and couldn't believe how short the street was, but by then, our customer had ceased trading.
The original name of Grope Lane in Shrewsbury had an extra four letters on the back of the first part. Apparently it described the nefarious activity that took place along that land. The missing letters were anagram of the shortened form of a Danish king called Canute.
Jewry in London was also called Gropecanute Lane in the Middle Ages. There were plenty of those up and down the country for designated red light areas.
My ancestors came from Spittal-in-the Street in Lincolnshire. On further investigation I found that it was a village rather than an actual street. But 185 years after they left, I like to think that they chose to emigrate to Melbourne because it was as far away as possible from their embarrassingly named home town.
Jago, I saw your recent v interesting upload on the Epping/Ongar heritage route. There's a tiny alley in Epping, near the high st called Twankhams Alley - sounds like it was influenced by a certain Panto Dame?
There's a very short street, possibly shorter than Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate, down here in Southsea, at one end of which is the sea. It previously didn't have a name, but was given one to honour local lad Neil Gaiman: it's called The Ocean At The End Of The Lane.
I'd like to know the story behind "Cum Cum Hill" on the B158 near Hatfield. There's a Cucumber Lane sticking out of it, which not only invokes some... interesting... mental imagery, but also makes me wonder whether the two names have a common origin.
If you come to Hull, you'll come across Land of Green Ginger, which is also a very short street with various interpretations of its name. Despite its shortness, it also has what is reputedly the smallest window in England/Europe/the World!
I think my favourite is Menlove Avenue in Liverpool because it sounds like the punchline to a joke. Someone once made a deliberate decision to call it "Avenue" rather than "Road" or "Lane", and I salute them.
There's always the classic sign tampering shenanigans on Canal Street in the Gay Village in Manchester, where people hide the letters to form "anal treet" lol.
Avenues have trees. There are also rules for whether a road is a street or a road (although mine was once one and now is the other - without anything chaging - it also has trees, but isn't an avenue!). I can't remember the details, but it's on Wikipedia, so it must be true.
most cities and older towns in the north of England have the -gate suffix for major central streets; for instance, the two main roads in Wakefield city centre are Westgate and Kirkgate, which also give their names to the two central railway stations (the two suburban stations being Outwood in the north, and in the south, the wonderfully named Sandal and Agbrigg)
This is why I tend to call Eastgate Street, Westgate Street etc. in Gloucester simply "Westgate", "Eastgate" etc. Even though I know it's not the same etymology (it's based on the gates of the Roman fortification).
@@chrisamies2141 Yep, it could get confusing as most times I see "gate" I assume that it was a route through an old wall. Does depend on the area though as the suffix "bury" comes from fort/fortified house which was inevitably the local lord's place and this can still be seen in many areas where clusters of tiny villages or hamlets have the suffix "bury" with minor changes to the first part
I once heard of a street called Bell End. When I last saw it, it led to a place called Knob Hill. But it was in the middle of a construction site, which had levelled the hill, meaning it no longer existed. Such a shame. Would have made for a great video here.
Excellent as always Mr Hazzard. I have a few suggestions, also that may be of some interest. In Leigh, Lancashire, buses had a destination of "Dangerous Corner." In Accrington, also in Lancashire, they went to "Load of Mischief". In Marsden, there's a "Hard End" and near Pilling in Lancashire, is my personal favourite, .... 'Skronkey'. The sign is now twenty foot up on a barn wall, as visitors kept nicking the signs. And in Stalybridge, near Manchester, there's two pubs, now virtually next to each other, one with the longest pub name in the country and virtually next door, the one with the shortest. One is "The Old Thirteenth Cheshire Astley Volunteer Rifleman Corps Inn", whilst the other is simply called "Q". Cheers. .
In Headington, on the outskirts of Oxford, there is the admirably-named Toot Hill Butts, and sightly closer to home, in Bicester, we have Crumps Butts. Your video about archery locations should explain the second half of both names to those who know not what it means.
Bicester always makes me think of biscuits and Bisto at the same time. Although my version of biscuits and gravy would be vastly different to what an American would expect!
From New England, I loved this video. I've been through York a few times while on the train from Edinburgh to London, but never had time to explore the city. It looks very nice. Definitely on my bucket list for a future trip.
I second making a visit. I did 3 days there. I spent an entire day at the Railway Museum. The Minster has a couple of different tours available, including one where you can climb to the top of the tower and get a 10 or 20 mile view. There are also the ruins of the former Abbey.
@@Krzyszczynski which races are those? I was there only a short time, but never once heard anyone mention some sort of annual races that take place in the area.
Catte Street in Oxford was sanitised to Catherine Street by the Victorians, but got its original name back in the 20th century. Apparently 'Cat' was mediaeval/early modern slang for a lady of purchasable virtue.
Not a street, but there's a place just outside Bolton in a place called Little Lever on the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal called Nob End. It's the site of a rather large flood where the canal retaining wall collapsed and it all washed down the hill into the river Irwell. The canal at that part is still empty to this day.
When i worked in the cambridge telephone exchange with a bunch of dislocated londoners, one of them told me the tale of, I think, a group of streets in london, called "King, William, The, Fourth, Of, Orange". Each part had a street - so somewhere in london is supposedly a mythical "of street". I couldn't find it in my trust 80s A-Z. But I did find King, William and IIRC The streets. It sounds like the kind of thing you might find intriguing... Note: i may have the saying slightly wrong. It's King William the something of something. I think it was fourth of orange, though that doesn't make a huge amount of historical sense. Just to clarify - this is half remembered trivia from the early 90s, so I'm sorry for being vague.
Interesting street names, you ask? Well in my home town of Bicester there is a street on the edge of the town centre - which can be best described as two cul-de-sacs linked by an alleyway - called Crumps Butts. (It passes round the back of my local pub, the Bell...) ...As a bit of aside there is also a street in my birth-town of Banbury called Parsons street, which may not be that interesting, but it connected to Banbury castle (No longer there), which was a besieged royalist stronghold during the civil war, and Oliver Cromwell stayed at an inn halfay along the street which still exists today (The Old Reindeer). Apparently back then it was a red-light area and called Gropec**t lane!
Broad Pavements might not sound very interesting, but it's the narrowest driveable road in Chesterfield. It's also quite apart from all the other Pavements, giving the impression that it was named quite deliberately. This isn't quite a name thing, but in Goring-by-Sea, Worthing, part of the very long Ilex Avenue runs down the middle of the very quiet dual carriageway, Ilex Way. (Goring has a lot of very quiet dual carriageways. It's all rather nice.) Ilex Way itself is an unmade track, but it's a very unusual one: it's far too straight to be a traditional right of way, and Ilex Way doesn't seem like a traditional Sussex name at all. It's a very Anglo-Saxon part of the world where traditional names generally have a very earthy feel, but Ilex Way is a very gentrified sort of name. Why then is it neither manicured like a park nor metalled for motor-cars? I don't know, but I do think it's better the way it is.
@@gazbrucia1654 Eh, Low Pavements is just kind-of downhill, though I guess the name might have another meaning. Knifesmithgate seems like a cool name, but it's not really any stranger than Saltergate. Glumangate though... I think I should have suggested Glumangate. :)
Chesterfield has some strange names, when i drive from Alfreton to Chesterfield there is DEEPSICK LANE. And near the National grid substation is cock alley.
I lived in England from 1979 to 1981. One of the things we enjoyed were walking tours around London. There were many to choose from and one that stands out was a tour of the east end--learned all about Cockney rhyming slang and other things. The tour guide was explaining that many streets were named after what was sold there. Bread was sold in Bread Street. Milk was sold in Milk Street and so on. You should have seen the look on the tour guide's face when my mother pointed to the sign for Love Street.
That would be the cleaned up version. When Jago mentioned Grope Lane, historically there's a 4 letter word, starts with C, ends with T, one vowel , in-between Grope and Lane. No, not cart or cult, although the latter is only 2 letters out.
Love it! There are lots of great street and place names out there. Silly London ones: Bird in Bush Lane in Peckham - why is it called that, and it sounds vaguely sapphic if your mind works like mine Near St George's Hospital in Tooting there is a Recovery Street and an Effort Street, and they are linked. Does recovery require effort, and if you fail to recover should you have put in more effort? St George's has not been in Tooting that long, but it was built on the site of previous hospitals. Some kind of Victorian morality?
Whato Jago, An entertaining piece as always. Did you know Nottingham is full of streets called gate such as Bridlesmith Gate (Nottingham was one of the five boroughs of Danelaw). The city also has a tramway so perhaps it’s time to visit Nottingham.
Some thirty-plus years ago I worked at a small computer shop in Pavement, almost opposite Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate; the shop is now the Yummy Chicken take-away. Almost every day a family of cyclists - Dad in the lead, followed by children, with Mum bringing up the rear - would come along Pavement, turn left into Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate (ignoring the No Entry signs), continue into Colliergate (past another No Entry sign) and disappear into the distance going the wrong way along the one-way street. I always hoped that Mr Plod would catch them doing it one day, but it never happened while I was there.
I would recommend the “ Lesser Spotted Britain” range of stuff online. There’s plenty of stuff to like. The book Far from Dull is a great read and explains why some places have odd names.
Ha-ha Jago, in fact Ha-ha Road in Greenwich, I believe featured in one of The Tim Traveller’s videos. So what’s so ha-ha? A 'ha ha' is a sunken ditch which serves as a boundary marker for property, rather than a high wall that could block the landowner's view. (Ok I Googled the last part) Best wishes from Oxfordshire, where in Oxford City there is a “Magpie Lane.” Previous to that name, I believe it had another name. I’ll leave it there for obvious reasons. There is still Crotch Crescent and Titup Hall Drive to amuse those with a certain type of humour (not me though 😂)
There's also St-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, Quebec (three hyphens, not four - marks will be lost on Trivia Night if you get this wrong), the only place in the world with two exclamation marks in its name.
The original name was Gropec**t lane, so called because it was the centre for prostitution in Oxford. Many towns and cities had a Grope or Gropec**t lane or street. Here in Worcester, the Technical College ( now Heart of Worcestershire College) was built on top of Grope Lane.
There's a "Needless alley" in Brum which always makes me chuckle. Especially the thought of someone going to the trouble of making a sign for a needless alley
I once dated someone whose father was brought up in 1.3/4 Intown Row. So far as I know, this was exactly like Flat C etc these days, but the numbering system used on Intown Row dated from the turn of the 19th/20th Centuries at the latest, likely mid-19th Century. I believe there was a 1.1/4 and a 1.1/2, but how many of the other numbers on the street were similarly fractionalised I don't know.
@@thisnicklldo might be similar to some of the scottish tenaments buildings (I have only ever been to the black country museum where I think there were a form of terraced houses - round a courtyard ?
@@highpath4776 I understand such arrangements did exist in the area, though I've never seen it, but this particular case was just a row of terraced houses, now demolished. I believe that each of the 4 houses had separate entrances from the street, and had numbers on the doors to suit. How they got like that I never really found out. The chap in question left there when he was young-ish, so that would have been just pre-WW2, so he might not have remembered. It's possible that 1 and 1.1/2 were as originally built, then economic pressures caused subdivision of each half. It's also possible that the plot was undeveloped for a period after the street was built but still given its number, then the developer decided to put a terrace of 4 small houses on the site. I'm afraid I don't know whether next door had 2, 2.1/4, 2.1/2, 2.3/4 etc. Certainly the houses were tiny, with very narrow rooms and I think 1 room at the front, some sort of kitchen/scullery at the back, and I guess 2 rooms on the 1st floor - definitely no bathrooms, of course. It came up in discussion as an illustration of the relative poverty of his upbringing.
Nicely done as always! I... seem to vaguely recall from my travels abroad (I am, quite sadly, now stuck in a small town in the American South, and it's pretty awful here) that there is either a street or place-name in London that is "St. Johns By The Loo". I distinctly remember my mother and I looking at the sign, looking at each other, giggling uproariously, and simultaneously spouting off with, "Only in London!".
In my old hometown,there is a street/road,called Skunks Misery,and its one of our back to earthy names! And that post from Connecticut,I found that there's one there too! By the way,this tidbit is from Long Island[NY],and on the North Shore of Nassau County! Oh,yes,and we have some place names of Dutch origin,dating from the 1600's! Plus some Indian names,to fill in the gaps!! Thank you 😇 😊!!
@@alexhajnal107 Including a lot with the prefix "kill", which is Dutch for a small stream. Hence Fresh Kills (streams with freshwater) on Staten Island, New York, which was once one of NYC's main landfills. So perhaps a lot of Mafia-generated "fresh kills" ended up in Fresh Kills.
@@andyjay729 Yea. There's also _dorp_ (village), _zee_ (sea/large lake), _meer_ (lake), _hook_ ( _hoek_ : spit/peninsula/corner), and _vlei_ or _vly_ (wetland). Coney Island comes from _konijn_ (rabbit). There's also Harlem, Flushing, Amsterdam, etc. (cities/towns), the Bronx, van Cortlandt, etc. (people). The list is endless.
Magpie Lane in Oxford was once the Red Light District. Had a much more descriptive name back then, when the name included what was once an anatomical definition; but now is used to describe a parking enforcement officer
Whilst I'm happy to believe your stated address and its meaning, and am also convinced that Jago is not lying, because he generally doesn't, there seems to be a non sequitur involved here..
When I visited York I found The Shambles rather disappointing, mostly because of all the tourist shops in there. I suppose it makes sense, what with it's history as both a historical street and it's association with a certain wizard franchise by a very polarising woman! Also, had I know Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate existed I would have tried to find it but oh well.
The whole 'Harry Potter' connection is entirely a concoction of the local tourist board and enterprising businesses. There are no official connections between York and the boy wizard. Rowling has even confirmed that Diagon Alley was inspired by Edinburgh's Prince's Street and has nothing to do with Shambles. I don't think she had even visited York before the books were published. Given that tourism is now York's no. 1 enterprise (the locomotive works having packed up in the 80s and the confectionery trade now 'globalised' to places like Poland), tourist business are happy to exploit this totally concocted connection.
Hull has “The Land of Green Ginger” which is named after a hub. I found out about this from The Orb track “The Land of Green Ginger” which was the title of a children’s book named after it, which was read by Kenneth Williams on Jackanory in the sixties. Oh, how I’d love to see those episodes again. It is supposed to be a sequel to Aladdin, seemingly they are two versions of it, the second purportedly devolving into something not that good. But anything that talks about a “portable back garden” has to be good.
My personal favourite is Lady Gardens in Herefordshire. Not just because it's moderately amusing, but it's a relatively modern development and someone got the name past council planners.
Whip-ma-whop-ma sounds a bit like "Ek weet nie wat nie" in Afrikaans - which basically means "I don't know what". Similar to "Not one thing or another". York is a fantastic place - being whisked around the city in a couple of hours as I was by my tour group barely scratched the surface. It seems like every other building there is a museum of some kind.
Not quite a street but a video of the Ye Olde Mitre pub near Chanery Lane and its weird Cambridgeshire postcode would be a good recommendation. Actually, you could do a whole video on the Chancery name and where those weird legal names come from.
I've always loved 'The Land of Green Ginger' in Hull. Nobody seems to know what green ginger is or why the street is named for it, but it's a good contender 😁
As far as whimsical street/thoroughfare names go, I quite like Christmas Steps in Bristol; Pedestrian Diversions here on youtube has a video on it where its history and etymology are covered
I was once charged with public urination on Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate by the judge in the York Dungeon. By dint of the fact that I'm a free man and, as far as I'm aware, one without a stain on his character, I'm pretty sure I wasn't convicted. As an aside, my home town of Southport boasts both a Cockle Dick's Lane and a Knob Hall Lane. Both worthy, I think you'll agree, of many titters.
There's a street in Workington called Pow Street and I've always hoped that you might get to it via Zap Avenue which is just round the corner from Splat Gardens.
As an equestrian, all I can say is this is unlikely, given the amount of space necessary for handling horses. I think you'd struggle to fit many horses on Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate, and if there'd been, say, a blacksmith there, it would have most likely been named for that. Given the prior name, you're more likely looking at a case of the street name being bastardized over time. The "neither one thing nor the other" translation certainly fits to describe a street, that honestly likely never saw much use besides as a thoroughfare between other streets.
I was brought up in York. As a child my Mother would take me on a weekly shop in York. Our route included Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma Gate. We would walk along the alley from The Shambes behind St Crux Church. At the Shambles end there is a sign directing you towards Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma Gate, so I always thought the alley was Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma Gate. Anybody know what this alley is actually called ? Until The Stonebow was open in 1960s, Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma Gate was a major bus route. Buses had to turn left from Pavement then immediately right into St Saviourgate, in both directions. A real bottleneck.
Living not that far from York I have visited this street on quite a number of occasions and was aware of the name Whip-ma Whop-ma Gate but I had never connected the two... Not really silly, more quirky- "Land of Green Ginger" in Hull is my favourite street name.
Not so much street names, but village names are popular for being weird, especially around York… the village of Wetwang (20 miles east of York) is well known, since both Richard Whiteley (original countdown host) and a local tv weather broadcaster were honorary mayors.
There’s a tiny village in Dorset called Toller Porcorum, which translates as hollow stream of the pigs. For some reason the name has always stuck in my mind since we drove through it many moons ago. I have a great book about English place names, some of which are wonderfully eccentric. Maybe someone has compiled a book about weird, wonderful, wacky and just plain strange street names.
I used to live on a Horsewater Wynd in Dundee. There is of course "The Street with No Name" in Levenshulme, Manchester; Ham Yard in Soho, London; Grisleymires Lane, Milnthorpe, Westmorland. My personal all time favourite address has to be Stank Farm, Stank Road, Stank, Barrow-in-Furness.
That wee church, St. Crux, is well worth a visit. Charities make use of it regularly and do teas, cakes and sarnies. Sometimes there's bric a brac stalls outside. It's jolly nice inside too with plaques in Latin and English of a time where the choice of J's and 1's and s's and f's were arbitrary. Thare's a large colourful tomb by the wall eulogising the deceased in glowing 16th C script. The stained glass window is pretty amazing from the inside- just as glowing. Photography from the outside does not do it justice. Opp St. Crux is The Golden Fleece, variously given as the most haunted anywhere. It certainly had Yvette Fielding bleeping like a trooper (I think The Other Side deserves better media, existential conundrums not withstanding) but it does a nice pint and I'm pretty open minded about the strange shadows I saw on the CCTV. I suppose for those beyond the veil old habits die hard too. The last time I was in York, it was the day that two suspiciously unconnected events happened. One was the removal of viagra from prescription in England and the other was the introduction of per unit alcohol pricing in Scotland where the former is free and the latter had just got dearer.
Speaking of street names in Yorkshire, York also has a 'Grope Lane', which was Bowdlerised to 'Grape Lane' in the 19th century. Scarborough is also the location of Paradise - which is a very long and increasingly steep street which leads from the South Bay Foreshore up to the church yard where Anne Bronte is buried (who died from TB in Scarborough).
As someone who has spent a lot of time in both York and Shrewsbury, I approve of this video! Grope Lane in Shrewsbury was literally where the prostitutes waited for business (hence the name). Lovely little medieval alleyway these days.
Right around the corner from A wop bop a loo bop a lop bom bom Street where a small boy named Richard grew up and launched a musical career in Rock 'n Roll.
