How Liverpool streets earned their famous names – Liverpool Echo

If you start to scratch away at street names, you can uncover part of Liverpool's fascinating urban history.

Whether it's the commemoration of historical events, honouring prominent figures of the past, or a reminder of long-vanished industries, the names give a clue.

Here are just a few of the stories behind Liverpool's well-known or unusual street names.

The street made famous by The Beatles was named after Liverpool slave ship owner and anti-abolitionist James Penny.

Penny, like the Duke of Clarence, spoke in favour of the slave trade in Parliament, telling MPs that he had invested in 11 voyages of ships carrying slaves from Africa to the West Indies, in what he believed was a humane transaction.

(Between Islington and West Derby Road)

In the early 19th century, Caroline of Brunswick was the popular wife of the rather less popular King George IV.

Folklore has it that Brunswick Road came by its name when a painter repainting street signs left his work, only to return and find Brunswick Place chalked on by a supporter of the Queen.

Thinking it was official, he copied it. "Place" later became "Road."

Both Falkner Street and Falkner Square in the Georgian Quarter were named after Edward Falkner. He was a soldier and the Sheriff of Lancashire who - so the story goes - mustered 1,000 men in one hour to defend Liverpool in 1797 when a French invasion threatened.

The Square dates from 1835 and was one of the first open public spaces. But many of the houses remained vacant as potential buyers feared the houses would sink into the marshy ground on which they were built. It was also unpopular because it was so far outside of town.

As a result, locals nicknamed the square Falkner's Folly, which eventually became Falkner Square.

The Duke of Clarence who became King William IV was honoured in recognition of his campaigning against the abolition of slavery.

Widely travelled, he spent a lot of time in the House of Lords where he was a controversial speaker.

He visited Liverpool in 1790 when Clarence Street was being laid and the naming was a measure of his popularity here.

One of the few places to be named after a woman. Sarah Clayton became a captain of industry in the mid-18th century, taking over her merchant father Alderman William Clayton's business with her mother after his death, when it was unheard of for women to do so.

She was known as a formidable businesswoman and merged the family coal business with her brother-in-law's, meaning she presided over a considerable area of mines situated near to the Sankey Canal and became one of the most important coal dealers in Liverpool.

In 1752 she mapped out a landmark in her family name - Clayton Square - and occupied the largest house in the square.

One of Liverpool's main thoroughfares was originally known as Limekiln Lane. Where the railway station is now, back in the 18th century there were lime kilns used to produce quicklime.

They had to be taken down when doctors from the Infirmary across the street complained that fumes being emitted were detrimental to their patients.

The kilns were moved, but the name stuck and was given to the railway station built on the road in 1851.

Professor Sir John Utting was Mayor of Liverpool from 1917-18, the first Professor of Anaesthetics at Liverpool University and Liverpool's chief medical officer.

He was also Liverpool Football Club's first club doctor. Both Utting Avenue, and Utting Avenue East, were named in recognition of his work.

The Goree Warehouses, built in 1793, were named after a slave embarkation island off Senegal, West Africa.

The warehouses were built 11 years after the courts ruled that every slave became free as soon as their feet touched English soil.

The buildings were demolished in 1958 following extensive bomb damage in World War Two. Their site is now part of the Strand, which was widened in the 1960s as part of an ambitious scheme for an inner motorway around the city centre.

The only part to have been built was from Leeds Street to Parliament Street.

There is an old belief that iron hoops in the walls were used to chain up African slaves, but this is a myth.

The road owed its name to a dispute between its inhabitants and the Inland Revenue. In the days of the window tax (introduced in 1696), residents had to pay tax on each individual pane of glass they owned.

But the residents of this particular Liverpool road came up with a cunning method to evade the tax, making the few window panes they had as large as possible, to reduce their outgoings.

The row with the Inland Revenue was only resolved by means of an agreement known as a "commutation".

The old Victorian buildings on this road - close to William Brown Street - have now sadly been torn down and replaced by an office block.

Welsh builders came to Liverpool in the 19th century, which resulted in a lot of Welsh names. Off High Park Street there are many streets named after Welsh rivers.

And a set of streets off County Road are also part of the Welsh influence on the city - some of them sit just a stone's throw away from Goodison Park.

Welsh builders Owen Elias and his son, William Owen Elias used the first initials of their names in a set of 22 streets in Walton.

The roads, which all still exist, are: Oxton, Winslow, Eton, Neston, Andrew, Nimrod, Dane, Wilburn, Ismay, Lind, Lowell, Index, Arnot, Makin, Olney, Weldon, Euston, Nixon, Elton, Liston, Imrie and Astor streets.

Named after Jonas Bold, who leased land from the Corporation on which St Luke's Church and a ropery owned by James and Jonathon Brookes were built.

This was the name given to the area by the Town Hall on which, until commodity exchanges were built, merchants gathered to transact their business.

The name commemorates William Huskisson, MP who was killed at the official opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830.

One of Liverpool's turnpike roads, it led to Preston via Walton, Burscough and Maghull. Stage coaches from Liverpool followed this route through Lancaster and Kendal to Scotland.

The road later became famous as the childhood home of Cilla Black.

Read more here:

How Liverpool streets earned their famous names - Liverpool Echo