Tales of London

There are a plethora of – mostly false – urban legends associated with London: you’re never more than six feet away from a rat; Jimi Hendrix introduced wild parakeets to the capital; pubs claiming that prisoners were granted a final drink at their premises on the way from Newgate Prison to the noose at Tyburn. But there is one apparent myth that on the face of it seems to be nonsense, but in actuality is true: that there isn’t a single road in the City of London.

The word ‘road’ only gained its modern meaning, as a highway connecting two settlements, at the end of the sixteenth century. It derived from the Old English word ‘rad’, meaning a riding journey, usually with hostile intent – hence the word ‘raid’. As Shakespeare wrote in Henry V:

We must not only arm to invade the French,
But lay down our proportions to defend
Against the Scot, who will make road upon us
With all advantages.

The City of London predated the Bard by fifteen hundred years, and so by the time the contemporary usage for ‘road’ came into being the highways of the City had long since been named. ‘Street’ and its forebears is one of the few English words to be in continual usage since the Roman period, coming from the Latin ‘strata’. Streets are therefore plentiful throughout the Square Mile, as are yards, alleys, lanes, hills, gates, avenues, passages, courts, walks, places… But not a single road.

And so it was until the late twentieth century, when that ‘single’ became all important. For in 1994 boundary changes came into effect, and to the horror of traditionalists and historical purists everywhere, part of Goswell Road was reallocated from the Borough of Islington into the City of London. Running north as a continuation of Aldersgate Street, Goswell Road is over three quarters of a mile long, joining the City Road at the junction with Islington High Street. It’s possibly named after a medieval garden in the Barbican area called Gosewelle, owned by the fourteenth century 1st Earl of Suffolk Robert de Ufford; that in turn could have been named after an ancient spring called the Godewell.

The stretch of Goswell Road that now falls within the City’s boundary is only just over a hundred yards long, so tradition stretching back two millennia has been ruined at the expense of a tiny land grab. But as only the eastern half of the road was reallocated to the City – the western half remaining within Islington – it’s still correct to say that there isn't a single road in the City of London. 

The ironic thing is that up until 1864, Goswell Road was actually named Goswell Street; Samuel Pickwick lodges with Mrs Bardell in a house on Goswell Street in Charles Dickens’s Pickwick Papers (“Do you think it a much greater expense to keep two people, than to keep one?” – cue an hilarious misunderstanding). So had the boundary changes taken place a mere one hundred and thirty years earlier, this appalling tragedy would never have befallen London’s rich history.

For more stories about the fascinating history of London, have a look at my other articles, or scroll down and fill in the form below to subscribe to weekly updates!