Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Where folk don't get on?


A pair of cottages in … Arguments Yard! This is off Church Street, on the side leading down to the harbour.

We've already visited Blackburn's Yard, further down the street towards the Old Town Hall, but that takes you steeply away from the river and up to the abbey via the Donkey Path.

There are many strange street-names, and even some of the ordinary-sounding ones have unexpected origins. Who would expect a Grape Lane in Whitby? We're a long way from Champagne or Provence, after all. There is another narrow street of the same name in York, and there's a clue: narrow! Grape in neither case has anything to do with the fruit of the vine, but I'm getting ahead of myself, as Grape Lane is a few hundred yards away.

Back to Arguments: quite simply the name of the builder of some of these cottages, so it should really be Argument's Yard. There are still Arguments in Whitby, and no doubt arguments too.

No comments:

Post a Comment