Pigsty Alley
How fab is this? The newest sign in Greenwich is a revival of an 18th Century name for what remains of a ancient thoroughfare. David, who sent me the photo, tells me that the alley, which runs between Maidenstone Hill and Winforton Street, originally ran much further north but post-war clearances severed it.
I’ve been looking on various old maps for the alley but without luck – maybe someone has one?
David says “ironically there is no evidence as far as I can see for there being sties in the area, although the keeping of pigs and chickens in back yards would not have been uncommon in days gone by.”
Indeed – I know of at least one garden with very fancy chickens up there now…
Hooray for the council allowing themselves to be persuaded to use old names, however unflattering. I wish they had taken such an attitude when assigning titles to the tedious new streets in the ‘Heart’ of East Greenwich…
the attachments to this post:
pigsty alley low
Late 18th century plans of Deptford do indeed show pigsties to the rear of buildings.
Pigsty Alley is visible on this map from 1893:
http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=18&lat=51.47453&lon=-0.01076&layers=0B00000000FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
Short link if above doesn’t work: http://tinyurl.com/py63klo
This is a very informative map, interesting to see quite how many roads have changed names.
This is
oh, lawd. You know its bad if theres a “pigsty alley” sign. i should get a sign like this for my son’s bedroom door.
http://showcase.it/williamk11/
I though Pigsty Alley was the walkway that links Tunnel Ave to the retail park on the other side of the A102. It’s always littered with flytips and trolleys!