Slavery Streets

[ChrisGeorge]

Very perceptive and thorough CG. Penny Lane could have been named after Pennys death by his son... or indeed named after his son. For example:

Lots of people will tell you that Edward Falkner laid out Falkner Square and named it after himself. He certainly began building the square and wanted to name it Waterloo Square but he died half way through building, so his son (confusingly) Edward Deane Falkner completed it and asked the town council if he could re-name it in honour of his late father.

Hi Fortinian

As you say, Penny Lane, if it is named for a member of the Penny family, might not be named for the merchant but for his son, as per the example of Falkner Square being named for the son of Edward Falkner and not the father as many assume.

I do note that the lane, though undesignated, appears on the 1765 map of Toxteth Park listed as being in the possession of the Earl of Sefton in Robert Griffiths' History of the Royal and Ancient Park of Toxteth (1907) on pages 14-15 though in very miniscule detail making it hard to make out the wording. At that time, there were just fields on either side of the road, one of them on the northwest side of the road midway between Greenbank Road and Smithdown Place being labeled "Dove Hey" I discovered on enlarging the map -- presumably the origin of the name "Dovedale Road". A similar map of about the same time can be seen opposite page 112 in Ramsay Muir's A History of Liverpool (1907) available on Google Books.

Chris

---------- Post added at 02:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:42 PM ----------

This line, from a poem, is inscribed in wood at the site of St Thomas' Church, Park Lane:
"Penny Lane, Slavery Shame"
The poem has several other 'witty' rhymes about Liverpool life.

Thanks, Marky. I assume that the poem is recent though, not old, is that right?

Chris