About our Roads, Streets and Fields

Boyers Orchard - we think the orchard where the council houses were built some 50 years ago was owned by Mr Boyer and the street is named after him.  There are gravestone of the Boyer family in the churchyard near the vestry.

Burden Lane

Burton Close

Colston Lane - leads to Colston Bassett

Dickman's Lane - named after Mr Dickman who lived there.

Gas Walk - various suggestions are put forward for how this footpath got its name:

• after the material it was made of - the residue from gas working.

• after the American term for petrol as it lead to a garage at what is now called the Old Forge.

• after the smell from people emptying out chamber pots before flush toilets and the sewage system were installed in the village.

• If the name has been passed down the centuries from the people coming from Germany or Scandinavia who made the initial settlement then we have Old Norse word  "Gá " or High German "Gasse", both meaning a walkway or passageway.

• The Wong (see below) - is a name thought to date back to these early times.  Then if the name has anything to do with geese,  the Anglo Saxon origin of the word Goose is "Gös". We are indebted to John Dunn for these suggestions. However the name is not included in the early names of Harby discussed in the English Place-name Society account by Barrie Cox.   The census records use the name Step or Stepping's Lane so there is no continuity of use of the name as there is with the Wong. 

 

Green Lane - because it is green and grassy

 

Greggs Lane - named after the family that lived in the nearby house 100 years ago. They are recorded in the census returns, latterly it was nurse Gregg who lived there.
 

Langar Lane - leads north to Langar
 

Main Street - the principal street in Harby
 

Nether Street - originally meaning the lower street
 

Pinfold Lane - every village had a pinfold a hundred years ago where stray cattle were put to be collected by their owners. The 1884 25 inches to a mile Ordnance Survey map shows the pinfold as a circular structure at the east end of Pinfold Lane. Click here to see.
 

Pinfold Place - named after the Pinfold.
 

Red Causeway - named after the red material making it up. It used to be called Step or Stepping Lane as recorded in many census returns.
 

School Lane - where the school is.

 

Steps or Stepping Lane - the combined Red Causeway and Gas Walk, the name used in early records.
 

Stathern Road - leads to Stathern. 

 

Thraves Terrace - named after the Thraves family.
 

Wallnut Paddock
 

Waltham Lane - leads to Waltham-on-the-Wolds
 

Watsons Lane - named after the famous Watson family of Harby, cheesemakers. 

 

The Wong - from an Old English word “wang” meaning ”a piece of meadowland, an open field” or the Old Norse “vangr” meaning “a garden, an infield”.