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Eight Street Names That Will Make You Realise How Weird Bristol Is
Bristol is chock-a-block full of adorably odd and eternally optimistic street names. Sammy adventured across Bristol to see if any of the weirder labels matched their modern-day locations.
‘Can I get over to Fifty Acre Wood, please, drive? Oh, and I need to stop off at Moon Street. Via Johnny Ball Lane. And Zed Alley. And the Bear Pit. Cheers, mate.’
To anyone else, that taxi journey would sound like navigating a fictional world where everything’s made up and the logic doesn’t matter, but to us Bristol-dwellers, it’s just how things are. Some ancient bod from a hundred years ago names a street and there it stays, a hundred years later, but not quite as accurate as before. I set out on the streets of Bristol to not only make a set of the most mediocre gifs of all-time, but to find out if any of our roads make any sense at all.
Little Paradise
Club Tropicana drinks are freeeeeee… if that’s the kind of tropical paradise you were hoping for, maybe make a beeline for the Bahamas instead of this end of East Street. Still like the cheery name, mind.
Happy Lane
Probably one of the more bare-facedly false of the street names, this Ashley Down fun-drain looks like it’s been host to more hate crimes than fun times.
World’s End Lane
Ah, Clifton Wood; where the climate is sunnier, the air is thinner, and if you’re me, everyone looks at you as if you’re a bit lost. To be fair, I did forget my Hunter wellies and my Barbour gilet.
World’s End Lane is down a street behind an alley under a bus stop, but if you take a few steps to the right, it does genuinely feel like the end of the world. Mind your vertigo.
Small Street
Any way you look at it, Small Street is actually an enormously tall street, with a strangely large police presence. This is a poorly judged street name.
Cheese Lane
Despite the name, if you were hoping for a Brie-ly grate cheese experience, think Caerphilly before a visit down to Cheese Lane. Haha, ha. Seriously though, this place is as soulless as Thekla on a Thursday night, and upsettingly enough, there’s not a wheel of the creamy stuff in sight.
There and Back Again Lane
N’awh, this street name chimes lovely bells of childhood, doesn’t it? It’s the subtitle to Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’ after all. Unfortunately, as soon as you’re there, you want to go back again. It smells like a dead animal passed through the guts of another dead animal. Thumbs down.
Pugs Lane
Who let the dogs out? Exactly no one. None of the internet’s most favourite little snooky pies were out and about, thank god. How anyone can love those squash-faced little freaks is anyone’s guess, but again, this a street name with no basis in reality. Unfortunate.
Whiteladies Road
As well as being full of students that will literally drive you into traffic before thinking of moving over the pavement to make room for you, Whiteladies Road is, indeed, full of white ladies. I only upped the quota. At last, a successful street name.
It’s strange noticing all these street names and realising that they have little to no relevance to the real world, but Bristol just wouldn’t be Bristol if a boring old High Street centred every district (no offence to the High Streets of Kingswood or Staple Hill or Hanham, mind). Who cares if they don’t match? Let’s rejoice in their sheer wrongness – in Bristol, they feel right.
Do you live near a kooky street name? Got a favourite? Let us know on Twitter or Facebook
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About the author
Sammy Jones
Sammy Jones is the Written Content Editor at Rife. She is also a freelance writer and editor. She previously worked at Rife as a Content Creator. You can get in touch with Sammy by emailing sammy.j@watershed.co.uk.
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