Shoe Lane, EC1N

Place Name

The first reference was at the dawn of the 13thCentury when Solande was recorded, in the preceding decades it was variously spelt Sholand in 1272, Sholane in 1279, and Scholaunde in 1283. For many years it was thought that it was so-called because the lane led to a shoe-shaped piece of land. A D Mills in A Dictionary of London Place Names suggests: “Indicating that this is from an interesting Old English term scōhland, literally ‘shoe land’, that is ‘land given to a monastic community to provide it with shoes’. This was originally an estate held by the canons of St Paul’s.”

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