Place Name
Named after the chickens, ducks and geese which were sold here from around the early Middle Ages. It was first recorded as Poletria in 1298. In Middle English it was spelt Pultrie and in the 14thCentury Puletry and by the mid 16thCentury as le Pultrye. By 1598, historian John Stow in his Survey Of London wrote that the market’s day was done: “The poulterers are but lately departed from thence into other streets”. Before the Great Fire, the street was renowned for its taverns, although most of these were not rebuilt after the fire. The poulterers sent their birds to be scalded in preparation for being plucked in the nearby Scalding Alley, approximately where St Mildred’s Court stands today. The Oxford English Dictionary says that this is the oldest recorded use of the word to mean fowl.
