Place Name
It has been suggested that it was named after flowers which used to grow here. But this is now thought unlikely, given that the City would have been long-developed when it was named. Gillian Bebbington in London Street Names thinks it is more likely it was named from an inn sign while Sheila Fairfield in The Streets of London offers the alternative suggestion that it was named after its builders. On John Rocque’s 1746 map of London it appears as Salisbury Court – after the London house of the bishops of Salisbury located here prior to the Reformation – as it approached Salisbury Square.