Place Name
The name Stepney pre-dated the Norman Conquest of 1066, being recorded sometime around the first millennium as StybbanhyÞe often translated as Stybba’s landing place or wharf. An alternative suggestion is that it could be derived from the Old English word stybba meaning stump or pile, describing the way the landing place was constructed, probably at Ratcliffe. In either case, the invaders kept the name of the former mariner writing it down in the Domesday book of 1086 as Stibenhede and in 1274 as Stibbeneie al. Stebenuthe. By the 16thCentury the first reference to the modern name came into being as it was written down as Stebenheth al. Stepney in 1542. This street is not named in Cross’s New Plan Of London published in 1861 and was marked simply as High Street in Edward Stanford’s Library Map of London and its Suburbs published between 1862 and 1871.
