Place Name
The name Charterhouse comes from an Anglicisation of Chartreuse, from the Grande Chartreuse, the head monastery of the Carthusians in Burgundy, France. According to Gillian Bebbington in London Street Names: “The monks lived in austerity and such isolation that the order was slow in spreading to England. It was not until the late fourteenth century that the London Charterhouse was founded by Sir Walter Manny and the Bishop of London. The site selected at Clerkenwell, conveniently close to the City, consisted of two adjacent graveyards which had been consecrated at the time of the Black Death.” The charter was founded some time between 1365 and 1371 and was first mentioned as Le Charthous next Smythfield in 1375. The street itself however, which follows the City boundary, was built much later between 1869 and 1875 along the former Carthusian Street and beyond.
