Place Name
Gillian Bebbington in London Street Names says that this is one of a group of streets in the old parish of St Pancras that were renamed by the St Pancras Vestry in 1865 because their existing names (in this case, Francis Street) were common ones duplicated elsewhere in the parish. Bebbington notes no apparent significance among the group, namely Lancing Street, Leeke Street, Longford Street, Lyme Street, Netley Street, Penryn Street, Redhill Street, Rhyl Street, Wicklow Street, Powlett Place and Wrotham Road and suggests they were chosen at random, however, it is noticeable that they are all, with the exception of Powlett Place, the names of towns in the UK and Ireland, and so perhaps these places had some personal significance to the vestry worthies. Seaford is a coastal town in the county of East Sussex, in the Middle Ages it was one of the main ports serving southern England, and in the 19thCentury, with the introduction of the railway to London, became a popular seaside resort. On Horwood’s plan of 1819 this appears laid out but unnamed. Prior to its development the area had been fields belonging in the late 18thCentury to a farmer called Thomas Harrison.