The road names of Steventon

If a medieval time traveler were to leap forward in time to Steventon as it is now there would be many things that would utterly baffle him or her.

The railway would probably scare the wits out of them, as would the traffic passing through the village. The houses, both in style and number would be a matter of consternation.

However, some things, with careful observation, would seem to have changed hardly at all. One of these would be the layout of the roads and another would be their names. True, some road names have changed over the last five hundred years but with a bit of logic, their origins can be deduced.

In contrast to the current situation, the main axis of the village would have been east – west along The Causeway and not north – south along the High Street. But both the names would have been more or less familiar to our time traveller. The first written reference to The Causeway dates from 1404 and it was known as The Cawsey, and it was still called this on a map produced by the cartographer John Ogilby in 1675. It was much more than a village street in those days; in fact, it acted more like a modern bypass, avoiding the residential parts of the village and connecting Wantage with Abingdon and Sutton Courtenay without the inconvenience of tackling the steep escarpment of the greensand hill. The High Street, on the other hand, was nothing like the busy thoroughfare it is now, being a drove way leading down from Steventon Hill to The Causeway and the common pasture of The Green just beyond it. However, times were a changing, and from the 17th century this drove way very gradually became the favoured route to Newbury, taking over from the notoriously muddy and much older route through Milton. It became known as Highway Lane and eventually the High Street.

Similar to Highway Lane, a number of other tracks ran down the slope of Steventon Hill to The Causeway. Still existing are Stocks Lane first mentioned in 1546 as Le Stokyrlane and probably named after the village stocks; Mill Lane which, probably existed in 1086 as Domesday records the presence of a mill at that time; and in between the two, Little Lane. This third one is particularly interesting: although it is a very minor track today between The Causeway and the railway, its ancient route can be traced on the modern 1:25000 Ordnance Survey maps as starting at the trig point on Steventon Hill and then curving down through the village to continue across the fields towards the solar park. It marks the boundary of the land of the Lord of the Manor and by implication can be dated back to the mid 10th century.

These lanes were all connected at the foot of the hill by what is now Castle Street. Sadly, there never was a castle in Steventon. The origin of the name comes from the wooden measure known as the Cat used to ensure the kersey cloth produced in 15th century Steventon met the regulatory standard size. Thus, we first hear of this road name in 1424 when it was called Cattestrate.

One final area for our medieval time traveller to visit would be what was known in their time as East End, or to us Sheepwash Lane. This little area was once one of the two focal points of the village. Sheepwash Lane owes its origins to the wool industry of the 14th century, the wool being washed and cleansed in the Ginge Brook before the fulling process. Kennel Lane is obscure but might be a derivation of Knannell (1590) and before that Knonhill (1440), so possibly having no connection with dog kennels at all. Finally, leading away from this little corner of the village was the important Milton Lane, which in all likelihood was a forerunner to The Causeway, and Pugsden Lane, first mentioned as Pokesden in 1439.

This is just a taster of the fascinating history of just a few of the lanes and roads we use each day, and there is much more work to be done. Written records only survive from the middle medieval period but with the village dating back to Saxon times, we can be confident that as we stroll around the village, we are treading in the footsteps of our fellow Steventonians of a thousand years ago and more

Prior Crescent, Ellaway Road and Joyce Way in Steventon are named after soldier's listed on the village War Memorial  Please click here for further information.