Why is there a street in London called Pall Mall?
While researching where my hero would live for my novelette, Hearts Unknown, I came across an interesting bit of history.
Way back in the 1600s, a newfangled game came to England called Pall Mall (sometimes called pell-mell or other variations). It was a little like croquet and originated from Italy.
King Charles II was particularly found of it. They laid out a court next to his palace just to play the game, and it is this act that eventually lead to Pall Mall the street.
Things were moved around a few times for various reasons including a complaint that dust from nearby carriages would float over the wall and disturb the players (see image below). So, someone blocked off the nearby street.
But wait, if someone blocked off the street just so they could play Pall Mall, how did Pall Mall become a street?
Well, as I said, things got shifted several times. The original Pall Mall was considered a tiny alley, so they moved the court to St. James's square. The old alleyway was opened as a road, but the new Pall-Mall court wasn't safe from progression. Someone started building houses on it, and the road was moved again, closer to the newer, nicer-looking houses.
The owners of the old houses, now had a problem. Their houses no longer faced the street! They appealed about how expensive it would be to try and turn their houses around to face the new street and were granted the original pall mall court as their gardens as a sort of compensation.
After a time, the owner of the tennis court at one end of the Pall Mall field was pushed out so they could open up the road.
By the 1700s, no one played Pall Mall at Pall Mall anymore. The street became known as the place for high class shopping (apparently, it still is). It was also the street visiting dignitaries wanted to stay on because it was near the king's palace (see image above).
In the 1800s, it became famous for gentleman's clubs, three of which still survive today (The Reform, Athenaeum and Travellers Clubs). By the mid 1800s, the War Office had set up there. As you can see, much has happened on that plot of land since the days when a king wanted play a new game.
Funnily enough. The road wasn't even called Pall Mall at the start. Rather they named it Catherine Street after King Charles's wife, but almost no one called it by the official name. Instead, they referred to it as Pall Mall Street or the Old Pall Mall until one day Pall Mall was its proper name. And thus, it still is today.
And that is how a street in London became know as the name of a game.
Have you got any roads with unusual names near you? Tell me in the comments!
Links to read:
Photo credit:
Illustration on the Catching the Past image: By P. H. Ditchfield - en:Project Gutenberg eText 14315 - http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/3/1/14315/14315-h/14315-h.htm -, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1742700
Comments