While going up Noddle Hill Way in the city of Hull, over the weekend, I was pleased to see a small residential road with the name Abingdon Garth.
In Yorkshire dialect I believe that a garth is a small grass enclosure adjacent to a house. The Abingdon Garth has a fenced grass area near the houses.
The Garths make up an area in the large Bransholme housing estate to the north of Hull. They start with Abingdon Garth, and end with Zeals Garth. There are 25 garths in all, only one starting with X is missing.
I could not find the connection with Abingdon in Oxfordshire but somebody may know.
I traveled by train up to Glasgow. I was saddened to see all the derelict factory and industrial sites in the North on the way up to Scotland. I wondered why there was such a push to build houses in the green belt when there was an excellent opportunity to regenerate these run down areas. Developers are even seeking planning permission to build houses on ancient monuments (with the go ahead from the Governments planning inspectors). I traveled to Sevenoaks to attend a function mainly attended by people in the finance industry and asked the same question to them. They said no one wants to live up North they all want to live in the South.
As for a connection – the names of the Garths (Abingdon, Binbrook, Cosford, Digby, Enstone, Finningley, Gatwick, …) appear to all be current or former RAF bases.
According to an online map, the primary school in the middle of these Garths is called Biggin Hill, lending weight to this theory.
Wikipedia tells me that the area of Hull that the estate is on (Bransholme) was an RAF base until the 60s, so I’m guessing the street names are just a nice nod to history.
This is not linked to the thread but I would like to tell people that the widow of the gentleman who was stabbed in Poundland has set up a petition to ask retailers to amend the way they display knives.
The link is on the Streetlife website.
Thank you.