On 15/05/2014 09:27, Steven Horner wrote:

Personally I like Marc's suggestion of using the 2 street names separated by a hyphen. This allows both names to be rendered. Then identifying each street with left and right tags. How do you chose which is which if the road runs East to West?

I'm amazed this doesn't crop up constantly, any old terraced streets with a road separating them would have the issue. I can think of about a dozen streets within 1 mile of me where this is the case.

C19th Terraces are interesting ... and confusing. I've studied a few in my home town of Otley. Generally I've found that when the developer, usually a factory owner, put both the street and the building in, then "Danefield Terrace" is typically the name of the street. But if they put the buildings up later, then the name refers to the building, for example Elm Terrace, East Busk Lane ... even though it has a street sign and local folks will refer to it just as Elm Terrace. So I put the Terrace name on the building. And, by the way, it will often have an alley around the back referred to as Back of Elm Terrace. And yes there is one case where the street sign makers just gave up and put both names. Ramsey Terrace/Wharfe Street. There is a terrace on the left and detached houses and an old school on the right. I've not found enough historic information or talked to folks living there to determine whether it is a double name street or Wharfe Street with a terrace down one side.

The point in rambling/writing is that I suspect these were all non-issues, nobody cared, until the advent of digital computers and the need to assign things precisely ... even though the reality is that they are not precise. Nineteenth century OS surveyors clearly dodge the issue. A beck or wood will have one name on one part and another name on another, but no attempt to decide a boundary. So, like it or not we are not just collecting names of things, in some instances we (and public bodies faced with the same issue) are actually transfer naming things. In the case of public bodies, there can then be a clash between the logical assignment of a name and what local people feel something is called. Perhaps many double named streets actually don't have a name at all 'cos if you live there it isn't important. But I am venturing into Tim Water's realm. Fun though, even though this does not help Steven in the slightest. Sorry!

Mike

PS I cannot resist one more interesting example. If you map in the north of England, you will be no doubt putting names like "Heber Gill" on streams. But I believe, perhaps someone more knowledgeable can confirm, that gill does not refer to the water at all, but a stretch of steep narrow valley that the stream passes through in part of its journey.

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