Nightingale Lane, East Smithfield

A Dictionary of London by Henry A Harben.

South out of Upper East Smithfield to the Docks (P.O. Directory).


Earliest mention: " Nightingale lane" (Stow, ed. 1598, 347).

It formed part of the eastern boundary of the original Portsoken Ward, as set out in Strype, Ed. 1720, I. ii. 26.

In a paper on the Anglo-Saxon settlement round London it is suggested that the name is a survival in a corrupted form of the " Knightengild" (L. and M. Arch. Soc. Trans N.S. I. p.313), but it does not seem to be possible to bring forward any proof in support of this suggestion.

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