Names: and Their Meaning

Why is it called Lloyd's? Why the Green Man? Leopold Wagner traced the origins of everything the Victorians had a name for — countries, tavern signs, flowers, wines, London streets, nicknames and battles — and found a story behind nearly all of them.

Buildings

6 pages in this part of Names and Their Meaning.

Buildings

N all probability the name of Westminster Abbey would never have come into existence had it not been necessary to distinguish the Abbey…

Buildings: Savoy

The Temple comprised the chief seat in this country of the Knights Templars after their return from the Holy Land. The Savoy Chapel is a…

Buildings: Street

The original Church of St. Sepulchre, founded during the time of the Crusades, was so denominated in honour of the Holy Sepulchre at…

Buildings: Hospital

The Charterhouse, originally a monastery of the Carthusians, is a corruption of La Chartreuse, the name of the district in France where…

Buildings: Bethlehem

Bedlam is a contraction of Bethlehem Hospital, a lazar-house named after the Hospital of St. Mary at Bethlehem, and converted into a…

Buildings: James

St. James's Palace marks the site of an ancient leper hospital dedicated to St. James the Less, Bishop of Jerusalem. The present edifice…

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