Friar Road (St Mary Cray)

Locality
Coordinate	51.38898, 0.101446
Adm. div.	Kent, now Greater London
Vicinity	Between Forest Way and Littlejohn Road; S. of and parallel with Powerest Road
Type	Thoroughfare
Interest	Robin Hood name
Status	Extant
First Record	c. 1944

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Friar Road.

Friar Road / Google Earth Street View.

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2017-12-25. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2021-01-06.

Friar Road is one of a dozen residential streets in St Mary Cray (formerly a parish in Kent, now part of the London Borough of Bromley) whose names were more or less certainly inspired by that of a small wood that existed in this area before urbanization kicked in: Robin Hood Shaw. The presence of more obviously Robin Hood-related names in the immediate vicinity suggests that this place-name is indeed meant to suggest a Robin Hood connection. The urban planners may have had Friar Tuck or the Curtal Friar in mind, but then there is still something about Friar Tuck that makes you think that not everybody would want to live on Friar Tuck Road. Fully respectable he is not. For the Robin Hood-related street names in this neighbourhood, see further the page on the St Mary Cray place-name cluster.

Gazetteers

• Not included in Dobson, R. B., ed.; Taylor, J., ed. Rymes of Robyn Hood: an Introduction to the English Outlaw (London, 1976), pp. 293-311.

Maps

John Bartholomew & Son Ltd. Bartholomew's Reference Atlas of Greater London, Covering the Whole Metropolitan Police Area, with Larger Scale Maps For Central London and Index For Quick Location of Over 62,000 Names (Edinburgh, 1968), 118D (Friar Road shown and labelled)

• 25" O.S. map Kent XVI.3 (c. 1868; surveyed 1867). No copy in NLS
• 25" O.S. map Kent XVI.3 (1896; rev. 1895) (Friar Road not shown)
• 25" O.S. map Kent XVI.3 (1896; rev. 1895) (Friar Road not shown) (georeferenced)
• 25" O.S. map Kent XVI.3 (1908; rev. 1907) (Friar Road not shown)
• 25" O.S. map Kent XVI.3 (1932; rev. 1930-31) (Friar Road not shown)
• 25" O.S. map Kent XVI.3 (1947; rev. 1937-38) (Friar Road shown and labelled)
• 6" O.S. map Kent XVI (1871; surveyed 1862-68) (Friar Road not shown)
• 6" O.S. map Kent XVI.NE (1898; rev. 1895) (Friar Road not shown) (georeferenced)
• 6" O.S. map Kent XVI.NE (1898; rev. 1895) (Friar Road not shown)
• 6" O.S. map Kent XVI.NE (1910; rev. 1907-1908) (Friar Road not shown)
• 6" O.S. map London Sheet T (1919; rev. 1914) (Friar Road not shown)
• 6" O.S. map Kent XVI.NE (c. 1938; rev. 1930-1931) (Friar Road not shown)
• 6" O.S. map Kent XVI.NE (c. 1944; rev. 1938) (Friar Road shown and labelled)
• 6" O.S. map Kent XVI.NE (c. 1945; rev. c. 1938) (Friar Road shown and labelled)
• 6" O.S. map London Sheet T (c. 1946; rev. 1938) (only partly revised) (Friar Road not shown)
• 1:25,000 map TQ46 (1957) (Friar Road shown, not labelled)
• 1" O.S. map Sheet 271 (Hills) (1896) (Friar Road not shown)
• 1" O.S. map Sheet 271 (Outline) (1896) (Friar Road not shown)
• 1" O.S. map Sheet 171 (1946) (Friar Road shown, not labelled)
• 1" O.S. map Sheet 171 (1961) (Friar Road shown, not labelled).

Background

• Wikipedia: Orpington Urban District.
• Wikipedia: St Mary Cray.

Also see

• St Mary Cray place-name cluster
• Places named after Friar Tuck.

 Kent place-names 

 London place-names 

 Place-names