Darkness falling on Magpie Lane, Oxford, England

 

This atmospheric medieval lane has had a number of different names. In the middle-ages it was known as a haunt of prostitutes and was known as 'Grope Lane' (and something even fruitier I would blush to type here), a name that was common in towns at the time. It was named Magpie Lane in the seventeenth century after the sign of a magpie on an alehouse in the lane, but by the late nineteenth century, it was known as Grove Street, returning to the name Magpie in the 1920s

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