Street / road names and their origins

Using the original spelling it was possibly a reference to an adjacent area of many years ago "A Bailey being a defended yard, surrounded by a ditch, which contained barracks, stables, livestock and other buildings for storing food, weapons and equipment". I very much doubt that there was a moat or "Motte" anywhere near there but the yard may have existed. Just a thought and yes, it is a tenuous connection.

Spellings of places weren't standardised in the distant past, so you find they are different depending on who wrote it. It's only relatively recently that place names are kept to a 'official' spelling. Most of these names have Saxon, Norse or Roman origins, and the letters used in modern spelling may be pronounced differently these days, and contractions and possession were written differently. Motte isn't moat, it is the mound on which the castle keep stood.

Bailey is a perfectly good name and probably described an historic feature in the area. On the other hand, googling "bayley" just comes up with a fairly common surname. So unless the corporation changed the name in honour of some local citizen, then I cannot understand the change.

It just changed naturally. Languages evolve. It refers to the Bailey of the Norman castle that stood in the area. Old spellings of Coventry appear as Cofanfreo, couentre and many other variants.

Round our way all the road names start with consecutive letters of the alphabet A-to-K. Anchorway Rd, Bathway Rd, Crossway Rd, Daleway Rd, Erithway Rd, Fosseway Rd, Gretna Rd, Handcross Grove, Ilfracombe Grove, Jedburgh Grove, Kingscote Grove.

Do you know Tony all of the years I have lived in the Green Lane area and I never realised that! Where I am it's Beanfield, Moat, Wainbody, Woodside and Medland.

Tricia can tell you all about the moat Mayjan. She had to cross it twice every morning to get to school

You are of course right about the Motte. I based my earlier comment on the following information:- The Motte and Bailey castle ditch - the process of excavating the earth to build the mounds created a highly convenient defensive ditch at the base of the motte which surrounded the whole of the bailey. a ditch which was often filled with water - the earliest form of the castle moat

I can understand names changing over the centuries, but am still baffled why the name changed as recently as the 1890's when spelling should have settled down. It's probably as simple as an error on a council document which as been perpetuated in later maps and road signs.

Quite likely. Someone in the 1890s mistook an apostrophe on a map for a small letter "a" and ever since then Barr's Lane has been known as Barras Lane!

That moat predates the school Tricia. There was a house in the middle of the moat which I assume was either a religious retreat of some sort or else belonged to a prominent Catholic family. The pond may be the result of a bomb crater? There were at least four other ponds which had to be filled-in before the playing fields could be used.

I went to Courthouse Green school but have never really given any thought as to where a courthouse might have been. Before the 1930s urban sprawl there would, I suppose, be very few houses in the Bell Green and Courthouse Green area so there would seem to be little use for one. Given that there are Courthouse Green, Bell Green and Alderman's Green in a line towards the outskirts of the city does anyone have any ideas of what defined a "green" other than a simple village lawn or common? I lived in Proffitt Avenue and as a kid gave no thought to the names of the surrounding streets. I would guess, because Elkington, Tallants, Johnstone and Armfield etc are probably individuals' surnames they might be named after Councillors and Aldermen at the time of the area's build up. If I could comment on the great bailey debate, at Caludon Castle School the large sloping area from the admin area down to the separate houses was called the bailey and, as has already been commented, referred to the outer sloped area of a castle's motte or mound inside the defensive walls. We were taught that the word was from the French "baille" which was an enclosure.

Marvellous thing, the internet! After a little on line research I've discovered that Proffitt Avenue is named after a William Proffitt who founded the oldest charity in Coventry, and it still exists. Apparently he bestowed the income from Partridge Croft to the poor of the Foleshill area in the 1500s. Sewall Highway and Tallants Road are named after former Mayors.

Interesting, Walrus! Although Howat Road in Keresley End, where I lived as a kid, was in the Nuneaton Borough, it was named after the Coventry mayor at the time it was built in 53/54

Prior Deram Walk. Passed by the other day and thought it may be interesting to pursue the origins. Thanks to 'British History Online', all was revealed to me. Big, big trouble over common land and rights to use it and the usual ructions and riots over such things. B.H.O. describes the plight of the commoners far better than I can, so I shall just link it.