Chaucer Way

There are a number of newer estates in Plymouth that have a central theme for the naming of the various streets and closes in their immediate neighbourhood, but few are more obvious that that development that sits above the Parkway, running this was and that off St Peters Road, between Manadon and honicknowle.

Poets and writers are the chosen subject of this theme and of more than three dozen British authors represented here, the earliest, Geoffrey chaucer, has been accorded one of th major thoroughfaces - Chaucer Way - the name also being given to the local school.

Regarded as the "Father of English literature", Chaucer was born sometime around 1340 and died in 1400. his earliest dateable work, the Book of the Duchess was composed in 1369 and he began writing his famous collection of stories - The Cantebury Tales - in the 1380s. The original intention appears to have been to produce a larger set of tales but only the Prologue and 22 pilgrims tales were ever completed.

EH 26 November 1994