Flamborough Road

At the top of Southway in the northern part of Plymouth, a series of streets were laid out in the early 1960s, off either side of Clittaford Road. They were given the names of various islands and headlands around the coast of the British Isles.

One of them, recorded both as a "road" and "way" is named after Flamborough (or Flamburgh) on the Humber River in Yorkshire.

The original name was recorded in the Domesday Survey as Flaneburg and it's taken to signify the "stronghold (fort or burgh) of a man called Flein".

Doubtless it dates back to the Viking occupation, for the name Fleinn is a known name in old norse, the language of the Scandanavians.

Quite why the name should have been applied here is a mystery, much as it is with other Southway names, Inchkeith, Lundy, Stroma, Pentland, Alderney, Cromer, Bardsey, Hartland and Lizzard.

EH 23 May 1998