Why Is That Expensive Street Named After Hawks? It Used to Be the Stables
By the BrainSnail editorial team. How these articles are written and checked, and how to tell us when one is wrong.
A narrow cobbled lane of small houses behind a grand terrace was built to hold horses and the people who looked after them. The name comes from an older use entirely.
Where the word comes from
The term originally meant a place where hawks were kept while moulting, from a French word for changing feathers, and it referred to the royal hawk houses. The royal establishment at Charing Cross carried that name, and when it was rebuilt as stables in the sixteenth century after a fire the name stayed with the building despite the change of occupant. From there the word transferred to stable buildings generally, and then to the streets of such buildings that were laid out behind London's great squares and terraces from the eighteenth century onwards.
How they were built
The arrangement follows directly from what the buildings were for:
- •A narrow lane running behind and parallel to a main terrace
- •Two-storey buildings, with stabling and a coach house below
- •Living accommodation for grooms and coachmen above
- •Wide doors at ground level for a carriage to pass
- •A cobbled or setted surface, which suits hooves and drainage
- •Access from the main street through an arch at one end
What killed the use
The motor car removed the entire purpose within about two decades. A household that had kept several horses, a carriage and the staff to run them needed a garage instead, which required far less space and no accommodation for anybody, and the running costs of a horse establishment were substantial. Households gave them up between roughly 1910 and 1930, leaving the buildings behind. Many were converted to garages and workshops and became run down, and the lanes were regarded as slums in places. Wartime damage and post-war redevelopment removed a proportion of them entirely.
Who lived there
The accommodation above the stables housed a specific part of the household and the arrangement says a good deal about how those households worked. Coachmen and grooms lived over the animals they cared for, which put them permanently on call and physically separate from the indoor servants in the main house, and that separation was deliberate. Conditions were poor, with rooms directly above stalls carrying the heat, ammonia and noise from below, and public health reports of the period single them out. Whole families lived in them. Census returns for a London square therefore show a different population in the lane behind from the one in the terrace in front.
Why they became expensive
The reversal in status is almost complete and the reasons are specific to what the buildings offer. They sit in central locations that were desirable all along, since they were built behind the best addresses. They are small, self-contained houses in areas otherwise made up of large terraces divided into flats, which suits buyers who want a whole house. The lanes are quiet, closed at one end, and carry no through traffic, which is rare in central London. And the buildings are architecturally distinctive, which is worth a great deal once fashion turns. Conversion began in the 1920s among artists and writers and had become thoroughly fashionable by the 1960s.
The takeaway
The word meant a place where hawks moulted, transferred to a royal building rebuilt as stables, and then to the stable lanes behind London terraces. Those held carriages and horses below and grooms above, with wide doors and cobbles. The motor car removed the purpose between 1910 and 1930, and the buildings became slums before becoming among the most expensive small houses in the city.