Haunch of Venison Yard: London's roads and pubs

I have been wandering the streets of London since I was six when accompanied by my Dad and little sister we would pick an area and walk it. Once home we would highlight the area covered and over several years of walking most of zone one was a veritable rainbow.

This education was furthered by studying in Bloomsbury, working near St Pauls, living in East London and now living in NW3. Every time I move to a new area I take great joy in getting lost, and then found with, or without, the assistance of the GPS or a local tube stop.

On foot the important things are the compass direction and the food outlets ('left at Sainsburys') to navigate by.

But I am discovering London from a completely different angle of late. Living as far west as I ever have done, and travelling primarily by bike and bus the key navigating points have changed and so I'm noticing other things. For example, did you know there's a road in Mayfair called Haunch of Venison Yard? Or that Mornington Crescent is actually still a crescent?

(Photo credit: 441K9 Flickr)

Cycling in London can be a bit nail-biting and as such I need all my concentration on the road, not on my phone GPS system. When I am going somewhere new I try to remember at least a 10-minute stretch and I do this using a combination of road names but also by the pubs. It amazes me that there are still enough pubs to navigate by. Its also got me thinking about pub signs. I always assumed they harked back to mass illiteracy, 'meet you at the Red Lion at 5'. But I wonder if those hanging pub signs also serve a greater purpose to people who are travelling too fast to read.

(Photo credit: camdenpubs.blogspot.com)

Now, I don't pretend to be a lightening fast cyclist but the signs outside both The Victoria and Edinboro' Castle reassured me that I was on the right track. By contrast the lack of signage outside the Queens Head and Artichoke on Albany Street nearly led to a small diversion. Being fair to the owners I'm not surprised they didn't feature a pictorial sign. In my head its looking like a head on a plate, with a stick of artichoke between her teeth. Apparently the name was given by Queen Elizabeth I's Head Gardener.

(Photo credit: www.beerintheevening.com)

Pub signage navigation comes particularly into its own when considering that postcodes are a relatively new invention. These days we take for granted our ability to type a code into our GPS but postcodes were only introduced first in the 1870s and then fully rolled out 1954 - 72. Before then points of interest would have been much more helpful for navigation.