Bond Street Laine isn't a 'laine'!

Is a different name required?

Photo by Henry Bruce

Perhaps it's a twitten

There was some correspondence in The Argus during September 2011 about why Bond Street Laine is so called. Answer: because whoever dreamt up the name assumed wrongly that Laine was an old-fashioned spelling of the word Lane!

The meaning of 'laine'

Selma Montford of the Brighton Society in a letter on 20th September quoted historian Sue Berry’s definition of a laine: “A laine was an open field divided into furlongs and further subdivided, for the sake of ownership, into strips called paulpieces, which ran along the hillside to reduce erosion and soil slip.”

Perhaps it's a twitten?

So, Selma explains, Bond Street Laine isn’t a ‘laine’, it isn’t a paulpiece and it isn’t a leakway. Perhaps it could be called a twitten. A twitten is a Sussex word to describe a narrow path between two walls or hedges, usually leading from one street to another. It can be either open or run under a building.

Petition started to change the name

The Brighton Society has now started an e-petition to change the name to something which more accurately reflects the history of the area. There is more information here. Please consider signing it!


[Previously published in the North Laine Runner, No 212, September/October 2011]