Gropecunt Lane

[5] The first record of the word grope being used in the sense of sexual touching appears in 1380; cunt has been used to describe the vulva since at least 1230, and has cognates in many Germanic languages, although its precise etymology is uncertain.

[6] According to author Angus McIntyre, organised prostitution was well established in London by the middle of the 12th century, initially mainly confined to Southwark in the southeast, but later spreading to other areas such as Smithfield, Shoreditch, Clerkenwell, and Westminster.

Prostitution may well have been a normal aspect of medieval urban life;[9] in A survey of London (1598) John Stow describes Love Lane as "so called of Wantons".

[10] The more graphic Gropecunt Lane, however, is possibly the most obvious allusion to paid sexual activity,[11] although Bristol's Hoorstrete (Whore's Street) also seems unambiguous.

In John Garfield's Wandring Whore II (1660) the word is applied to a woman, specifically a whore—"this is none of your pittiful Sneakesbyes and Raskalls that will offer a sturdy C— but eighteen pence or two shillings, and repent of the business afterwards".

[25] As the most ubiquitous and explicit example of such street names, with the exception of Shrewsbury and possibly Newcastle (where a Grapecuntlane was mentioned in 1588) the use of Gropecunt seems to have fallen out of favour by the 14th century.

[27] The ruling Protestant conservative elite's growing hostility to prostitution during the 16th century resulted in the closure of the Southwark stews in 1546, replacing earlier attempts at regulation.

First recorded in 1279 as Gropecontelane and Groppecountelane,[31][32] it was part of a collection of streets which appears to have survived as a small island of prostitution outside Southwark, where such activities were normally confined during the medieval period.

[29] The name was also used in other large medieval towns across England, including Bristol,[33] York, Shrewsbury, Newcastle upon Tyne, Worcester, Hereford, Southampton[34] and Oxford.

As a result of these differing accounts, some local tour guides attribute the name to "feeling one's way along a dark and narrow thoroughfare".

Magpie Lane in Oxford , once known as Gropecunt Lane
Grope Lane, Bristol, 1542
A 1720 map of Bread Street and Cordwainer wards included in a 19th-century edition of John Stow 's Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster . The routes of three extinct streets are highlighted in blue, Puppekirtylane on the left, "Grope Countlane" in the middle, and Bordhawlane on the right. The location is opposite the modern-day Mercers' Hall . [ 7 ] Little Fryday Street [sic] (Pissing Alley) is visible on the left.
John Speed 's 1605 map of Oxford, with Gropecunt Lane, by then Grope or Grape Lane, highlighted in blue. [ 19 ] The major road it connects to is High Street, and north is at the bottom.
Grope Lane in Shrewsbury