Michael Crichton's 1979 feature film, The First Great Train Robbery, set in 1855 has a scene in which the character Edward Pierce (portrayed by Sean Connery) escorts Emily Trent (Pamela Salem) on a supposedly romantic ride along Rotten Row.

[5] In Bram Stoker's 1897 gothic horror novel Dracula, Jonathan and Mina Harker briefly visit "the Row" after solicitor Peter Hawkins' funeral and interment, "...but there were very few people there, and it was sad-looking and desolate to see so many empty chairs.

In Patrick Hamilton’s novel “The Plains of Cement” (1934), the ageing Mr Eccles takes the barmaid Ella for a walk in Hyde Park, “alongside Rotten Row”.

In the Netflix series Bridgerton, season two, episode three, Jack Featherington suggests “Rotten Row, perhaps?” as a place to promenade with a lady he intends to spend time with.

"Rotten Row" is a location in at least 15 places in England, Scotland, South Africa and Zimbabwe, such as in Lewes, East Sussex and Elie, Fife.

It describes a place where there was once a row of tumbledown cottages infested with rats (raton) and dates to the 14th century or earlier, predating the London derivation.

[6] Other historians have speculated the name might be a corruption of rotteran (to muster),[7] Ratten Row (roundabout way), or rotten (the soft material with which the road is covered).