Who was Mr, Mrs, or Miss Courtney who gave their name to the small road near where I lived as a child in Cambridge? We lived on Metcalf Road and going to school, we came out of our flat, walked down the road and then turned right onto Courtney Way. We couldn’t turn left because that was where the allotments were but I think there’s a school there now. It’s all changed anyway, our flat is now a house – it used to be two flats, ours was downstairs, and our landlady, Mrs Benstead, who we called Aunty Gladys, lived upstairs.
I have no idea who Metcalf was after whom our road was named, or Courtney – or maybe they were just random names that the town council liked. We moved from Metcalf Road to Harvey Goodwin Avenue and there was such a person as Mr Harvey Goodwin, or should I say Bishop Harvey Goodwin, a nineteenth century academic and clergyman.
The name Courtney has become very popular, especially, as far as I can find out, as a female name. Its origins are French and originally the Courtenays were an influential family many of whom were crusaders. Their founder was Athenay, the first lord of Courtenay, which was a canton in or near Loiret. The English house of Courtenay starts with Reginald de Courtenay who moved to England after quarrelling with King Louis VII some time before 1260, when he died.
Who could now know why Courtney Way in Cambridge was so named, whether it was after a specific person, or just seemed like a good name for a new road of semi-detached houses? It’s unbelievable now to see those houses would cost close to a million pounds if one wished to buy one – and those houses are semi-detached! Ordinary families lived there in the 1950’s, I guess that some may have been renting their homes as we were, and now to think of them being apparently worth so much, is startling. No ordinary families could live there today.
My featured image is not of Courtney Way, it’s in Metcalf Road, where I lived from being born to being fourteen. Our bedroom was the bottom room at the front, Mum and Dad’s was the one on the left.
Lois Elsden 