Amwell Street, Pentonville. So called from Amwell, in Hertfordshire, where the New River has its rise.

Source: A Handbook for London, Past and Present. Peter Cunningham. Published by John Murray 1849.

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The Pavement of London Handbook for London 1849

Updated on London

The streets of London had no pavement in the eleventh century.  In 1090, the avenue of Cheapside, the heart of the City, was of such soft earth, that when the roof of St. Mary-le-Bow was blown off by a violent gale of wind, four of the beams, each six-and-twenty feet long, were so deeply buried  in  the  street,  that little more than four feet remained above the surface!   The first toll we know of in England, for repairing the highways, was imposed in the reign of Edward III. for mending the road between St. Giles’s and Temple Bar.  It was not till 1417 that Holborn was paved, though it was often impassable from its depth of mud ; it appears, indeed, that during the reign of Henry VIII. many of the streets of London were “very foul and full of pits and sloughs, very perilous and noyous as well for the King’s subjects on horseback as on foot and with carriage.” Smithfield was not paved till 1614.  In fact, down to 1762 when the Westminster Paving Act passed, from which we may date all those improvements and conveniences which have made this country the boast and envy of the world, the streets of the metropolis were obstructed with stalls, sheds, sign-posts, and projections of various kinds; and each inhabitant paved before his own door in such manner, and with such materials, as pride, poverty, or caprice might suggest.