Etnam Street

Etnam Street (once known as East Street) began as a piece of 13th century speculative property development by the monks at Leominster Priory. The old Worcester road (of which Grange Walk is the last remnant) was moved about 30 metres to the south. The layout of the new street was carefully planned, and long narrow burgage plots were laid out on both sides of the main road into town from the east. These plots were measured spaces for tradesmen to build their houses and workshops, and then pay annual rent to the monastery. They were narrow to allow the maximum number of buildings to have frontages on the Street. Because of the amount of traffic passing up and down, entering and leaving Leominster, it was a lucrative place to trade. Over the years, the buildings have changed and some of the plots have been split up and sold off, but 19th century maps of the town clearly show the long thin shape of the plots of land behind the street fronts, 700 years after they were laid out.

Before the arrival of the railway in the 1850s, the eastern end of Etnam Street was a very desirable place to live, because of the closeness of Caswell Fields to the south. The Fields were open and considered a lovely place to stroll and take the air, and there were some high-status houses there. After the railway arrived, this changed. Businesses which used the trains to transport heavy goods such as timber, coal, and agricultural produce began to assemble round the station. Cattle were driven down Etnam Street from the market to the station or the nearby slaughterhouse. Caswell Fields were built over in the early 20th century and the whole nature of the area changed.