People on the either the Hull or the East Riding list have been asking about the 'Land of Green Ginger' in Hull On the HDM web site is the following comment. Makes good reading Victor FINDING THE REASON BEHIND ODD NAME 09:30 - 18 November 2002 {PRIVATE} Bbc Look North gave me all of 30 seconds to explain the meaning of Hull's most famous street name, Land of Green Ginger, a subject on which thousands of words have been spilt. All I could do was mention one of the dafter explanations and one which seemed more likely to be true. There's no shortage of bizarre suggestions for the origin of the unusual name, including one spurious modern one which has gained some currency but is too absurd to be repeated. The fact is that the name came into use without any definitive reason ever being recorded, and all we can do now is apply common- sense and go for the most reasonable explanation. Most obvious of all the answers and the one I favour is that it means what it says - that this was the place where ginger (green because it was undried) was grown. Former Hull Museum Curator Tom Sheppard thought this was where the truth lay. Spices were highly valued in pre-refrigeration days to disguise the taste of meat which had gone off and nearby were the gardens of the Suffolk Palace, the manor house of the De la Poles (commemorated in Manor Street). Such wealthy people would not be slow to avail themselves of every aid to digestion that money could buy. Sheahan's history of Hull gives a slight variation on this theme. Medieval people apparently had a fancy for green ginger as an appetiser. In this context it means ginger cured with lemon juice. Through the long period which has elapsed since the name first appeared in print - getting on for three centuries - a rich collection of alternative suggestions has been offered. One ingenious theory (without evidence) is that it was the address of a Dutch firm, Lindergroen Junger, a name which, inaccurately pronounced in a Yorkshire accent, was eventually transformed into Land of Green Ginger. A mythical Moses Greenhinger was also invented as a former inhabitant. So was a German Landgrave (a prince) who, it was claimed, had for some unknown reason a mansion situated there approached by a "granger" (a walk): hence Landgrave Granger, and yet another garbled name. Although it's the name which naturally arouses so much curiosity, it is a pity that it detracts from other interesting aspects of the street's history. Before it became Land of Green Ginger it was a section of one of the two main thoroughfares of medieval Hull, Beverley Street, which ran south to north across the walled town and then curved towards the Beverley Gate. It is still an atmospheric part of the Old Town, a network of alleys and narrow streets, with Bowlalley Lane nearby and enough lawyers' offices to give it a Dickensian air, particularly around Christmas time. A name with such magical undertones has been copied for other uses, most notably for the title of a novel by local writer Winifred Holtby. The Internet shows that a Tynemouth shopping mall also bears the name, and BBC weatherman Paul Hudson, tells me there's another Land of Green Ginger in Threshfield, near Skipton. I await further information on this point.