Is it only me who has a bit of a thing over the name ‘Silver Street’? Ever since we moved to Somerset I have been noticing them. Actually I know it’s not just me, I cam across a rather exhaustive essay on the possible derivations of the name, several possibilities including Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian names, no conclusions were drawn. One website for South Petherton claims the origin of its street name was because there was a mint situated on the street, but that in no way explains the other 36 Silver Streets in my Somerset Atlas. The author Lindsey Davis sent her entertaining but sadly fictional Roman informer Falco to mine silver on the Mendips, and in fact the Romans did, but most of the Silver Streets aren’t on the Mendips.
So, when I made a list of possible subjects for a Westcountry Bestiary, I really thought that somehow Silver Street should be included… a half-baked idea is emerging. Here are some initial scribbles, and the appropriate page in my atlas, just in case you doubted me!
Art by Nancy Farmer 
I like that cat! Heh-heh 😀
only cats can see this sort of monster, obviously 😉
Hi Nancy,
You may not want to read this..Spoiler Alert!
.I am sure I can think of a more Beastielike excuse for ‘Silver Street’….but I think I have cracked it.
Never mind the anglosaxon and Scandinavian derivations…………
It took me years, …..but then one day I was out in Deepest Darkest Somerset at night, …….
The moon was full, clouds skittering across it fast, in the thin lazy wind, behind the stark leafless trees of midwinter, snow on snow on snow, (as the carol goes..)…stars clear and beautiful across the sky…..and bloody cold it was. Probably on the way back from a pub.
We walked back down a Silver Street….may even have been in South Petherton….and there it was, there for the looking at.
Think of bright moonlight on water…on floods….against dark hedges and trees and moon shadows…..
Silver on black.
Shining bright when the moon came from behind the cloud.
After that, I keep noticing that all the Silver Streets are low lying…and in places that flood.
Although my friend Hannah says it is because it shows the snail trails of snot on your sleeve from the cold better..
The Giant Snot Snail may be more Bestial…
Take your pick!
Many blessings!
Sent with great amazingness from my iPad
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oh I like the snail slime idea! And the water is interesting too, but I know one, high on the Mendips, in Farrington Gurney… not to say that it wouldn’t flood, I can’t exactly recall how it lay, but it didn’t seem likely. However it is interesting that you mention the moon – to get that effect would require the right alignment with the moon seen straight along the street. I would like to think they all run at a particular angle and all shine at a particular time! 🙂
But once seen, it lives on in your heart for ever!
that is true. there is something special about moonlight 🙂