What's in a name? | High Street, Portsmouth

To understand the origin of High Street in Portsmouth, you have to go back hundreds of years before the city even existed.

The name harkens back to ninth-century England, when "high" was used to describe something superior, of the best quality.

Roads that had been improved over country trails were called highways. And for the next thousand years in England, High Street became the name of the principal commercial thoroughfare in each town, an early version of Main Street in the United States.

The historic center in Portsmouth, England, for instance, is anchored by a High Street lined with shops, businesses and churches.

In her "History of Portsmouth," written more than 75 years ago about the South Hampton Roads city, Mildred Holladay said High Street originally was the "private plantation road" that led from Col. William Crawford's home on the Elizabeth River waterfront to the county road.

When Crawford laid out streets for Portsmouth in 1752, he made High Street the city's main drag, designing it to be 100 feet wide. The four corners of High and Court streets were set aside for a church, a market, a courthouse and a jail.

Through annexations and expanding development, High Street eventually stretched from downtown to Churchland. Today, High Street begins as the city's central business district, extends through Midtown and past Bon Secours Maryview Medical Center, and then leads past residential neighborhoods.

Meghan Hoyer, (757) 446-2293, meghan.hoyer@pilotonline.com