History
The name of this street was recorded as Kattestreete in the early 13th century, as Mousecatchers' Lane (Vicus Murilegorum) in 1442, and as Cat Street in the 18th century. In the mid-19th century it became Catherine Street. However, there was another street of this name in east Oxford and in 1930 the City Council changed the name to Catte Street, using a 15th-century spelling.
Originally this street road used to lead northwards as far as New College Lane, where the city wall blocked its way. The road north from here has become part of Catte Street, although the Modern History Faculty still gives its address as Broad Street nearby.
In the mid-13th century the illuminator William de Brailes owned property, and presumably had his workshop, next to St Mary's.
The street was pedestrianised as a pavement at the south by the junction with the High Street in 1973.
Read more about this topic: Catte Street
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of reform is always identical; it is the comparison of the idea with the fact. Our modes of living are not agreeable to our imagination. We suspect they are unworthy. We arraign our daily employments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The only history is a mere question of one’s struggle inside oneself. But that is the joy of it. One need neither discover Americas nor conquer nations, and yet one has as great a work as Columbus or Alexander, to do.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“The history of literature—take the net result of Tiraboshi, Warton, or Schlegel,—is a sum of a very few ideas, and of very few original tales,—all the rest being variation of these.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)