History
The part of modern-day Merton Street adjoining the High Street used to be known as Coach & Horses Lane, named after a public house on the west side of the lane. From the early 18th to the late 19th century, it became known as King Street.
The rest of the street (the part running east-west) was originally known as St John Baptist's Street, named after the church which is now Merton College's chapel. In 1751, the whole street had become King Street, but by 1772 just the east-west part was called Merton Street. The entire street became known as Merton Street only in the 20th century.
The academic and author J. R. R. Tolkien had rooms in Merton Street towards the end of his life in the early 1970s.
Merton Street has also been popularised in local song, with "Merton Street (It's Pretty Neat)" a well known folk number among Oxford University students.
Read more about this topic: Merton Street
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There is a history in all men’s lives,
Figuring the natures of the times deceased,
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With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)