Land of Green Ginger

Hairdresser's shop at the corner of Manor Street and the Land of Green Ginger

Possibly England's smallest window at the George Hotel

The Land of Green Ginger (grid reference TA099287) is a narrow street at the bottom of Whitefriargate in the old town area of Kingston upon Hull, England. There are various commercial and residential buildings along the street. The Land of Green Ginger is also where what may be the world's smallest window can be seen. It was used by the gatekeeper of the George Hotel to look out for stagecoaches and customers.^[1][2]

The street was formerly known as Old Beverley Street.^[1] Various suggestions have been proposed for the derivation of its current name. It may simply refer to the sale or storage of the spice ginger in the Middle Ages. A record dating from 1853 indicates that a Mr Richardson "has made it most probable that the designation 'Land of Green Ginger' took place betwixt 1640 and 1735". The unknown writer then goes on to speculate that, as a Dutch family with the surname Lindegreen (meaning "green lime tree") was known to live in Hull during the earlier part of the 19th century, the modern name may be a corruption of Lindegroen jonger (Lindegreen junior). Another idea, dating from 1880, is that the name is a corruption of "Landgrave Granger", meaning a walk or pathway approaching the home of the Landgrave family .^[3][4]

Media and the arts

• Land of Green Ginger is a BBC Play for Today by Alan Plater about Hull, televised in 1973.^[5]
• "The Land of Green Ginger" is a track on the 2004 album Bicycles and Tricycles by The Orb.
• The Land of Green Ginger was a participatory art project that explored encounters between refugees living in Hull and their host communities during 2008.^[6]

See also

• Green ginger wine
• Gladstone's Land
• Artemisia absinthium a species of wormwood known as "Green Ginger".
• Green Ginger Shopping Arcade (formerly called The Land of Green Ginger) an arcade inside a converted 19th century Congregational church on Front Street in Tynemouth.^[7]

Notes

1. "Welcome to land-of-green-ginger.com " land-of-green-ginger.com. Retrieved 13 February 2009.
2. "Kingston-upon-Hull: Land of Green Ginger" Riverhumber.co.uk. Retrieved 14 February 2009.
3. "Land Of Green Ginger " Rootsweb. Retrieved 14 February 2009.
4. "Observer: Land of Green Ginger" (24 September 1853) Notes and Queries: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. Number 204. Vol. viii., pp. 34, 160, 227. The Project Gutenberg EBook of Notes and Queries. (Release Date: 24 October 2008) Retrieved 14 February 2009.
5. "Land of Green Ginger (1973)" screenonline.org.uk. Retrieved 14 February 2009.
6. "The Land of Green Ginger" Refugee Council. Retrieved 14 February 2009.
7. http://www.greengingerarcade.co.uk/

Coordinates: 53°44′35″N 0°20′03″W / 53.74310°N 0.33429°W