Church Street

Opposite the parish church on Leake Road is the smallest street in Gotham just 42 yards long [38m] and consists of three houses.

At the far end of Church Street presently is Foredrift Close, a compact, private estate. Previously this was the site of Talbot's Farm.

Church Street is first mentioned in the electoral register of 1843. Reference to earlier electoral roles suggest that the area was known as Cox’s Yard from 1839 to 1843 when the address changed to Church Street.

From 1851 until later in the next century there is no mention of electors living on Church Street and yet in the 1881 census, where streets are recorded for the first time, we find 36 dwellings on this street, including the Cuckoo Bush Inn the inference being that Church Street was then the name of that part of the main [Leake] road. The census also highlights a polarity in Victorian Gotham between church and chapel for we find 32 dwellings on Chapel Street.

However in the next census of 1891 all this changes. Neither Chapel nor Church Street exists.