Finkle Street just off Stockton High Street, once ran down to Stockton quayside. Is that a glimpse of Head Wrightsons on the opposite side of the Tees?
Finkle Street c1973
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Finkle Street just off Stockton High Street, once ran down to Stockton quayside. Is that a glimpse of Head Wrightsons on the opposite side of the Tees?
Picture Stockton Archive 
It’s likely from Gaelic, meaning ‘fair stranger’, which makes sense with the street leading to the quayside.
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Finkle is a miss-spelling of the word ‘Finchale’… Pronounced Finkle. As in the old Abbey ‘Finchale Abbey’. It means elbow shaped (as the River Tees has a bend there). There is a Finkle Street in many towns. There is a ‘Finchale’ Avenue in Billingham where the ‘Abbey Health Centre’ is. The name was chosen a few years ago by patients, as many of the nearby local roads are named after abbeys.
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Several of my ancestors lived in the street in its early days. Their trades were Carters, Blacksmiths, Straw and Hay dealers. So I would not be surprised if the name arose from a place or street of traders. Another thought could be the exit of the tunnel from the Town Hall jail to the Australia boats?? – I don’t think any of my ancestors fell into this category, but you never know!
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I have been reading further into the word ‘Finkle’ as in Finkle Street, Stockton. It is a medieval word dating from the 11th century and is not listed in any middle-English dictionaries as a trade, occupation or an object. Its main www-references are its use as a surname. The word Finkle could well be a misspelled word of Scots/Irish Gaelic origin, and may well have been a street name given to honour Saint Goderic of Finchale Abbey, Sunderland (pronounced Finkle Abbey) Goderic was an alleged religious hermit who devoted himself to Christianity and service to God, who if he ever existed allegedly made one last pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and then returned home where he convinced Ranulf Flambard, the Bishop of Durham, to grant him a place to live as a hermit at Finchale (Finkle) located by the River Wear in Sunderland (A place by the river) He is recorded to have lived at ‘Finkle’ for the final years of his life.
St Goderic is perhaps best remembered for his kindness toward animals, and many stories recall his protection of the creatures that lived near his forest home. According to one of these, he hid a stag from pursuing hunters; according to another, he even allowed snakes to warm themselves by his fire. It’s possible, (I’m guessing here) that 1200 years ago Goderic did not have a widely birth known name and was called far and wide ‘The Hermit Saint of Finkle’, who had supposedly had God given powers, he was not canonized and the title Saint Goderic is purely an honorary one bestowed later. In many respects Caedmon of Whitby Abbey as a similar medieval history and likewise there’s streets and road named after Caedmon.
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A plan of Stockton for 1826 shows that the elevated part of Finkle Street, which would have stood immediately in front of these premises, was actually called Finkle Place.
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i think there was a shop there that sold clothes, really nice clothes. I don’t remember the name of the shop, but my friend at that time, had a Saturday job there. The clothes were a bit dated for our taste in 1966, but they had some good quality things.
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I would hazard a guess that it’s the name for ‘finklers’ ‘street of Blacksmiths’, which fits in with what we know about the port and docks adjacent. German: from a diminutive of Fink.German: indirect occupational name for a blacksmith, from a derivative of finken ‘to make sparks’.
The name is also well recorded in Northumberland from the early 17th Century, Edward Finkle is registered at Warkworth, on August 25th 1695, in the reign of William of Orange (1689 – 1702). The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Bridget Fynkyll, which was dated September 1st 1555, christened at St. Martin in the Fields, Westminster, London. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation.
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Just to add my twopenn’orth (that dates me!), there is a school of thought that maintains that the name Finkle is a derivation of Vennel – (A vennel is a passageway between the gables of two buildings which can be a minor street in Scotland and the north east of England)…also the plant Fennel was often referred to as Finkle…
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It just goes to show what a wonderful and colourful language English is with all the different dialects. Finkle, Vinkle, Vennel, Fennel and as I would say Gunnel.
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In 1972 my husband and I bought a pram cover from that pram shop. The street at that time was very dark and dismal. We have been in Australia since 1976 so it`s great seeing how the old town has changed, some for the better, some for the worse.
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You are right about it been dark and dismal. When I was young I felt it was eerie, I just didn’t go along it.
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It certainly could be HW it looks like the R and D block where I worked for a while in the late 1950s.
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I just want to say how much I like the two buildings on the right of the pram shop. Anyone know more about these?
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I have often been puzzled by the unusual name ‘Finkle Street’, a name which crops up in many northern towns. There are several explanations offered, one of which is, that it comes from an old Dutch word ‘vinckle’ meaning a small hand-cart. Now bearing in mind that Finkle Street was the main route that connected the Stockton Quay on the river Tees with the High Street, plus the fact that there was once a ancient sea trading tradition between the town and the Netherlands, I wonder if this has any particular relevance?
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Chris your comment prompted me to look up Finkle Street on Streetmap. There are 32 towns with a Finkle Street, 22 of which are within Yorkshire, and the remaining 10 are all in the North of England. It is a remarkably tight concentration suggesting a possible dialect origin, so you could be correct.
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Doing a Google search for Finkle will lead you to a very interesting article from Countryman’s Diary, published in the Stockton and Darlington Times. This gives a good explaination of the meanng of the word.
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Many thanks Eric, I see within the article you referred to in the DandS Times, that there is a positive theory that a ‘Finkle Street’, is one which has sharp turn or ‘elbow’ in it. Presumably, in Stockton’s case, this would refer to the slope coming up from the quayside which before reaching the High Street, turned abruptly right in order to run along in front of the buildings pictured above (technically within the same street). Certainly sounds more credible than the ‘hand-cart’ association.
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The meaning of crooked is the one I’ve always understood to be correct. I now live near Richmond, where Finkle Street runs off the market place, the former outer bailey of the castle, and it has a definite bend.
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I have been back to Streetmap and this time looked at whereabouts of Finkle Streets. I looked at half a dozen towns and found that the street was always located immediately off the Market Place or High Street. This suggests that the name may have a commercial connection, possibly the mobile stalls that you mention Chris.
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