What's in a street name? Names given to streets around the town were and are given along the lines of various themes whether it be like the poets on Westcliff, the towns & villages on Riddings, the trees at Lincoln Gardens or the roads in a certain part of Ashby being named after the1953 conquering of Mount Everest.

Others are named after certain local historical figures, dignitaries, places or famous people; Howdens Hill was named after Arthur Howden, an early school master in Frodingham who ran his school close to the vicarage and lived in a cottage close to St. Lawrences church, Boughton Avenue which honours the Rev Thomas Boughton who was the vicar of Scunthorpe from 1909 to 1921, he was also the chairman of the Scunthorpe Citizen's League, Peacock Street named after Edward Peacock(1831-1915) and head of one of the more eminent families in the area at the time, then we come to the present day with the recently revealed Taylor Court, named by ex-England football team manager Graham Taylor in honour of his parents Mr & Mrs Tom Taylor. Mr Taylor senior was a sports journalist with The Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph and was nickenamed The Poacher.

The street names I would like to focus on in this article are Redbourn Street, Redbourn Way and Redbourn Close, more particulary at how they've become misspelt over the years.

 Redbourn Street:

In his efforts to house some of the population coming into the area to work in the fledgling iron industry Rowland Winn planned the township of New Frodingham but this was only partially built, probably due to land owners being responsible for the poor, if the iron fields ceased the out of work labourers living on Winns land would drive up the local Poor Rate and Winn being the landowner would be resposible. The New Frodingham Village consisited of 193 houses on the six streets that were eventually built, 5th Street North which was later renamed Redbourn Street being one of them. In the mid 1990s these houses were renovated and even won the Europa Nostra award in 1996 for sympathetic conservation work. Though whilst the newly restorated houses may have looked aesthetically pleasing the new name plate added to the wall was no so, for it had been misspelt with an 'e' added to the end of the name. Misspelt Redbourn Street.

The name Redbourn is derive from the site of the Redbourn Hill Iron & Coal Company. The company was named Redbourn, not after the village of Redbourne (with an e) but by the name locals gave to the area where the Redbourn Works were built as it had red sandy coloured hillocks people called the area Red Burn Hills, where the 'o' in burn comes from is not clearly known, given that Emmanuel Beck runs through here, the beck a small stream or a bourn, it could be that the name is an amalgam of these. Misspelt Redbourn Way sign at the North end of the road

Redbourn Way & Redbourn Close, this Garden City style development was built between 1919 and 1923 by the Redbourn Village Society for employees of the Redbourn Company. In 1917 the Redbourn Hill Iron & Coal Company was taken over by Richard Thomas & Co (later Richard Thomas & Baldwins). In 1918 this company obtained 330 acres of land in Frodingham and Brumby and under the name of The Redbourn Village Society planned to build 11,000 houses in the Cottage Beck Rd area, only one-fifth were ever built by 1923 as the recession of the 1920s began to bite. Misspelt Redbourn Way sign at the South end of the road

Again the passage of time has seen new name plates erected with an 'e' at the end of Redbourn though it is of interest to note that on Redbourn Way the name plates at the north end and south end of the road have the 'e' clearly visible whilst along the centre of the road a name plate has the 'eï' whitewashed over, likewise on Redbourn Close. Redbourn Close - the 'e' being whitewashed over

 The misconception of this spelling even, at times, appears in the local paper in news reports or even advertisements for various functions at Redbourn Club. A look at any historic map or even Google earth clearly shows that the spelling of Redbourn is without an 'e' on the end. Maybe one day North Lincolnshire Council will get around to correcting these misspelt name plates.