High Street

High Street is a common street name for the primary business street of a city, town, or village, especially in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. It implies that it is the focal point for business, especially shopping. It is also a metonym for the retail sector.^[1]

This article is about the main business streets in British towns. For roads of the same name and other uses, see High Street (disambiguation).

With the rapid increase in consumer expenditure the number of High Streets in England grew from the 17th century and reached a peak in Victorian Britain where, drawn to growing towns and cities spurred on by the Industrial Revolution, the rate of urbanisation was unprecedented. Since the latter half of the 20th century, the prosperity of High Streets has been in decline due to the growth of out-of-town shopping centres, and, since the early 21st century, the growth of online retailing, forcing many shop closures and prompting the UK government to consider initiatives to reinvigorate and preserve the High Street.

High Street is the most common street name in the UK, which according to a 2009 statistical compilation has 5,410 High Streets, 3,811 Station Roads and 2,702 Main Streets.^[2]

Definition and usage[edit]

In Middle English the word "high" denoted superior rank ("high sheriff", "Lord High Chancellor", "high society"). "High" also applied to roads as they improved: "highway" was a new term taken up by the church and their vestries during the 17th century as a term for all public roads between settlements.^[3] From the 19th century, which saw a proliferation in the number of public roads (public highways), in countries using the term motorway, the term highway fell out of common speech and was supplanted by the legal definition, denoting any public road, as in the Highway Code. Thus the term "High Street" assumed a different meaning; that of a street where the most important shops and businesses were located.^[4]

In Britain, the term 'High Street' has both a generic and a specific meaning: people refer to 'shopping on the high street' both when they mean the main retail area, as well as the specific street of that name. Many former British colonies, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and New England (especially Massachusetts), adopted the term to refer to retail shopping areas. Main Street is used in the Republic of Ireland.

Incidence[edit]

In Britain, some 3,000 streets called High Street and about 2,300 streets with variations on the name (such as Upper High Street, High Street West) have been identified, giving a grand total of approximately 5,300.^[5] Of these, more than 600 High Streets are located in London's boroughs.^[6]

Main Street is a term used in smaller towns and villages in Scotland, while in North East England Front Street is common. In Cornwall, some places in Devon and some places in the North of England, the equivalent is Fore Street; in some parts of the UK Market Street is also used, although sometimes this may be a different area where street markets are currently (or were historically) held.