Fucking Grove, Bristol

Fucking Grove (alias Fockynggroue, Fockyngrove, Fokeing Grove, Foking Grove, Fukkyngroue) is the name of a medieval field in Bristol. The name continued to be used up to the early twentieth century, albeit from the seventeenth century it was euphemised to Pucking Grove. The field name is first recorded in 1373 when Bristol received a royal charter that turned Bristol into an independent county.^[1] The charter included a formal survey of the county boundary, which corresponded to the existing town lands.^[2] This survey was recorded as an appendix to the charter, under the Great Seal of England. It took the form of a perambulation of the seven-mile land boundary, describing the features that marked the way, such as ditches and stone boundary markers. This was necessary to define the limits of the new county and thus, for example, the jurisdiction of the sheriffs of Bristol.

One of pre-existing boundary stones was described in the perambulation survey as 'a stone fixed in the corner of a certain close (i.e., field) called Fockynggrove' (lapidem fixum in cornerio cuiusdam clausi vocati Fockynggroue).^[3] Since this was a legal document, later surveys and perambulations continue to employ the term—albeit in later published descriptions the 'F' was changed to a 'P', presumably because of the embarrassment caused by reproducing a rude word within polite publications.