Queen's College, Cambridge, April 22. 1850.
_Fenkle Street_.--A street so called in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, lying in
a part of the town formerly much occupied by garden ground, and _in
the immediate vicinity of the house of the Dominican Friars there_.
Also, a way or passage inside the town wall, and leading between that
fortification and the _house of the Carmelites or White Friars_, was
anciently called by the same name. The name of _Fenkle_ or _Finkle
Street_ occurs in several old towns in the North, as Alnwick,
Richmond, York, Kendal, &c. _Fenol_ and _finugl_, as also _finul_, are
Saxon words for _fennel_; which, it is very probable, has in some way
or other given rise to this name. May not the _monastic institutions_
have used fennel extensively in their culinary preparations, and thus
planted it in so great quantities as to have induced the naming of
localities therefrom? I remember a portion of the ramparts of the
town used to be called _Wormwood Hill_, from a like circumstance. In
Hawkesworth's _Voyages_, ii. 8., I find it stated that the town of
Funchala, on the island of Madeira, derives its name from _Funcko_,
the Portuguese name for _fennel_, which grows in great plenty upon the
neighbouring rocks. The priory of Finchale (from _Finkel_), upon the
Wear, probably has a similar origin; _sed qu._