Great Brickhill Road Names
Before starting this investigation into Great Brickhills byways, most of us thought the street names were ancient, but this is not the case! Surprisingly, street names were not formally used in the village until after the Second World War. The minutes of the Annual Parish meeting recorded that the Rev. Hoyle spoke about the advisability of naming the streets in the village.This was discussed at some length, but he failed to find support so the subject was dropped. Obviously everyone knew each other so well that it was not necessary to give an address other than Great Brickhill.

Some of the major roads did have local names, and some of these still remain: Stoke Lane and Heath Road are good examples, these were the routes to Stoke Hammond and Heath and Reach. It seems Heath Road is lucky to still be Heath Road, as in 1964 the Parish Council changed the name to Dove House Lane, but villagers objected very strongly, and the name was returned to Heath Road!

Duck End is a steep hill from Heath Road to the bottom of Cuff Lane, and was known interchangably as Duck End or the Hollow until 1960. There is a story concerning the hill:

An old man lived there, and some of the local boys liked to play tricks on him. One day he saw them coming and hid in a barrel. Unfortunately, they had seen him and rolled the barrel down Duck End. What happened to the boys after this is not recorded.