Lovers' lane

A lovers' lane is a secluded area where people kiss, make out, or engage in sexual activity.[1] These areas range from parking lots in secluded rural areas to places with extraordinary views of a cityscape or other feature.

"Lovers' lanes" are typically found in cultures built around the automobile—lovers often make out in a car or van for privacy.

Lovers' lanes have existed for centuries, sometimes as places for secret meetings with a forbidden lover or as a euphemism for red-light districts and other areas of prostitution.

The Oxford English Dictionary records use of the phrase "lovers' lane" from 1853.[2]

Examples
Road sign for Love Lane in Marldon, Devon, United Kingdom.

There are several streets called Lovers Lane, including those at Oriskany, New York; Whitmire, South Carolina; Manitou Springs, Colorado; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Kersey, Pennsylvania; Boonville, New York; Greenfield, Massachusetts; Southborough, Massachusetts; Northfield, Vermont; Riverton, Utah; Steubenville, Ohio; Bowling Green, Kentucky; Portage, Michigan; Excelsior Springs, Missouri; Springfield, Missouri; Charlestown, New Hampshire; Sugar Hill, New Hampshire; Princeton, New Jersey; Slatington, Pennsylvania; Adliya, Bahrain; Dallas, Texas; Texarkana, Texas; Ravenna Township, Portage County, Ohio; Visalia, California; El Segundo, California, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Ancaster, Ontario; Newark-on-Trent; Ludham (both in England) and Thurso, Scotland.

The bowdlerised version Love Lane is sometimes seen. Jowett Walk, Oxford, once had this name.

Crime

Due to the typically isolated location of most lovers' lanes, they have occasionally been the setting for violent crime.[4] For example:

  • In Palos Verdes, California, a gang of teens robbed multiple cars on a lover's lane in October 1955, and were caught raping a thirteen-year-old girl.[6]
  • In 1963, a lovers' lane site at Fuller's Bridge, Sydney became notorious as the location of the bodies of CSIRO scientist Dr. Gilbert Stanley Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Olive Chandler, the wife of one of his colleagues. The cause of death, while indicative of poisoning, could not be definitively determined, and apart from Mrs. Chandler's husband, Geoffrey, who was considered the prime suspect by the New South Wales Police, no one to-date has been charged. The Bogle-Chandler case has baffled law enforcement and forensic experts up to present day..[7][8]
  • Several attacks perpetrated by the Son of Sam serial killer also took place in such settings.[9]
  • Two Mercer University students were killed by Andy Cook at a lovers' lane location in Georgia on January 2, 1995.[10]
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See also

References
  1. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lovers'%20lane
  2. "lover". Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. September 2005. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. "Google Maps". Maps.google.com. Retrieved 2017-07-07.
  4. Mikkelson, David (2 December 1998). "The Hook:An escaped killer interrupts a young couple's make-out session". snopes.com. Retrieved 11 July 2019.
  5. Newton, Michael (2013). The Texarkana Moonlight Murders: The Unsolved Case of the 1946 Phantom Killer. McFarland. ISBN 978-1-476-60578-4.
  6. Cross, Gary S. (2018). Machines of youth : America's car obsession. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. p. 87. ISBN 9780226341644. OCLC 1004264026.
  7. "Media Release: Who Killed Dr Bogle and Mrs Chandler?" (MS Word .doc). Film Australia. 7 May 2007. Retrieved 24 May 2010.
  8. "Logie Awards". Australian Television Information Archive. 2007. Retrieved 24 May 2010.
  9. Born to Kill, Documentary Series
  10. Andy Cook news story
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