Rowena Street

Rowena Street is named after one of our heroines from Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott. Rowena is the beautiful Saxon princess under the care of Cedric of Rotherwood during the novel. She is in love with Cedric's son, Wilfred of Ivanhoe and awaits his return from the crusades.

Rowena is inquisitive, brave, and noble. Her strong heart holds fast for Ivanhoe even at the temptation of marriage to Sir Athelstane or Maurice de Bracy. She holds her head high at all points in the novel, showing the entire court at the Ashby-de-la-Zouch tournament what nobility should look like.

Rebecca Street lies adjacent to Rowena Street. Both of these women have feelings for Ivanhoe in the novel. Because of this, the women are opposing forces, and making the streets run opposite ways show that the connection between these two is not very strong.

Rowena Street is an East-West road that lies parallel to Rotherwood Street. Because Rotherwood is her home in the novel, the parallelism creates a connection between the streets. These two streets also connect to Saxon Street in a similar way. Because Rowena is the Saxon princess, and Rotherwood is an estate belonging to a Saxon nobleman, it makes sense that Saxon Street would be would also be parallel to these two Saxon based streets.

While looking at these last few Saxon connections, you'd think that Cedric Street should have been an East-West road as well, but, alas, it is not. What we can speculate though, is that this road was put in the opposite direction of Rowena Street because of the literary connections between these characters. Cedric pushed for a marriage between Rowena and Athelstane, against Rowena's wishes. This could have been a source for why Cedric Street and Rowena Street are adjacent to each other like Rebecca Street and Rowena Street.

Return to Streets of Ivanhoe.