Scotland Yard

I know some things that I wonder about don’t seem important to a lot of people, but they must be important to me. Why else would I wonder about them? 
One thing I’ve wondered about for a long time is why is the famous police force that patrols London called Scotland Yard?

I’ve spent a fair amount of time in England and I realize that their language is loaded with misleading terms. For instance, plum pudding isn’t pudding — and — it doesn’t contain plums. But Scotland Yard has always puzzled me. So — I figured it was time for a little extensive research. As is often the case, my research didn’t really come up with a definitive answer, but here’s what I found….

It started in 1829, when Charles Rowan and Richard Mayne were given the job of organizing a citywide crime-fighting force in London. At the time, the two men lived together in a house at 4 Whitehall Place, and they ran their newly formed outfit out of their garage, using the back courtyard as a makeshift police station.They apparently decided the “Rowan and Mayne’s Backyard” didn’t seem like a good name for the headquarters of a police force. So it was called Scotland Yard. 

Why Scotland Yard? There seems to be two stories that possibly explain the origin of the name. The first explanation is that Scotland Yard sits on the location of what was once the property of Scottish royalty. The story is that back before Scotland and England unified (in 1707) the present day Scotland Yard was a residence used by Scottish kings and ambassadors when they visited London on diplomatic missions for short stays. The second explanation is that 4 Whitehall Place backed onto a courtyard called Great Scotland Yard, named after a previous landowner — Scott — who owned the property.

But anyhow, the metropolitan police was a successful organization and grew. In 1809, they decided that they needed new digs and moved to a larger building on the Victoria Embankment. That gave them the opportunity to rename their new headquarter something more appropriate with a name that actually made sense.
So the London police chose to name it the New Scotland Yard.
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