Funniest road name in London?
Back Passage. The Butts and Upper Butts. Cold Blow Lane. There's no shortage to choose from.
But surely if we're treating this in an entirely objective way, it's got to be Ha-Ha Road in Woolwich. Its name is literally the noise you make when something is funny. (Or excruciatingly unfunny, but let's ignore that.)
The name's got nothing to do with the fact that the Carbuncle Cup-winning Woolwich Central building is just around the corner. A ha-ha is a feature of garden landscaping in which a special ditch — with a wall on one side and a steep slope on the other — is dug to stop livestock roaming out of (or onto) the grounds of a house, while humans looking out to the horizon are given the illusion of a continuous stretch of grass. The ha-ha is an early 18th century French invention, and according to the National Trust may gets its name from the fact that the concealed ditch would "surprise the eye coming near it, and make one cry, 'Ah! Ah!'"*.
Ha-Ha Road does indeed feature one heck of a ha-ha — running the 600+ metres of the road of its namesake which slices across Barrack Field and Woolwich Common. There's no livestock now, but at the time Woolwich Barracks (which still sit on the north side of Barrack Field) were built in 1776, Woolwich Common was often used as a stop over for sheep, cows etc en route to central London markets like Smithfield. Mix artillery practice with wayward sheep, and you've got yourself a lot of roast lamb you didn't order. And so the ha-ha was installed by the Board of Ordnance in 1778, before being shifted slightly to the south in 1806, after the Board acquired ownership of the Common.
Though Woolwich Barracks are technically on private MOD property, the gates to Barrack Fields are often open, and whenever they are, you're welcome to wander along the path. Ian Nairn described the Barracks thus:
No need to go to Leningrad. Come to Woolwich instead, and see the yellow brick march out for a mile or more... In mist or winter sunlight it is haunting: a perpetual Last Post floating as the backcloth to the great parade ground.
Over-egging the pudding, perhaps, but they are worth seeing.
Speaking of laughter, the circus big top-esque Woolwich Rotunda is just off Ha-Ha Road, and merits a quick visit too. Originally designed by the great John Nash as a reception area for Carlton House, it was later moved to Woolwich, and was used as part of the former Firepower museum.
If you're looking for some more good ha-ha action, meanwhile, the National Trust will point you in the right direction.
*Why it's not called an 'ah-ah' then isn't entirely clear. Needless to say if anyone ever built one of these things to specifically keep the comedian Steve Coogan at bay, it would be called an ah-ha.
