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Writer's picturekingsmeadneighbour

What's in a (street) name?


Everyday we make use of landmarks as we travel around or give directions, yet even these can change as new developments take place.


Prominent buildings may disappear, but more permanent reminders of the past can be found in the street names of Kingsmead:


  • Admiral Street, named after Rear Admiral Sir Murray Seuter, who was elected MP for Hertfordshire in 1921

  • Burleigh Road, named after Lord Burleigh, an ancestor of the Marquess of Salisbury and a famous statesman of Elizabethan times,

  • Page Road, named after former Hertford Mayor & World War 1 Officer, Lt Colonel Frank Page who was killed in the Battle of the Somme. His family owned Gilbertson and Page, the Chadwell biscuit factory (famed for its excellent ginger biscuits) sited in Tamworth Road

  • Rowleys Road formerly part of Mead Lane but renamed in 1968 after a small plot of land nearby, known as Rowleys Piece. It is said that Mr Rowley was a humble horse-keeper, so maybe you don't have to be famous for a road to be named after you I

  • Street names such as Townshend Street, Raynham Street and Tamworth Road reflect the former ownership of the land on which they are built. The names derive from the family which owned Balls Park. The Marquess of Townshend's main seat, still in the family, is at Raynham in Norfolk. (His heir bears the title of Lord Raynham). The family also once owned Tamworth Castle in Staffordshire.

  • Less grandly, Nags Head Close off Ware Rd refers to the name of the public house demolished in the mid-1990s to make way for the new housing.

  • The many golfing references in the street names of Pinehurst are a reminder of the 18 hole East Herts Golf Course. These include Birdie Way, Divot Place, Iron Drive, Links Avenue, Teeside, Eagle Court and Hamells Drive. Just 9 holes of the original golf course remain at the Chadwell Springs Golf Club on the other side of the A10

  • The family name of Lilburne, so prominent in the story of the Cockbush Field Mutiny (See article on the Mutiny at https://www.krahertford.org/post/oliver-cromwell-the-levellers-the-cockbush-field-mutiny) is now commemorated as Lilbourne Drive in the development at Hartham Place at the top of Gallows Hill. Other important Levellers, the civilian John Wildman, and Thomas Rainsborough, are acknowledged in the names of Wildman Court and Rainsborough Court on the same site. The Cockbush Field Mutiny is also reflected in the name of Mutiny Close which was built around 2016.

  • The old police station that used to exist at the bottom of Gallows Hill is commemorated by ‘Constables Way’ in the Liberty Rise development built circa 2016; while the site of the gallows is commemorated in the name 'Gallows Way' in the same development

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