Place Name
Osterley was first recorded in the Middle Ages, spelt Osterle and Osterle in 1274. It comes from two Old English words eowestre and lēah meaning a woodland clearing with a sheep pen. At the turn of the 13thCentury it was spelt Osterlegh and three years later, in 1302, as Oysterle. The spelling Oysterley came in 1342. The original Tudor mansion recorded as Osterley Parke House was first mentioned in 1576. It was extensively remodelled for the Child family by Robert Adam into a neoclassical 18thCentury villa. David Mills in a Dictionary of London Place Names writes: “It might be noted that the name Lampton just south of here also refers to sheep farming in earlier times.”
