Place Name
Most likely a play on words to the area’s redevelopment, rather than any specific reference to an ancient water source. The area situated close to the Paddington Canal was developed on Westbourne Manor House estate from around 1867 with Amberley Road and its timber wharves built along the canal bank. In recent years this working class area has changed considerably with several streets being lost in its redevelopment. Among them was Netley Street, which may have been after a place in Hampshire. It was later renamed to avoid confusion with another Netley Street, two and a half miles away near Euston. The new name Abourne Street remembered philanthropist George Abourne who left £300 in his will of 1767 to buy “8lbs of good meat and a half-peck of loaf apiece” for poor families of the parish, twice a year. By the 1970s the income from this and other charities was considerably reduced amounting to less than £40 a year, so the decision was taken to distribute it to 30 old people and wind up the charity. However, this late acknowledgement of Mr Abourne was short-lived as the road was obliterated in the 1970s to build the Amberley Estate, so-named after Amberley Road and Amberley Mews, which were also lost to the bulldozer.
