place name
William Shakespeare (April 23, 1564 – April 23, 1616), England’s national poet, the Bard of Avon… or simply the Bard. This is one of a cluster of local streets named after Tudor worthies on account of them having been laid out upon the site of a royal hunting lodge called Hanworth Castle. Catherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII, inherited and lived in it for a time after the king’s death in 1544. It became one of the childhood homes of Elizabeth I, and as queen she continued to occupy it from time to time. After being burnt down the property was rebuilt on its present day site, the now derelict Hanworth Park House, in 1797. Before its development in the mid-20thCentury this land was fields. Other streets in the cluster include Elizabeth Way, Castle Way, Moat Side, Queens Avenue, Queens Way, Seymour Gardens, and Raleigh Way. Remarkably, despite the number of worthies who have had streets named after them it took developers some time to consider Shakespeare worthy of a street name of his own. In December 1885 a correspondent to The Times noted: “It has been left to Holloway to roll away the disgrace of an utter blank of a street record of the world’s master poet. Its wilds have actually blossomed into a Shakespeare Terrace.” That has now disappeared although there was a lasting reminder for many years in a pub name the Shakespeare, at 579 Holloway road, Upper Holloway.
