PLACE NAME
Twyford Abbey, in Ealing, which is not in fact a religious house, but a Gothic manor house built in 1806 by Thomas Willan on land once owned by the lords of the manor of West Twyford. The original manor house, with a small private chapel, started life in the Middle Ages and takes its name from two brooks which run near or through it, the River Brent being one of them. The name, which literally means double ford, comes from the Old English elements twī and ford. In 1902 the property was acquired by the Alexian Brothers, a Roman Catholic order who set up a nursing home there. The chapel still exists today as St Mary’s West Twyford. Like many of the roads on the St Helier’s estate this is named after British monasteries and abbeys in remembrance of the area’s historic ownership by Westminster Abbey. The road names are in alphabetical order, of which Aberconway Road in the north west of the estate is first.
