Place Name
Like Stonehill Road, this was named after a strip of land called Stonehill Shott, part of the great common called Southfield. Charles Hailstone in Alleys of Mortlake and East Sheen explains that these parcels of land were shared so that everyone had a mix of good and bad soil: “The ideal holdings were in the flat lands between the High Street and a little south of the Upper Richmond Road, together with the plains in the present [Richmond] park, whereas the heavy soil in Clay Ends or the gravel uplands in Stonehill and Lokine Hill would require extra efforts.” He adds: “The name occurs in 1485 as Stonehylle and comes from the story nature of the ground or the stones washed out of the gravel; and caught by the plough in the arable strips which ran west-east, tending to curve where the present Vicarage Road on the south. In the last century [19th] Stonehill was mostly in private ownership and laid to pasture but preserving many of the strips.” This road was built in 1936 on land belonging to a property called The Grange, which was on Stonehill Road.
