Place Name
Originally called Back Lane or Bones Alley, presumably on account of the old burial ground nearby. The latter name was used as late as 1860. According to local historian Charles Hailstone in his Alleyways of Mortlake and East Sheen: “It occurs in 1757 as a boundary of the garden formerly belonging to Dr John Dee, then ‘an orchard in-closed with a brick wall abutting south on a way called Bones Alley'”. Until 1896 Vineyard Path was also called Back Lane. It does not come from the existence of grape cultivation. The name came from The Vineyard, a row of 10 cottages lying between Wrights Walk and Victoria Road until they were pulled down under a clearance order in 1934. Vineyard Path lies on land formerly part of Ewe Furlong. It was Hailstone writes “a gloomy place in which people had to turn sideways to pass each other. It ran south through the post sorting office site to join the main Vineyard Path, now the pavement of the service road.”
