Place Name
Named after local landowners, the Leyborne Popham’s Wilshire estate Littlecote, in the village of Chilton Foliat, which they held until 1929 when it was sold to Sir Ernest Salter Wills, a member of the well known Wills tobacco dynasty. This street was one of the first to be developed on the family’s North Sheen property. Richmond Council approved the building of 12 new houses in 1902. According to the Kennet Council Conservation Statement: “Chilton is a common Anglo Saxon village name linked with ‘child’. In these terms ‘Chiltons’ are often considered to be farms that support the landowner’s heir and may represent the reorganisation of large estates. It has been suggested that Chilton Foliat was once linked with Ramsbury, as the 10 hide estate of Chilton, when added to the 90 hides of Ramsbury, would have made the Ramsbury Hundred. The parish of Chilton Foliat includes Leverton to the east and East and West Soley to the north. There are Saxon Charters of 984 and 1050 which describe the boundaries of Leverton and Eddington. Foliat comes from the name of the landowners of Chilton Foliat Manor. Sir Sampson Foliot was the principal landowner here between the 1240s and 1280s and the property passed to other members of the family until coming into the possession of his grandson Henry Tyeys in 1289.”
