Place Name
Laid out over part of the Selwyn family’s Richmond estate which they owned from 1720, when Major Charles Selwyn (he obtained his commission aged three). He was the first of the family to make a big imprint on the area, soon after settling in West Sheen on the site of the old Carthusian monastery he began buying land near the Royal Botanic Gardens. When he died Charles bequeathed the 105 acres valued at £192 a year to his brother’s younger son William, who came to live in Richmond in 1761, first at Larkfield Lodge, just off the Lower Richmond Road, and then Pagoda House, later named Selwyn Court, built for him in 1810 on the Kew Road on the site of the present Christ Church in the area of Selwyn Avenue. Larkford Lodge was still being used by the Selwyn family in one capacity or the other in 1832. A decade later a Larkfield House and estate were named on a Driver’s map and again in the rate books of 1860. Larkfield Road was developed by 1880 though the name was only confirmed by Richmond Council in 1895. As to the name, there isn’t an obvious connection to the Selwyn family but there is a town called Larkfield in Kent, where the family had landholdings.
