Place Name
Variously known as Parkhill and Park Hill Road, before the Vestry, a prototype parish council, finally settled on the current name in 1880 – although even then Parkhill Road was still being featured on Ordnance Survey maps. So named after its proximity to Richmond Park, Charles I’s own hunting grounds for red and fallow deer that he created in 1625. It was originally known as Richmond New Parke. The land in which this road was laid over was granted to the Vestry by George III who gave up Pesthouse Common and Hill Common as part of a deal to unite Richmond Gardens with Kew Gardens by closing the footpath known as Love Lane. John Cloake in Richmond Past writes that by the mid-19thCentury it was “ripe for development”. He adds: “Part of it was reserved until 1834 for the workhouse farm, and part was eventually to be used for a new burial ground, but there was from the outset a lot of extra land let as a pasture. In the 1840s, after the workhouse had been transferred to the new Union and the farm given up, the Vestry realised that revenues could be had from the vacant land. Permission to use the land for building had to be sought from the Court of Chancery; this was given in 1845 and the first building leases for Pesthouse Common were granted in 1850. The hopes of rapid development were dashed by the outbreak of the Crimean War… However, by 1863 there was a continuous line of villas down Queen’s Road from the Lass of Richmond Hill pub to the northern corner of Grove Road, and the new Cambrian, Park Hill, Pyrland and Greville Roads had been built, mostly with large detached or semi-detached houses.” But the story does not end there. By 1984 all the houses were knocked down and a second Park Hill arose forming part of the large development by Richmond Parish Lands Charity.
