Place Name
The villas were built sometime around 1862. An advert in The Times from that year stated: “KILBURN, Brondesbury Villas – To be LET or SOLD, several well built and convenient semi-detached VILLA RESIDENCES, comprising drawing, dining and breakfast rooms, five bedrooms and dressing room, spacious kitchen, and offices , garden back and front: within five minutes’ walk of the Kilburn-gate omnibuses and London and North-Western and the North London Railway Stations. Rent £65 per annum.” The name Brondesbury was first mentioned in 1254, as Bronnesburie, this was one of a number of St Paul’s Cathedral’s prebend estates (an area of land used to pay for the upkeep of the church or its priests) carved out of the parish of Willesden. It was named after one of the cathedral’s 12thCentury canons named Brand, thought to be from the Anglo-Scandinavian personal name Bronde. The area’s name went through various incarnations, Brondesbury in 1291 and Brondesbiri in 1328. By 1341 it was referred to as Prebende de Braundes. According to John Field in his very useful book Place-Names of Greater London there appeared to be some confusion between Brondesbury and another area Brownswood in Hornsey also held by a canon of St Paul’s creating the name Bromeswode in documents from 1346.
