Place Name
Takes its name from Bordon, in the east of Hampshire, dates back only to 1863 when it was established as a military camp, alongside nearby Longmoor, as part of the British Army’s expansion. The military camp closed in 2015. The Whitehill and Bordon Masterplan aims to transform the area into a sustainable “green town,” with new housing, schools, and commercial areas. The name comes from the Old English words Barden (barley valley), from bere and dun (hill, valley). In 1951 the architect’s department at the London County Council selected this area of Roehampton as the site for one of the largest and most radical housing developments ever undertaken in London – the Alton Estate. At the time of its completion in 1958, Alton West was considered by many British architects to be the crowning glory of post-World War II social housing. The estate itself takes its name from Alton Lodge, an early-19th-century villa on the Kingston Road, occupied by Dr Thomas Hake from around 1854 until 1872. Seizing on this as a naming opportunity, the local government chose to name almost all of the other roads on the Alton Estate after places in Hampshire.
