Place Name
Harbridge is a tiny hamlet in the New Forest District, near the towns of Ringwood and Fordingbridge. It was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Herberie and is thought to mean Hearda’s bridge. As for this street name, 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-19thCentury 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.
