Place Name
Directional. This was the main road to Roehampton, connecting it with Barnes and Mortlake to the north and the main road to Kingston to the south. Confusion over similar sounding place names is nothing new, even in the medieval period there was a need to change the names of towns and hamlets that could send the unwary traveller to the wrong location. And so it probably was with Roehampton, the name means rook farm – as in a place where rooks nested. The first mention of it was in 1273 as plain Hampton. By the early 14thCentury it was written as Est Hampton, meaning the East Farmstead (from the Old English words est, hām and tūn). But with another Hampton, in Richmond, sufficiently close to catch people out it was changed to Rokehampton in 1350 and by 1553 became Rowhampton.
