Place Name
Thought to be a reference to a former lord of the manor’s Continental roots. The Wandsworth History Society, believe it may get its name because Endymion Porter, Lord of Allfarthing Manor, owned the land and his grandmother was Spanish. Porter was a diplomat and royalist who descended from Sir William Porter, sergeant-at-arms to Henry VII. He was brought up in Spain as page in the household of Olivares. He later entered the service of Edward Villiers and the Duke of Buckingham, and through the latter’s recommendation became groom of the bedchamber to Charles I. In 1622 he joined the King and Buckingham on a diplomatic mission when the ill-fated Spanish Match, the marriage of the Prince of Wales with the Roman Catholic Infanta, was proposed. Porter acting as interpreter. His service was rewarded when he was granted Allfarthing Manor by the king in 1628. When the Civil War broke out he remained loyal to the crown. “My duty and loyalty have taught me to follow my king,” he declared, “and by the grace of God nothing shall divert me from it.” However, when the war was lost he fled first to France, then Brussels and Antwerp, where he was reduced to great poverty, and the Netherlands. He returned to England in 1649, after the king’s death, himself dying shortly afterwards, and was buried on August 10, 1649 at St Martin-in-the-Fields.
