Place Name
Takes its name from the affluent Bristol suburb of Clifton. William Elliott Oliver, a solicitor, inherited a sizeable fortune from his aunt, Margaret Whately, when she died in 1877. The bequest, an estate of 50 freehold properties in Clifton Park, made the family, already very wealthy in their own right, even richer. Oliver, however, didn’t have long to enjoy his new wealth, as he died shortly afterwards. It was instead his widow Elizabeth Oliver who set about investing the money to develop the grounds of the family’s Wimbledon property. She built Clifton House and set up with a neighbour, Edward Mansel, to lay out Clifton Road, which was completed in 1880. As for the name, it is derived from the Old English terms for cliff and farmstead.
