PLACE NAME
This street commemorates two pumps which until 1885 were the main sources of water for local people. It was renamed around the turn of the 20thCentury, having previously been known as Lyng’s Lane, presumably preserving the name of its medieval landowner, a Walter Leinge who was hanged here in 1250 for stealing sheep. On a 1777 map it leads to a row of woodland cottages to the northwest of the High Road. In 1886 the name Pump Hill referred to an area, rather than an individual street, immediately north of Lyng’s Lane. It formed the boundary to the 14-acre Queen’s Park estate, which was broken up after the death of its last owner George Burney, himself a water tank manufacturer from Millwall, to make way for housing. One of the water pumps was restored in 1999.
