Twickenham Road, TW9

Place Name

Directional, this is the road that leads to Twickenham. The road itself was built between 1930 and 1933 to form the first part of the Great Chertsey Road leading from Richmond to the new Twickenham Bridge, which is now part the M3. This replaced the old West Sheen Lane which led from the north east corner of The Green to the Kew/Brentford Ferry although this route had been closed since 1772 when George III obtained an Act of Parliament. It was a huge project and before the new road and Richmond Circus could be built huge swathes of houses, workshops and alleys between Kew Road and Kew Foot Road had to be cleared. The scheme was first suggested in 1909 and was officially opened by the Prince of Wales on July 3, 1933. The Times noted that it required him opening no fewer than three bridges on the same day, at Chiswick, Twickenham and Hampton Court. As for the name, there has been a permanent settlement since at least the Saxon era, featuring in pre-Norman Conquest records as Tuicanham in AD704 and Tuuiccanham in AD941. There are two theories as to the name the first is that it means Twicca’s land within the bend of the river, the other is that is refers to a river fork Twickenham being between the River Thames and the River Crane. What ever the case the ancient name stuck post-Norman invasion and in 1216 it was recorded as Twikeham, Twykenham in 1279, in 1651 Twichnem, Twitnam in 1644 and Twittenham in 1698.