Place Name
Originally a right of way across the fields and market gardens, providing a dry path from Mortlake to Barnes for when the River Thames flooded. Benjamin Thorne was a local landowner who developed much of the surrounding area previously known as Westonfield, which covered an area from the High Street to Priest’s Bridge, in the middle of the 19thCentury. He was the owner of a small brewery next to the Bull’s Head on The Terrace. He was married to Mary Thorne and lived at Westfields House in 1852. Mary Grimwade and Charles Hailstone writing in the Highways and Byways of Barnes write: “He supplied the Edinburgh Castle public house at the corner of Archway Street with his Thorne’s Grey Horsebrand of ales, beer, and stout.” They add: “Thorne Passage follows a track through Westfields which was trodden into existence hundreds of years ago possibly by those needing a direct route from Kew or Mortlake to Putney. Thus it appear to have become established as an undisputed right of way.”
