Place Name
Originally Back Lane took its present name in June 1914, reflecting the fact that it runs behind the grander houses of The Terrace. Mary Grimwade and Charles Hailstone in the Highways and Byways of Barnes write: “The development of Back Lane began slowly in the early nineteenth century until by the middle years it was crowded with cottages, stables and sheds all along the southern edge with a veritable warren of courts and alleys at the High Street end, the whole being airily dismissed as ‘the back of The Terrace’ or ‘the back lanes’. During the last century a small colony of tobacco pipe makers flourished in the lane. The complicated rookery of a little over two acres at the High Street end was doomed under a clearance scheme of 1911… demolition in the warren was in stages so that the 141 inhabitants could move into the new council houses as they were completed. To avoid hardship tenants were allowed to continue their old rents of from five to eleven shillings a week.”
