Place Name
Surprisingly, the park being referred to here is not the more obvious, to modern eyes, Kew Gardens but rather the former West Park estate, which had been part of the Leyborne Popham family’s land holdings in the area. The estate was originally in the ownership of the Taylor family, and been passed down successive gernerations until it was under the ownership of Mrs Elizabeth Taylor. Without any direct heirs of her own, she left the property and much else beside to a cousin Major General Edward William Leyborne Popham. James Green, Judith Filson and Margaret Watson in The Streets of Richmond and Kew write of High Park Road: “It is so called because the road leads from the west side of Kew Gardens Station (opened 1877) and station Parade and then turns sharply left to cross over the District and North Woolwich lines, finally ending at the Mortlake Road, having passed through part of the old West Park estate.”
