Place Name
Down the years this road has undergone a number of changes both in name and length. It featured in the 17thCentury court rolls as Green Lane but by the time it was named on the manor map of 1771 it had become Blind Lane, presumably on account that until 1895 it used to run through to the Kew Road incorporating the present Broomfield Road (the sharp bend creating the blind). By the start of the 19thCentury it was being featured on maps under two names, Sandy Lane and Blind Lane, the origin of the former being descriptive, in fine weather the road was literally a sandy lane that ran through the fields and market gardens. Janet Dunbar in A Prospect of Richmond wrote: “It became known as Sandy Lane during the nineteenth century, probably because there was up to six inches of sand in dry weather, after a prolonged drought. It ran by the side off an orchard and a market garden, and was well below the level of these lands.” By 1865, the latter name had been dropped entirely and in 1884 the Vestry, the prototype parish council, decreed the name should be changed to Sandycombe. Development to the road came relatively late, in 1837 there were only three houses but by 1882 work began in earnest and a number of terraces were built. Part of the reason behind this delay was that sometime around 1876 the land had been purchased by market gardener William Poupart, who came from a family of Huguenots who had moved from Bermondsey to Battersea and then on to Mortlake as land prices rose. The road had one other significant historical factor, until 1892 it was the boundary between Richmond and Mortlake.
