Place Name
While development had rapidly covered over the market gardens to the north of Lower Mortlake Road, across the road remained for agricultural use until around 1820 when the first villas and terraces began to be laid out as part of the New Richmond. The first of these were West Sheen Vale (or Villas) just off the Lower Mortlake Road further down was Bottens Row or Bottens Place named after a local landlord James Botten. More followed… Twenty Row, Castle Row, Long’s Cottages, Avalon Terrace and so on. By 1880 these formed two streets Avalon Terrace and Twenty Row. In 1935 Richmond Council decided this confusion of names had to be tidied up and so West Sheen Vale was named. The following year Twenty Row became became Avalon Terrace running parallel to West Sheen Vale, before 1963 when further redevelopment saw it disappear. As for the name Sheen can be traced back to Saxon times. The manor was first referred to as Sceon in the mid-10thCentury coming from the Old English word scëon meaning sheds or shelters. The village of West Sheen was on the site of the old Carthusian monastery. It was only replaced by Richmond in 1501 after Henry VII’s earldom of Richmond, Yorkshire.
