Place Name
Deal, a coastal town in Kent, was an important naval base during the Tudor period, and Deal Castle, built by Henry VIII in 1540, is one of the finest artillery fortifications in England. Deal was first mentioned as a village in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as Addelam. It is referred to as Dela in 1158, and Dale in 1275. The name is the Old English dael meaning valley. Deal developed into a port by the end of the 13thCentury. It is one of ten streets running north-south sandwiched between Links Road and Seely Road which were named after consecutive letters of the alphabet running from A to J. They were laid out on Tooting Golf Course around the 1910s. Each named for a place in Britain, and most, but not all, after seaside towns. Ascot Road is an example of the latter. Alphabet streets were a popular device of developers when naming large estates, allowing them to pick traditional names that were popular with home buyers and create a uniformity, without having to put too much effort in.
