Place Name
A reference to the nearby Tibbets Corner the A3 rotatory system were the main London to Portsmouth Road branches down to Putney and the Thames. Scott MacRobert in A Brief History of Putney and Roehampton writes that the name “has given rise to wild speculation. It is commonly believed that the place was named after a highwayman who operated in the area. Another suggestion is that Tibbet is a corruption of Gibbet – which fits nicely with the highwayman theory. Both theories are wrong, however. Tibbet was the name of the footman of the second Countess Spencer. He lived in the lodge previously situated at the entrance to Wimbledon Park.” Clive Whichelow, in Local Highwaymen, adds that to confuse matters further, a sign showing a lurking gun welding criminal put up to mark the roundabout is often assumed to be a depiction of Tibbet carrying out his nefarious deeds rather than a generic thug. He does state that Tibbet was a “gate-keeper at the entrance to Lord Spencer’s estate” The name however is a corruption, for the man it is named after was a Robert Tebbutt. Indeed the only crime here is a grammatical one… Tibbets Close, like Tibbets Corner doesn’t have an apostrophe.
