Place Name
Lord Alwyne Compton (July 18, 1825 – April 4, 1906) was an Anglican bishop who as Dean of Worcester between 1879 and 1886 and later Bishop of Worcester until 1905 during which time these roads were developed. Compton was no ordinary bishop (they rarely were). He was the fourth son of Spencer Compton, 2nd Marquess of Northampton, and was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. The Compton family, who have been Marquesses of Northampton since 1812, are major land owners in the Midlands and north London. Their two major estates are Castle Ashby House in Northamptonshire and Compton Wynyates in Warwickshire. The family also owns land and property, including the 16thCentury Canonbury Tower in Islington, north London. As for this Compton, sons that were unlikely to inherit the family’s wealth, it going to the eldest son, were encouraged to go into the church. Alwyne’s first post was as Curate at Horsham, after which he was Rector of Castle Ashby, a post he held for 26 years, the last four of which he served as Archdeacon of Oakham. In 1879, he was appointed Dean of Worcester. On August 28, 1850 he married Florence Caroline Anderson, eldest daughter of Robert Anderson, a Brighton clergyman, and his wife, the Hon. Caroline Dorothea Shore. They remained childless. After his years as Dean of Worcester, he became Bishop of Ely until 1905, when he retired to Canterbury, where he died the following year. As a first name, Alwyne is of Old English origin and means noble friend; it is commonly used in the Compton family. For how Worcester Cathedral came to own this land, we have to go back to 1546 when Henry VIII gave the right to appoint Wimbledon’s parish priest (the advowson) and its parsonage to the Dean and Chapter of Worcester. Things were delayed a little after the King died a few days later, but it was later confirmed by his son Edward VI. This road and its surrounding ones were laid out over what the Wimbledon Society calls Wimbledon’s first garden centre, Thomson’s Nurseries. They write: “Scotsman David Thomson (1816-1905) worked as a gardener for Lord of the Manor Earl Spencer from 1838 until the Wimbledon Park estate was sold off in 1846. Much local freehold land belonged to the Church Commissioners but in 1852 Thomson leased some 12 acres between what is now St Mark’s Place and Woodside, and established a nursery and landscape gardening business to serve the growing number of fine houses being built on the Earl’s former estate and nearby… However the 30-year-lease ran out in the early 1880s and the Church Commissioners sold part of the land for further development, including what would become the town’s first free public library in 1887. Thomson retained only his shop and land immediately below Woodside for the greenhouses… David Thomson remained active in his nurseries right up to the age of 87 and died after a short illness at his home in 1905. The rest of the original nursery at Wimbledon Hill Road was sold in 1894 and Worcester and Compton Roads were built on the site. By 1929 houses extended all along Woodside and only a flower shop remained on the corner of Alwyne Road.”
