Place Name
Laid out over land belonging to Worcester Cathedral. In 1546 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. The 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.” As for the name Worcester it comes from a pre-Saxon tribe of the Weogoran, who occupied land centring spanning both sides of the River Severn. The suffix -cester comes from -castra, Roman for camp.
