Place Name
This is most likely a contraction of Ludgrove Hall, an historic manor house on whose estate this road was laid. It is thought that the original name was a corruption of the name of an early 15th-century owner, Lyghtgrave, who sold the property in 1423. The Ludgrove name survives in full in the Ludgrove Playing Fields near the eastern end of the road. In the 17thCentury, Ludgrove was owned by Sir Roger Wilbraham, who in 1612 built almshouses in the village of Monken Hadley. It was once known as the Blue House and appears on Francis Russell’s 1776 map of Enfield Chase under that name. The current house dates from the 1830s and was the home of Francis Bevan until 1890, when Bevan moved to Trent Park following his father’s death. From 1892, the house was Ludgrove School, a boys’ preparatory school, until the school moved to Wokingham in 1937. The school was founded in 1892 by Arthur Dunn. Dunn, a footballer, recruited a number of sportsmen to assist him as masters and was succeeded, on his premature death, by two England international football captains, G O Smith and William Oakley, who became joint headmasters. According to Nancy Clark, it was a “famous preparatory school for Eton” attended by young Royals and sons of the aristocracy. Pupils at Ludgrove Hall included Osbert Sitwell, John Dunville VC, and Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia. Ex-pupil Alistair Horne wrote an unflattering account of his time at the school in the 1930s, in which he described “humbug, snobbery and rampant, unchecked bullying” which he thought was intended to toughen the boys up. Around 1999, the building was converted into apartments by St James Homes, and detached houses were built in the grounds.
