Place Name
Field name after one of the two great common fields of Mortlake. Also known as Forty Footpath and, for a time, Forty Lane. This was a public right of way through the market gardens and fields. Charles Hailstone writing in Alleyways of Mortlake and East Sheen explains: “Forty Footpath is named from Fortie, or Ffourty, one of the ancient common fields of Mortlake. This has no connection with number or average as is sometimes supposed but derives from Old English forth-eg, signifying ground higher than surrounding low lying or marshy land. Fortie Field was watered by the stream running down the west side of Sheen Lane and the Black Ditch together with its southern arm. The footpath runs from Kingsway to St Leonard’s Road, crossing the railway by a concrete bridge, which replaced the wooden one in 1957. Originally the tracks were crossed via stiles. John Eustace Anderson recorded the path’s demise writing in 1900 “with its hedges on both sides it is one of our last country lanes”. But just six years later he complained: “On both sides of this pathway, known as Forty Footpath, was hedge and until it was got rid of within the last two or three years by the erection of the houses in Connaught Avenue, was certainly the most rustic footpath we had in the parish.”
