Place Name
Named after a former orphange, The Aberdare Memorial Home which was established in 1930 by the Children’s Aid Society to accommodate boys from aged eight. The home had previously been based in premises in north London but found a more permanent home from the early 1930s in a property previously known as Wood Lodge. The Lodge itself had been built by Sir John Lennard in 1886 as a speculative development. It was finally completed in 1891 when it was then let to David Beath a banker and merchant with interests in Australia. There followed a succession of tenants before it was bought by James Baker. He offered it for use by the Red Cross as a war hospital, but although prepared for that use, the offer was never taken up and in 1935 the land was sold to Rumph, a builder, and the house became a boys’ orphanage called Aberdare House. In 1967 this was knocked down to create Aberdare Close.
