Place Name
Today the name Adolf, in the British mindset at least, is synonymous with Hitler, so it is hard to imagine a time when the two weren’t connected. To set the record straight, the name is not as has been suggested the result of a Nazi supporting developer, at the time the Bellingham Estate was being built in the early 1920s Hitler was still only a minor figure in German politics. Instead it comes from a reference to the borough’s Saxon history, and indeed clues to this can be found in numerous streets around the area, the most obvious of which is King Alfred Avenue and neighbouring Elfrida Crescent, which refer to a time when Alfred the Great, king of Wessex between AD871 and AD899 was lord of the manor of Lewisham. He bequeathed the manor to his youngest daughter Ælfthryth (Elfrida), either as a dowry when she married Count Baldwin II of Flanders or left it to her in his will. When Baldwin died in AD918 he was buried at the Abbey of St Peter in Ghent, in modern day Belgium. Ælfthryth gave the rights of “Lieuesham (Lewisham), Grenewic (Greenwich) and Uulwic (Woolwich), with the meadows, pastures and woods” to the abbots and in due course would herself be interred there. There is a myth that may explain that of Elfrida’s four sons only two, Arnulf I, Count of Flanders and Adelolf, Count of Boulogne, are named in the estate’s streets. Joan Read in About Lewisham explains: “Adolf and Arnulf were adventurous boys. One day they were out in a small boat in the English Channel. A wind sprang up and they found themselves in difficulties. Despite their efforts they were found exhausted on the other side of the Channel by a few monks, who carried them to shelter. The monks fed and clothed them, and, when the boys were strong enough, they set sail again for the shores of Kent, to return to their mother. Elfrida thought they were dead and when she had listened to the boys’ story of their shipwreck and the subsequent care that the monks had given them, she wanted to convey her thanks and gratitude to the monks in some tangible way. Her boys meant everything to her, no gift could be large enough to confer her thanks. She decided to convey to the monks the only thing she had which would be of use to them (the manor)”. So much for legend. In reality Adelolf became an effective French diplomat, securing the marriage of Count Hugh the Great, ruler of northern France, and to a half-sister of King Æthelstan of England (Adelolf’s first cousin). Adelolf died November 13, AD933 and was buried at Saint-Bertin. All this said, it is still remarkable that this street’s name managed to survive the Second World War and the post-war with not so much as a raised eyebrow (local newspapers from the time don’t report any calls for the name to be changed, unlike Canadian Avenue). And if you still need convincing, the earliest streets to be named after Hitler in Germany weren’t until 1933, when he was made Chancellor.
