Place Name
Laid out in 1926 and named after a prominent Mortlake family, the Atwoods, who lived at Leyborne Lodge in Mortlake Road. Richard Atwood moved to Mortlake in 1820 and by 1837 his market gardens included 23 acres owned by the Leyborne Pophams. His six sons and two daughters were all born at Brick Farm. One, Frederick went on to become a surveyor, architect and an agent in the sale of the Popham family’s North Sheen estates. Another member of the family, William Thomas Atwood was also a market gardener and who grew, among other produce, a “tremendous lot of liquorice plants”, he went on to become the first secretary to the Market Gardener’s Nurserymen’s and Landed Association which was formed in 1828 in Covent Garden. Confusingly, another William Thomas Atwood, became a land valuer. He lived at Pink’s Farm, Kew Meadows, and from 1855 until 1867 was vestry clerk, the body that was charged with overseeing the highways. He later lived at Deanhill House, on Upper Richmond Road.
