Place Name
The local manor was originally Brand’s Wood. According to documents dated sometime around 1250 it was mentioned as Brandeswode. By 1291 it had been corrupted to Browneswode and by 1450 to Beoundeswode. It was prebend of St Paul’s, meaning that money made from the land went towards supporting one of the canons of the church. David Mills in A Dictionary of London Place Names writes it is a “‘wood of a man called Brand’, from an Anglo-Scandinavian personal name and Middle English wide.” The name Brand, also formed the basis of Brondesbury, also held by a canon of St Paul’s and may well have been the same man.
