PLACE NAME
Along with the nearby Cecil Place, this commemorates William Cecil (September 13, 1520 – August 4, 1598), 1st Baron Burghley, chief adviser to Elizabeth I for most of her reign. He has long been considered a likely model for the character of the king’s calculating minister Polonius in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Born in Lincolnshire, the son of royal courtier Sir Richard Cecil, he spent his early career in the service of the Duke of Somerset, Jane Seymour’s brother. He served as Secretary of State between 1550 – 1553, and again between 1558 – 1572, and Lord High Treasurer between 1555 and 1587. In 1587, amidst the political and religious upheaval that followed Henry VIII’s break from the Roman Catholic Church, Cecil persuaded Elizabeth to order the execution of Roman Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, after she was implicated in a plot to assassinate the queen. The title comes from the family estate in Stamford, Lincolnshire which was built for Cecil between 1555 and 1587. This is one of small group of local streets with connections to the monarch on account of her having visited the Mitcham home of lawyer, Sir Julius Caesar, in 1598. The other streets in the cluster include Caesar’s Walk, Cecil Place, Walsingham Road and Hatton Gardens, they were built on the former Cranmer estate by Sir Isaac Wilson from 1926.
