Place Name
Originally Bridge Road or Upper Bridge Road when it was built by the Hammersmith Bridge Company in 1827. It was renamed in 1896 by Major Charles Lestock Boileau, of Mortlake, who developed much of the area in the mid-19th Century. He lived at Castelnau House on the banks of the Thames at Mortlake High Street, opposite Ashleigh Road. The property, now long gone, and the street were named after his ancestral home Castelnau de la Gard, at Nimes, in France. Boileau’s ancestors were Huguenots who had fled to England to escape religious persecution in 1685 and settled in Mortlake.
