Place Name
After Euston Hall in Suffolk, the family seat of the Fitzroy family, the earls of Euston. The name is mentioned in 1087 in the Domesday Book and means Settlement of a person called Efe. This area was part of the family’s London estate which was inherited by Henry Fitzroy (September 28, 1663 – October 9, 1690), illegitimate son of Charles II and his notorious mistress, Barbara Villiers, when at the age of nine, he was married to the five-year-old Isabella Bennett, the only child of the king’s favourite, Sir Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington and heiress to the large manor of Tottenham Court. To celebrate the marriage, the little Henry was created Earl of Euston and later Duke of Grafton. He died in combat aged 27. He left a son Charles, 2nd Duke of Grafton who was responsible for building in 1756 the ‘New Road from Paddington to Islington’, London’s first bypass, now Euston Road, which crosses the former Fitzroy estate. Prior to its development the land was fields. Euston Station opened on the north side of New Road in July 1837.