Place Name
Named after the Giessbach Falls, in Switzerland. This name was applied for in 1873 for permission to name to the Metropolitan Board of Works. It first appeared in an 1878 Islington directory. There is not direct or obvious connection with the area but for some years before, the Swiss alps had become a popular destination for the well-to-do British tourist as this scathing commentary in The Times published on September 18, 1865 demonstrates: “Look around any of the great tables d’hote at Lucerne, Zurich, or Geneva, run over the liste des étrangers at Interlaken, listen to the talk of the groups standing round the Giessbach, lighted by Bengal fires, and you will see the three sets more or less mixed together, outnumbered by, though not lost in, the crowd of French and German tourists. With all his wide-awake and shooting-jacket, John Bull knows, he could not succeed in disguising himself, and never attempts it. There are smug, smooth toned dulcet-voiced high reverends, who even here are of the Church. clerical.” With Windermere Road facing directly opposite, this mat have been evidence of some parochial one-upmanship.
