Place Name
One of a cluster of roads named after a connection with George III and his family. The inter-marriages between Europe’s monarchy meant that by the late 17thCentury the British crown was directly connected to the royal family of this northwestern German duchy as Sophia of Hanover, the granddaughter of James VI and I, king of Scotland and England, was his heir. She died two months before she would have been named Queen and instead her son George I became King. The connection was still going strong by the time George III was on the throne. His son the Duke of Cambridge was for a time Viceroy of Hanover and, in 1837, another of his sons the Duke of Cumberland became King of Hanover on the grounds that Queen Victoria, as a woman, could not succeed to that throne. On August 2, 1838 The Times reported “before the KING left Kew for Hanover he expressly stated, in answer to an address from the inhabitants of Kew, that he begged still to be considered as one locally connected with them, and that whenever he or the QUEEN paid an occasional visit to England, they would reside in a neighbourhood endeared to them by so many recollections.” This was laid out over the estate of George III’s brother, the Duke of Gloucester. This close wasn’t created until much later being first mentioned in Kelly’s Directory of 1966 and not featured on maps until 1980.
