Place Name
One of six roads that when put together reveal a secret in their names. This estate was developed on the site of Fraser’s plant nursery in 1908. At the time the area was fast being developed and the nursery was surrounded by new residential properties. The owners sold their land to Thomas Arno, a publican, from South Hackney. He gave four of the roads their seemingly unconnected names: Avondale Road, Rochdale Road, Northumberland Road and Onra Road. Together the first letter of each keeps the name of the developer Arno plus the strange last road name Onra is Arno backwards also keeping the wily property developer’s legacy. If this were not enough, Theobald Road and Salcombe Road take the first initials of Thomas’s and his father Samuel’s name, and Farmilo Road is named after Thomas’s mother. Rochdale Road was developed between 1901 and 1907.
