| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re::Re:Who is responsible for putting up road nameplates? | |
| Posted by: | Colin Potter | |
| Date/Time: | 20/01/20 16:30:00 |
| Hi Bernard, I have often wondered when the A316 access to Alexandra Gardens was closed as the dropped kerb it still there and which came first the Gardens or the Avenue. Do you know when Alexandra Gardens were built and when the A316 access was closed? I know how much time can be lost in the reference section at Chiswick Library and how much more information there is in the library than on the internet, having been there to research my bit of Chiswick. I wasn’t expecting to find all the answers by searching the internet for a few hours, but I found enough to suggest that Alexandra Avenue was built as the Great Chertsey Road and the name was changed after. Who, when or why it was changed/given that name remains a mystery to me. On http://www.dukesmeadowspark.com/. There is a newspaper article from 1924 which says.. “The Great Chertsey arterial road running south-west and bordering the area, is in course of construction and it is proposed to build new sixty foot bridge across the Thames, which will link up this artery with Lower Richmond Road on the south side of the river. From this road there will run down to the promenade a road lined with Guernsey Elms, and there is already a smaller approach road from Edensor Road to the most Easterly corner of the promenade lined with small limes and Lombardy poplars. At some future date it is hoped that another bridge will be built connecting the new Elm Road with the south side of the river…..It is expected that along the arterial road, which, it is hoped will be finished by August, blocks of flats will be put up,” The newspaper article on the same website that gives the name Alexandra Avenue and Alexandra Bridge is from 1970. As the 1924 article doesn’t mention Alexandra Avenue and calls Alexandra Gardens “blocks of flats” it would suggest the name was given after the road was completed as the Great Chertsey Road. With the O/S never mentioning it and it being shortened on other maps, I think that suggests it is a local name and not its official name. Quite often it is not a town planner sitting in an office, but common usage that is the arbiter of names. The road was built in 1924, but until Chiswick Bridge was opened in 1933, it was primarily an access road to the Gravel works. It seems unlikely that they put up road names to tell people what the road was called and with no map updates at the time or buildings to identify it, it must have appeared as an unnamed road until the bridge opened. My conclusion from those articles was that either the Chiswick Urban District Council gave it the name Great Chertsey Road, then changed it to Alexandra Avenue, then changed half of it back to the Great Chertsey Road and forgot to tell the O/S the name of the other half. Or it has always been called the Great Chertsey Road, but between 1924 and 1933 the Avenue was known locally by the only building on the Avenue and the continued use of the name has led to it being adopted by the council, but not O/S. Unless you have already done the research on when the name Alexandra Avenue was first used I guess I will have to visit the library on a Thursday (is the reference section still open only on Thursday?) and have a look at the council minutes to see if I can find its first reference. Why is it when you look into these things you end up with more questions than answers? |