By Bob Taylor-Vaisey
It’s all in the name. The streets of Guildwood Village
Fact: number of streets in Guildwood Village today: 48 Fact: street names proposed and accepted and/or rejected: 98
Street names were proposed by Spencer Clark and his small team.[1] They were named after garden communities in the UK and the USA[2], philanthropists known to the Clarks[3], industrialists[4], urban planners[5], pioneers[6] and family names[7].
In Figure 1, we see the original street configuration proposed in 1956 for Guildwood Village. It was based on the concept of an elongated park that stretched from just west of Galloway Rd and the Lake.
Figure 1
The North East Quadrant
There are always two pieces to a street name: the first name and a suffix. Of the 13 streets originally planned for this quadrant, all but one of the first names were approved by the City in July, 1956, but not all of the streets were actually built. For example:
What is currently Burnage Court was originally Letchworth Crescent. East of Letchworth Crescent was a cul-de-sac named Leverhume Gardens and east of that another cul-de-sac named Burnage Square. Of the three, only one was built (Burnage Court). Subsequently, Leverhume was built here west of Livingston.
Navarre was originally Bickford Boulevard, and the north west end of Toynbee Traill was originally proposed as Old Orchard Boulevard because of the apple orchard there.
Here is where the names came from:
Toynbee Traill. Toynbee Hall is a building in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, in the East End of London, and is the home of a charity of the same name. It works to bridge the gap between people of all social and financial backgrounds, with a focus on working towards a future without poverty. Founded by Canon Samuel Barnett and his wife Henrietta in 1884 on Commercial Street, it was named in memory of their friend and fellow reformer, Oxford historian, and philanthropist Arnold Toynbee
Burnage Square [became Burnage Court]. Burnage is a suburb of the city of Manchester in North West England. 906 saw plans to build a “garden suburb” in the district. Burnage Garden Village[5] was created by building many new semi-detached houses as well as open recreational spaces, including lawns, gardens, a bowling green, tennis courts, allotments and a children’s playground.
Nuffield Drive. Lord Nuffield, the industrialist and founder of Morris Motors founded Nuffield College, Oxford and the library at St Anne’s College, Oxford
Wythenshawe Woods. Near Manchester. Initiated by Lord and Lady Simon, formerly Sir Ernest Simon, first Chairperson of the BBC
Regency Square. Could be Regency Square, Brighton but the known source is unclear.
Old Orchard Boulevard. This was the site of a substantial apple orchard.
Letchworth. Letchworth Garden City, commonly known as Letchworth, is a town in Hertfordshire, England. The town was laid out by Raymond Unwin as a demonstration of the principles established by Ebenezer Howard who sought to create an alternative to the industrial city by combining the best of town and country living.
Leverhume. Named after the Lever Brothers who built Port Sunlight (Merseyside), in particular, William Lever, later Viscount Leverhulme. Leverhulme is a combination of Lever, and Hulme (the Viscounts’s first wife’s maiden name).
Somerdale Square. Somerdale was a chocolate factory located in Keynsham near Bristol in south west England, closed by Kraft foods in 2011. The Fry family business merged with the Cadbury Brother company in 1919
Navarre Crescent. Henry IV, King of Navarre (as Henry III) from 1572 and King of France from 1589 to 1610. Originally Bickford Blvd named after Colonel Harold C. Bickford.[8]
Cadbury Court. Bournville is a model village on the south side of Birmingham, England. The Cadburys named the area ‘Bournville’ after a local river named The Bourn. These almost ‘Arts and Crafts’ houses were traditional in design but with large gardens and modern interiors, and were designed by the resident architect William Alexander Harvey. These designs became a blueprint for many other model village estates around Britain. Note the name Bournville appears in the SW quadrant.
Chancery Lane. Refers to a street in London, UK, associated with the legal profession. Chancery Lane takes its name from the historic High Court of Chancery, which started its association with the area when Robert de Chesney, the Bishop of Lincoln acquired the ‘old Temple’ in 1161.
Livingston Rd. Named after the Treasurer of the T. Eaton Company
The South West Quadrant
The area south east of the intersection of Livingston and Guildwood Parkway was originally occupied by a number of scattered cottages, all part of the 1920’s cottage development. Inside this area (east of Livingston, south of Guildwood Parkway, the eastern and southern boundaries of Sir Wilfrid Laurier CI), there were four roads. They do not exist today.
Sylvan, which existed only east of Livingston
Woodvale Road, which extended south from Guildwood Parkway to Sylvan
Cedarcliffe, which extended south of Guildwood Parkway to Sylvan, east of Woodvale, and
Elmwood, which was east of Livingstone and ended at Cedarcliffe
The source for these roads is unknown.
East of Galloway
East of Galloway is quite different. The 1956 plan showed only three streets:
Elsing Drive, now Forsythia
Wooster Wood (now Lyncroft), and
Barnett Boulevard, now Dearham Wood
The sources for these roads that are validated:
Elsing Drive, Probably relates to Elsing, a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk
Wooster Wood, an old family connection
Barnett Boulevard, named after Henrietta Barnett, who, with her husband Samuel, had started the Whitechapel Art Gallery, Hampstead Garden Suburb and Toynbee Hall. Note connection to Sir Arnold Toynbee
Dearham Wood. Dearham is a village and civil parish in the Allerdale district of Cumbria, England, historically part of Cumberland
The following are streets east of Galloway with a confirmed source. Most of the streets in this area were built according to a number of bylaw-mandated Registered Plans.
Cushendun. Cushendun village, was designed for Ronald McNeill, the Conservative MP and author, later Lord Cushendun, in the style of a Cornish village by the architect Clough Williams-Ellis. Cushendun’s picturesque coastal setting in the heart of the Antrim Coast and Glens Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, together with its architectural inheritance, resulted in designation as a Conservation area in 1980.
Grey Abbey Trail. Possibly, Greyabbey or Grey Abbey, a small village of 208 acres and civil parish located on the eastern shores of Strangford Lough, on the Ards Peninsula in County Down, Northern Ireland.
Guildwood Parkway. East of Galloway, Guildwood Parkway was known as Shore Road
Cumber was originally Lakeview Road
Figure 3 – All of the street names with a validated source
[1] E.G. Faludi, urban architect, and James Harris, General Manager of the Guild Inn
[2] Bournville, Somerdale, Welwyn, Letchworth, Wythenshawe Wood, Rogate, Earswick
[3] Toynbee, Nuffield and Fareham
[4] Cadbury, Fry, Rownstree and Lever families
[5] Nichols, Unwin, Faludi
[6] Galloway, McClean
[7] Breithaupt, Hewetson, Clark
[8] Bickford Park Collegiate was named after the Bickfords, whose land holdings included Christie Pits
This article was originally printed in News & Views:
Next: the model houses of Guildwood
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