Marlborough Road: a riot of house names

Ipswich Historic Lettering: Marlborough Road2012 images
Marlborough Road is a leafy Edwardian residential street running from the Cauldwell Hall Road/St Johns Road/Freehold Road junction down to the rail bridge of Wellesley Road. Many of the gabled frontages feature a large recessed plaque bearing a house name in large relief letters. So striking are these, that we thought they deserved a page on the Ipswich Historic Lettering website.
Ipswich Historic Lettering: Marlborough names 2
Notes:
1. the above display of house names reading from left to right includes all houses except one from the Cauldwell Hall end down to the last 'large-named' house – and the biggest in the street – 'Marlborough House, 1903';
2. number 26 was the only house where the plaque was obscured by a luxuriant creeper;
3. adjacent roads also feature similar name plaques: Rockmount to Elmcroft in the top of St Johns Road and the final three with the letters painted white in Cauldwell Hall Road; this suggests that all were part of the same development.

Let's look at the sources  which may have been used by the developer in naming the  houses (bearing in mind that each name plaque had to be  individually made prior to – or during – erection.
Grassmere: not the Lake District village, which has only one 's'. The name with a double-'s' appears elsewhere in the UK and worldwide: Grassmere Lake is in the South Island of New Zealand
Cliftonville: a coastal area of Margate in Kent
Sunnydale: a name used for companies in the UK and, ironically the town inhabited by Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Chelsea: the Royal Borough of Kensigton & Chelsea, we believe it has a football team
Vernon: probably named after Admiral Vernon (known as 'Old Grog'), twice Mayor of Ipswich, and Admiral of the Fleet when it won a notable victory at Portobello. [UPDATE 24.6.2020:'I’ve been doing some research recently into Alfred Lyon who lived on Caudwell Hall Road [Marlborough Road] at Vernon House. Came across your website and saw mention of some houses on the road and their possible origins, referring Vernon House to Captain Vernon…. however I wonder if there maybe another reason? Alfred Lyon had lived in Bloomsbury Square in London at 1 VERNON PLACE….. so wondered if it was him that christened the house? Great website, though. Mark Keable.']
Rozel: possibly named after Le Rozel, Manche, Basse-Normandie, France
Calgarth: the Calgarth estate in Troutbeck Bridge , Windermere , Westmoreland
St Elmo: Erasmus of Formiae (Saint Elmo), the patron saint of sailors
St Malo: a walled port city in Brittany in northwestern France on the English Channel
Strathmore: name given to a number of places in Scotland
Nayland: a village in the Stour Valley on the Suffolk side of the border between Suffolk and Essex
Merlewood: a name used by a number of companies in the UK
Oaklea: no specific derivation; a 'typical' house name
Carlton: the name of several UK places, notably a small village near Saxmundham, Suffolk
Balmoral: Balmoral Castle, a residence of Queen Elizabeth II in Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Ardath: title of a novel by Marie Corelli, published 1889
Branksome: name of places in C. Durham and Dorset
Inverness: Scottish city at the mouth of the River Ness
Rudyard: a lake in Staffordshire and the first name of Rudyard Kipling, author
Argyle: an archaic spelling of Argyll, a region of Western Scotland
Linden: one of three English names for the tree genus Tilia (also known as lime and basswood)
Belgrave: the name of a square, one of the grandest and largest 19th century squares in London – the centrepiece of Belgravia; also a village in Cheshire
Shirley: the name of several UK places
Eastwell: name of places in Leicestershire and Kent
Windsor: Windsor, Berkshire, on the western outskirts of London; site of the royal Windsor Castle and the given name of the present royal family
Pembroke: town in west Pembrokeshire, Wales; also The Earl of Pembroke
Boleyn: most famously Anne Boleyn, Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of Henry VIII
Radlet: a small place in Somerset, not the affluent in Hertfordshire which has a double-'t'
Marlborough (House): town in Wiltshire, best known for its public school; also The Duke Of Marlborough
Rockmount:
no specific derivation; a 'typical' house name
Ribblesdale: the River Ribble is a river that runs through North Yorkshire (Ribblesdale) and Lancashire
Blliscombe: what a strange double-'l' – is this a mis-spelling? – no derivation found
Elmcroft:
no specific derivation; a 'typical' house name (later to be used as the name of a road in 'The Crofts' in the White House/Castle Hill area)
Hazelcroft: no specific derivation; a 'typical' house name (see note for Elmcroft)
Olivedene: no specific derivation; a 'typical' house name
Cherryholme: no specific derivation; a 'typical' house name
[If you know any different, let us know.]

One theory about the naming of these houses is that, as each one was nearing completion, the developer asked those building it what they would like to call it. The only slight flaw in this theory is that he, the developer, would then have to commission name tablets – all on different timescales. It's possible, though... Another thought is that the names refer to battles fought by The Suffolk Regiment, but it seems they didn't fight (m)any battles and the Marlborough Road house names don't relate to the places where they were stationed.

The Borough's local list tells us about one of these buildings:
"14 Marlborough Road. 1911. Architect: JA Sherman. 2 storey gabled detached house. T-shaped plan, projecting wing to rear. Red brick ground floor, painted render at first floor level. 3 bay street frontage with projecting central bay under a gable. The glazed front door (decorative leaded light) is in this bay, under a flat canopy supported on timber brackets and set between narrow rectangular hall windows.
Either side, at ground floor level, flat roofed bay windows. A prominent string course separates the upper floor; in the central bay this becomes a projection supported on shallow brick brackets. Upper floor windows are simple mullioned openings with shallow label mouldings below the cills. Above the central window, in the gable, a blank frame moulding with labels. 2 chimneys. Red brick garden wall."

Marlborough Road is opposite The Lion's Head public house and the dated 'AD 1900' shop at 121 Cauldwell Hall Road.

Related pages:
House name plaque examples: Alston Road; Bramford Road; Broomhill Road; Burlington Road; Cauldwell Hall Road; Cavendish Street; Rosehill area;
Ipswich & Suffolk Freehold Land Society (F.L.S.); California
Street index; Origins of street names in Ipswich; Streets named after slavery abolitionists.
Dated buildings list; Dated buildings examples;
Named buildings listNamed (& sometimes dated) buildings examples.
Street nameplate examples;
Brickyards



Home
Please email any comments and contributions by clicking here.
Search Ipswich Historic Lettering
©2004 Copyright throughout the Ipswich Historic Lettering site: Borin Van Loon
No reproduction of text or images without express written permission