Oracle Grindlay,

Do you know anything interesting about the Bovill/garthorne area in HOP? I bet you do.

Nice blog by the way - passed many commutes - thanks.

I can't say much about Garthorne Road, hoppy, other than it was built about 1903-1905.

Bovill Road is a bit more interesting. The oldest part is round the General Napier with nos.53-63 and the terrace opposite (originally shops) built in the early 1870s. A few houses in Herschell Road and Whatman Road were also built at this time. This map shows the situation in 1875:


For over twenty-five years little if any further building took place on the fields between Brockley Rise and the railway line. In about 1898 circumstances changed. There was a great demand for housing and by 1906 most of the houses between Garthorne Road and Brockley Rise had been built.

As for interesting people, Walter de la Mare lived at 61 Bovill Road from 1877-1887 and Leslie Paul, founder of the Woodcraft Folk, lived at 4 Bovill Road during the 1920s. Oh, and Bob Monkhouse's father lived at 1 Bovill Road 1901-1906.

Interesting! On this map, the road marked Herschell is actually Bovill is it not? The houses at the top of Bovill on Garthorne are different from the rest. Was that bomb damage?

It was bomb damage. This extract from the bomb damage maps shows that the houses were hit by a V1: