Images of England were important to early Cleveland Heights developers, residents and would-be residents. Not only were many of our early homes and apartment houses constructed of British-related styles, but our streets (as well as apartment houses) were given names borrowed from the English. And what was more English than magnificent London, even though few of our English-house styles were ever all that urban?

Concentration here will be in linking our street names with London places of historical imagery, not with London streets themselves (most of our street names surely exist somewhere in Greater London). Linkages are obviously tricky because a street could be named after, say, a London district or perhaps an American village of the same name. Correct associations may be based on the general pattern or specific neighborhood; thus our Hanover Drive, within a tract of German names, was presumably named after the Prussian province rather than London’s Hanover Square. Five of our streets have names of historic districts of the British capital: Chelsea Drive; Kensington Road; Nottinghill Lane, after Notting Hill; St. James Parkway, after St. James’s (sometimes spelled “James”); and Westminster Road. Our Cambridge, Canterbury, Oxford, St. Albans and Windsor Roads certainly relate to the famous cities so near London. Berkshire, Essex, Kent, Middlesex, and Surrey Counties surround London and hence have inspired more names.

Cleveland Heights pays tribute to London’s parks and gardens with Grosvenor Road, after Grosvenor Square; Hampstead after Hampstead Heath; Hyde Park Avenue; and Kew Road, after London’s Kew Gardens. Or is the last named after Kew Gardens in Queens, New York? Were Berkeley Avenue and Road named after London’s Berkeley Square or the California city? Probably the latter, though we have both a Western U.S. and a London name for streets nearby.

Some of our streets are associated with important London architecture, such as the Burlington Arcade, Clarence Square, Cumberland Terrace, and Marlboro House, but these names could have other sources. Kensington, Kew, and St. James’s are London palaces, and Tudor Drive and Stuart and Windsor Roads have names directly related to British royalty. Kingston, Princeton, and Queenston Roads could relate to many nationalities, but we first associate them with the royals of England.

Nevertheless, many of our British-named streets carry names from areas away from London—as befits a suburb whose developers sought to draw those who wanted to leave Cleveland proper. Interestingly, a higher percentage of the streets of illustrious Shaker Heights were given specifically British names. Indeed, Shaker has an almost entirely different set!