A town named after a stream
The Duke’s family on every corner
The other great family
The names that came before
Quirks and curiosities
Frequently asked questions
A town named after a stream
Eastbourne’s own name is the first clue. It comes from the “bourne” — an old word for a stream — that rises from the chalk in the Old Town, its source today marked by a statue of Neptune in Motcombe Gardens. “East Bourne” simply meant the settlement by the eastern stream, distinguishing it from other Bournes elsewhere.
Nearby Motcombe carries an even older secret. The name is thought to derive from the Saxon “moot” — a meeting place or assembly — combined with “combe,” a valley. Motcombe, in other words, is the valley of the meeting place, and the Norman St Mary’s Church that overlooks it is said to stand on the very spot where Saxon Eastbourne once gathered to make its decisions.
The Duke’s family on every corner
By far the largest group of Eastbourne’s grand street names comes from a single family: the Cavendishes, the Dukes of Devonshire, who built the elegant resort from the 1850s onwards. Their names, titles and country seats are scattered across the map like a family tree written in tarmac.
Devonshire Place and Park take the dukedom itself; Cavendish Place and Avenue the family surname. Hartington Place borrows the courtesy title of the Duke’s heir, the Marquess of Hartington, while Chatsworth and Bolton recall the family’s great houses at Chatsworth in Derbyshire and Bolton Abbey in Yorkshire. Even the family’s architect left his mark: much of the seafront was laid out by Henry Currey, the Duke’s own designer.
The other great family
The Devonshires were not the only landowners to shape the town. The other great local dynasty was the Gilbert family — later the Davies-Gilberts — whose estate is remembered in names like Gildredge Road and Park, after their manor house, and Carew Road, from the family’s Christian names. Their old estate lands are also thought to lie behind The Saffrons, the famous sporting ground whose name hints at land where the saffron crocus was once grown.
The Compton family, too, is written into the streets. Their seat, Compton Place, was renamed after Spencer Compton — later Earl of Wilmington and briefly a Prime Minister — bought the old Bourne Place in the 1720s. From that connection come Compton Street and Compton Place Road, quiet reminders of one of the grandest houses in the town.
The names that came before
Long before the dukes arrived, Eastbourne was just four small hamlets — and their names still cling to the map. Meads, beneath the Downs, takes its name from the meadows that once covered the district. Seaside, the old road and neighbourhood east of the town centre, is exactly what it says: the way down to the sea. And the vanished fishing hamlet of Holywell, at the western end of the front, was named for a sacred spring — a story we tell in our guide to Holywell and the Italian Gardens.
Some names reach back further still, into the working farmland that surrounded the town. Ocklynge, the ancient hill district crowned by its landmark flint church tower, is one of Eastbourne’s oldest place-names. And Lottbridge Drove preserves the word “drove” — an old track along which livestock were driven to pasture across the marshy Levels, a rural memory now surrounded by modern roads.
Quirks and curiosities
A few Eastbourne names hide a good story. Terminus Road, the town’s main shopping street, was laid out around 1850 over what had been a muddy path down to the sea — and named, quite literally, because it ran from the railway terminus, the brand-new station of 1849, straight to the seafront.
Stranger still is the old district of Norway, in the streets between Seaside and Lottbridge Drove. It has nothing to do with Scandinavia: the name is a corruption of “North Way,” the old route heading north out of town. The connection survives in Norway Road and in St Andrew’s Church, whose sign still proudly reads “St Andrew’s Church, Norway.”
Next time you walk through Eastbourne, look again at the street signs. Behind the everyday names lie dukes and prime ministers, Saxon assemblies and holy springs, droveways and railway lines — a whole hidden history of the town, hiding in plain sight.
Frequently asked questions
Where does the name Eastbourne come from?
From the “bourne,” an old word for a stream, that rises in the Old Town and now trickles into a pond in Motcombe Gardens. “East Bourne” meant the settlement by the eastern stream.
Why are so many Eastbourne streets named Devonshire, Cavendish and Hartington?
Because the resort was built by the Cavendish family, the Dukes of Devonshire. The town’s grand streets borrow the family’s surname, titles (like Marquess of Hartington) and country houses such as Chatsworth and Bolton Abbey.
Was Eastbourne almost called something else?
Yes. The Earl of Burlington originally planned to name his new resort “Burlington” after his own title, before choosing Eastbourne in 1850. The name still survives locally on the map.
Why is there an area of Eastbourne called Norway?
It has nothing to do with the country. “Norway” is a corruption of “North Way,” the old route leading north out of town, remembered today in Norway Road and St Andrew’s Church, Norway.
Meet the family behind so many street names in our guide to the Dukes of Devonshire, visit the spring that named the town at Motcombe Gardens and the Bourne, tour the grand house behind Compton Street at Compton Place, or explore the full history of Eastbourne.