Napier Crescent is in Laverstock, which is a village a mile to the west of Salisbury city centre. It’s on an estate built by a developer called Ford, or perhaps Fforde, in about 1964. It’s often referred to as ‘the pebbledash estate’.
I have no idea why it’s called Napier Crescent. This is particularly irritating because I grew up in Napier Crescent.
There are at least two people in history possibly prominent enough to have had the road named after them:
- General Sir Charles James Napier, who was a one of Wellington’s generals in the Napoleonic Wars
- John Napier, the inventor of logarithms
The word Napier is quite interesting. I think it derives from the same root as ‘napkin’ and ‘nappy’. It means something like ‘linen keeper’, from the old French ‘nappe meaning ‘table cloth’. [1]
Footnotes
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[...] being called Mayfair Road. I can’t see any thematic link with any of the adjoining roads (Napier Crescent,, Beechcroft Avenue, or Greenwood Avenue). This is particularly irritating because I’ve lived [...]
[...] relation between them. To use a favourite word of my daughter, the other road names on the estate (Napier Crescent, Vanessa Avenue etc) are fairly ‘random’. There are two possible reasons for the name [...]
[...] 2008 Vanessa Avenue is in Laverstock, on the ‘Pebbledash Estate’ which also includes Napier Crescent and Linden [...]