Bonville Road

When the Southway Estate, to the north of Tamerton Foliot Road and to the east of Tamerton village itself, was being developed in the late 1950s/ early 1960s it made good sense to name some of the new streets and roads after the various families who had owned thses lands, or part of them, over the centuries.

the Bonvilles were one such family. The manor of Tamerton Foliot came to Anne Bonville in 1435; Anne was heiress to both her father, John Bonville, and her grandmother, Leva Gorges. The manor had passed by marriage to the De Gorges almost two hundred years earlier in 1253. In turn it was through the marriage of Anne Bonville to Philip Copleston in the 1460s that the manor then came to be passed down through this new branch of the Copleston family. Both branches of the family are remembered in the street nomenclature of the area, although the Coplestone name is a reflection of the 17th century spelling of the name when the "e" was added.