There are 37 Belgrave Roads in Greater London and 22 Belgrave Streets as well as various Courts, Mews, and Places. Undoubtedly all of them, like our own Belgrave Road in Plymouth take their name from Belgrave Square in London. This was what became a fashionable part of London (Westminster) after the site developed by the Duke of Westminster – the immediate area became known as Belgravia.
Belgrave was the name of property in Cheshire belonging to the Duke of Westminster’s estate – it’s a hamlet south of Chester near the family seat at Eaton Hall.
Interestingly enough it would appear that before the Norman Conquest this name was Merdegrave “marten’s grove” but because it sounded uncomfortably like the French for faeces – merde – the first part was changed to “Bel”, which has more attractive connotations.
