One of a number of streets, in that wedge of land in Honicknowle between the Parkway and Crownhill Road that is named after an English stately home, Montacute Avenue owes it moniker to the splendid, late-Elizabethan Montacute House near Yeovil.
Built of local Ham hill stone, the ‘H’ shaped property is believed to have been designed by Somerset master mason William Arnold for his client Edward Phelips. Phelips, and his descendents after him, held Montacute for another 330 years. In 1931 however it was bought by EE Cook and then given to the National Trust. The property is one of the few of its period that maintains its original garden layout.The name itself – Montacute – comes from across the English Channel and is identical with Montaigu – there is one near Caen.
Montacute literally translated suggests a pointed hill and comes from the Latinised ‘Mons acutus’.
