The street now known as Warren Ball Avenue, Newtown, has had a few name changes over the years. Through historic maps, images and Sands Directory reports, we will explore it’s first references and how it came to be known as what it is today.

The street’s previous name – L’ Avenue – can still be seen on the iconic pillars that were once part of the gates that bordered the estate and now act as historic remnants, however the earliest reference to the street can be found in the 1886 edition of the Sands Directory as ‘Kettle Avenue’ – a namesake of John Icke Kettle the landowner of the estate.

The 1886 Sands Directory listing shows, a Mrs Thruchley, an Arthur Thruchley, and a George Brock as occupants at the time. These three people are all family members and decedents of John Icke Kettle, the former owner of the land parcel known as the Kettle Estate. See a family tree HERE.

While the area that would become the Kettle Estate can be viewed on maps dated prior to 1886, there are no Sands Reports listing a L’ Avenue or Kettle Avenue in Newtown prior to the 1886 report. It is not until circa 1890 that the Kettle Estate can be seen labelled on Surveyor maps.

Maps of Newtown circa 1885 and 1890 show the Kettle Estate bordered by its enclosing streets below.

Although it is widely believed Kettle Avenue was renamed to L’Avenue in 1913 when the park came under the care of the Newtown Council, the first reference to ‘L’Avenue’ in Newtown comes even earlier, in the 1889 Sands report, with many of the same residents we’ve seen previously listed at Kettle Avenue.

L’Avenue was later renamed to ‘Warren Ball Avenue’ in the 1920s in honour of Mr Warren Ball JP. Warren Ball was the owner of Gillies furniture shop in nearby King Street, and was known as ‘the Prince of Charity’.