In this week's exclusive article for newsletter subscribers Nub News takes a deeper look into the history of Teddington's name.

We were inspired by the news last week that the Clock House pub on the high street will be returning to its old name of the King's Arms.

So where does our town's name come from?

There are three main theories.

First, many people seem to think that the name of Teddington comes from 'Tide-End-Town.'

This is because Teddington is the last lock on the Thames, meaning it is the last place where the tide reaches.

The theory notably featured in a poem by Rudyard Kipling called The River's Tale, which had the line "At Tide-end-town, which is Teddington."

But while this story is compelling it is not based on fact, as Teddington Lock points out on its website .

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The lock was only built in 1810, yet the town had been known as 'Teddington' before this.

This takes us to theory two, which is based on a 1795 book detailing the history towns near London by Daniel Lyson.

Lyson, a curate living in Putney, was a keen antiquarian and topographer and he wrote his major survey Environs of London in four parts from 1792-1796.

In the chapter on Teddington featured in the third part of the survey, Lyson wrote:

"This place is called in old record Todynton, and Totyngton, the latter is the more ancient.

"The etymology, whatever it be, is the same, it is probable, as that of Tooting in Surrey.

"Ing, a meadow, is very frequently found in the names of places derived from the Saxon.

"The meaning of Tot, or Tote (fn. 2), which I suppose to have been descriptive, is no where, I think, satisfactorily defined."

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While Lyson was right about the ancient names of Teddington, his explanation seems to be lacking.

A fuller picture of the origins of our town's name is given by a more up-to-date source, the Survey of English Place Names set up by the English Place-Name Society (established 1923).

According to their website Teddington has had fourteen names in its history!

The name "Teddington" was only settled on in 1754, so for the majority of the town's thousand-year history it has actually been known by other names.

As far back as 969 the town was known as "tudintún" with later names mainly being variations on this theme.

The etymology of these names is "Tuda 's farm" as the suffix "ingtun" is a Saxon word denoting a group of people, or enclosure.

A piece on the Teddington Society website agrees that the origin is "the town or farm of Tudda's people" though it adds that there have been 35 recorded spellings of the name throughout its history.