Port Sunlight Road

Port Sunlight Road is a loop street of the Billerica Garden Suburb in North Billerica, running from Indian Knoll Road (formerly Indian Road) across Ilford Road and back to Indian Knoll Road. It was laid out in 1914 for the Billerica Garden Suburb, Inc., incorporated on June 14, 1914 by the Rev. Charles H. Williams, the English-born pastor of the North Billerica Baptist Church, to build houses for workmen of the Boston and Maine Railroad repair shops then going up nearby. The suburb was planned by Arthur C. Comey, with Warren H. Manning as advisory landscape designer; Manning's office sketch map of the "Billerica Garden Suburb" is dated July 29, 1914. Like Letchworth Avenue, Hampstead Avenue and Brentham Road, the street was named for one of the English garden villages the project took as its model: Port Sunlight, the model village built from 1888 by Lever Brothers for the workers of their soap works on the Wirral in Cheshire.

The street does not appear in the directories before 1919, when it is listed as "Port Sunlight Road from Indian rd crossing Ilford rd to Indian rd N B." Water mains were laid through the Garden Suburb under town votes of 1914 and 1917. At the annual meeting of 1916, on Mr. Williams's motion, the town voted that Port Sunlight Road "from Indian Road east to Indian Road west," with the other suburb streets, "be accepted by the Town when satisfactory to the Board of Selectmen," and on February 14, 1920 it accepted "the laying out by the Selectmen as Town ways" of the same streets, Port Sunlight Road among them. The town's 1956 list of accepted streets dates Port Sunlight Road's acceptance from the 1916 vote ("2-12-16") rather than from 1920.

The road long remained gravel. A vote of 1931 instructed the highway surveyor to widen it "to proper width for highway traffic," but articles to gravel and tar it, 850 feet from Brentham Road, were dismissed in 1932 and 1933, and through the 1930s and early 1940s it was only scraped and raked. Tar penetration was finally applied to its entire length in 1947, and it was sealed in 1948 and asphalt sealed in 1951. A sewer contract of the mid-1960s was amended to leave out construction on Port Sunlight Road.

Port Sunlight Road was not on the official map of 1831 and was not among the roads accepted in 2016. Its name has not changed, although its terminal street, Indian Road, was renamed Indian Knoll Road in the street renaming of 1988.

References

1. Warren H. Manning Collection, Iowa State University: sketch map, Billerica Garden Suburb, North Billerica, July 29, 1914, Arthur C. Comey city planner
2. Wikipedia: Port Sunlight, the Lever Brothers model village in Cheshire for which the street was named
3. Annual Report 1916: Article 31, warrant to accept Port Sunlight Road from Indian Road east to Indian Road west and other Garden Suburb streets
4. Annual Report 1916: on Mr. Williams's motion, the ways accepted when satisfactory to the Selectmen
5. Annual Report 1920: Article 15, laying out of Port Sunlight Road and other Garden Suburb streets accepted as town ways
6. Annual Report 1931: highway surveyor instructed to widen Port Sunlight Road to proper width for highway traffic
7. Annual Report 1933: article to tar and gravel Port Sunlight Road dismissed
8. Annual Report 1947: tar penetration applied to the entire length of Port Sunlight Road
9. Annual Report 1956: list of accepted streets, Port Sunlight Rd. from Indian Rd. east to Indian Rd. west, 2-12-16
10. Annual Report 1988: street name changes, Indian Road renamed Indian Knoll Road