I have wondered why there has been so much interest from USA readers for my posting about the Claremont Bowling Club.  The Club is an ordinary lawn bowling club the like of which is found in every town and city across Australia.  My blog site statistics do not indicate which part of the USA my readers come from, so more research was required.

The name Claremont derives from the French for clear mountain, and was introduced into England by refugee French Hugenots in the early 18^th century.  The concept of clear mountain works here in Hobart because our town of Claremont sits comfortably at the feet of Mount Wellington.

There a city named Claremont in Sullivan County, New Hampshire, USA. It was named after Claremont, also known historically as ‘Clermont’, an 18th-century Palladian mansion of Thomas Pelham-Holles, Earl of Clare less than a mile south of the centre of Esher in Surrey, England.  This New Hampshire city is located between the Ascutney State Park and the Hawks Mountain area to the west and Mount Sunapee to the east.  Presumably offering clear mountains.

In addition, Wikipedia informs me that “Claremont is a college town on the eastern border of Los Angeles County, California, United States. Claremont is known for its many educational institutions, its tree-lined streets, and its historic buildings. In July 2007, it was rated by CNN/Money magazine as the fifth best place to live in the United States. Due to its large number of trees and residents with doctoral degrees, it is sometimes referred to as “The City of Trees and PhDs.”

Our Claremont in the City of Glenorchy within the Greater Hobart Area is very different than the Californian town with the same name.

In America, the Gold Rush of 1849 opened up California so I suspect the name Claremont was probably given by someone remembering their English heritage when the town was created in the 1880s, or by someone who had travelled west from the New Hampshire town of the same name.  I understand that the peaks of Mount Baldy, Mount San Antonio, Timber Mountain and others in the distance overlook the Californian city.

So now I have either or both California readers on the west coast of USA and New Hampshire readers on the east coast of the USA.  Will the real reader/s stand up!