How do you pronounce ‘Cliveden’?
Cliveden is an historic house in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. …
Cliveden is an historic house in the Germantown section of Philadelphia.
The house, which is owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, was built as a country house by attorney Benjamin Chew. It was home to seven generations of Chew family members and was in the middle of the Battle of Germantown during the Revolutionary War in 1777. Lately, it’s been notable for leading candid community conversations about the complicated history of race in Germntown.
All well and good, but here’s this week’s mystery: How the heck do you pronounce the name of this fine place?
Locals seems to call the house and historic site one thing (roughly CLIFF-den), and the road that runs by the house another thing (CLEYEVE-den). Why is that?
In this audio clip, Richard Fink , education director at Cliveden, explains how the disparity in pronunciation developed.
In an earlier version of this Sleuth, the speaker was misidentified.
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