  So many fabulous stories are told us relative to the christian church, that we cannot be surprised to find the history of its territorial possessions, in any particular spot, mixed up with legends which have no foundation in fact. Paddington has its story. We are told even to this day, After specifying the gifts of proceeding Kings, and those of Edgar in particular, Dart says, “But to return to Dunstan. Having thus influenced the King, he goes on with his own benefactions. And first by his Charter, takes upon him to confirm some of the gifts of Edgar, then grants many privileges to this church, exempts it from the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London and curses all his successors in that see, and all others who dare to infringe its rights; and lastly releases it from the payment of the tax called Roomscot, The Bishop by another charter secures the privileges of the convent, and settles certain lands for the maintenance of the monks, viz. “Lands at Hendon and Hanwell to the amount of twenty-eight hides.” And at “Paddington, in the county of Middlesex, which grant was confirmed by his own Charter, and afterwards by King Henry the Eighth, and said to contain two hides of land.” He also granted certain lands at Merton, Perham, Cowell, Ewell, and Shepperton—thirty seven hides in these five places. All these grants, with the exception of Paddington, Dart states were confirmed by the Charter of Edward the Confessor. But this statement of Dart’s relative to the grant of land in Paddington is of no value, excepting that it probably names the utmost extent of land which the church of Westminster ever got in Paddington by honest means, since it has been convincingly proved that “the Great Charters” both of Edgar, and Dunstan, are the fabrication of monks who lived long after the death of the King and Bishop. The learned Dr. Hickes has shewn that the hand in which these charters are written, is of a later period than the time when the grants are supposed to have been made; that the phraseology is partly Norman; that Edgar’s Charter has the mark of a pendent seal having been attached to it; and that, to the so called Dunstan’s Charter the waxen impression was remaining when it was examined by him. He tells us that the practice of attaching pendent seals is Norman; The Rev. Richard Widmore, for many years librarian to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, says, “What the privileges were that either he (Dunstan) granted, or obtained from King Edgar, for it (the Abbey) is not at this time to be known the Charters which now remain, both of the one and the other, have been proved beyond all doubt to be forgeries.” This being the case, the mis-quotation of Lysons and Saunders is of very little account, and is corrected here only for the sake of preserving something like truth in this historical narrative. Dart, who appears to have received Dunstan’s Charter without questioning its authenticity, must have been struck by the omission of any mention of Paddington in the Confessor’s Charter; and he seems to have been persuaded of the necessity of producing some kingly authority for the enjoyment of these lands from the time of Dunstan, as he states, to the dissolution of the convent—a period of nearly six-hundred years; for he adds to the sentence, already quoted, and as though it was an after thought, “King Stephen afterwards confirmed this manor and liberties granted with it, and after him King Henry the second.” How these Kings “confirmed this manor” we are not told, neither do I know what documents Dart could have seen, to induce him to make this assertion. In the only Charter of Stephen’s to the Abbey, to be found in the Monasticon, there is no confirmation of this manor or any mention of it. Neither is there any Charter of Henry the Second’s to the Abbey to be found in that great work. If Dart simply intended that these Kings confirmed to the Abbey all the charters then existing, he is, in all probability, right; but if he wished it to be understood that there was any special grant of this manor I think we may fairly dismiss this unsupported assertion without any further consideration. And we In speaking of the fabricated documents which the Westminster monks left behind them, Widmore has well said,—“Such forgery, tho’ it be an ugly charge against any, whether single persons or bodies of men, yet the thing, in this case, is too manifest to be denied or doubted of; and the monks of Westminster were not alone in such practices; it was a general Thing, and the Fault of the Times; and it is said, in mitigation of it, that the Norman Conquerors made it as it were necessary, by disregarding the Old Saxon Charters of Lands and Privileges, and reducing the Monks to the hard condition of either losing what belonged to them, or defending it by forged instruments in Latin. But when Persons give themselves Leave to defend even a good Title by undue means, they seldom know where to stop, and the success at first emboldens them to enlarge beyond all Reason. And tho’ I do not think that in this Practice the whole was Fiction and Invention, they only added what they imagined would more especially serve their Purpose; yet by this means they have destroyed the certainty of History and left those who come after them no better Help, in separating the Truth from Fables, than conjecture and not altogether improbable supposition.” From what has been said, it is evident that it will not do to rely on the authorities above referred to for an account of the acquisition of the Abbey lands in Paddington. Fortunately, however, there are documents of a very ancient date on which some reliance can be placed; and thanks to the enlightened liberality of the Commons of England, and the untiring industry of those gentlemen engaged by the Record Commissioners, many of these documents have been made readily available for the uses of the public. If these directions were carried out, and faithfully entered, we should expect to find some account in this document of the Abbey possessions in Paddington, if any such existed at the time this survey was taken. But Mr. Saunders is perfectly correct in stating that no mention is made either of this place, or of Westbourn, or Knightsbridge, in the Domesday Book. In the hundred of Osulvestane (Ossulston) the King held twelve acres and a half of land, worth five shillings, claimed by no one. He had also in this hundred “thirty cottagers who pay fourteen shillings and ten pence and one half-penny a year;” and two other cottagers belonging to Holburne paying “twenty-pence a year to the King’s Sheriff.” “In the village where the Church of St. Peter is situated,” there were at the time of this survey, forty-one cottagers who paid forty shillings to the Convent for their gardens. And the land in and around the village of Westminster which belonged to the Abbey amounted in all to thirteen hides and a half; valued at eight pounds per annum. The whole in King Edward’s time twelve pounds. The manor of Kensington answered for ten hides; and was held by Aubrey de Ver. Lilestone answered for five hides; Tybourn for five hides; Willesden for fifteen, with pannage for five hundred hogs; and Chelsea Were there, then, no dwellings, no cultivated lands in Middlesex known by the name of Paddington, in 1086—the date of the Conqueror’s survey? Was Paddington at this period an uncultivated portion of the great Middlesex Forest; or did a few of the King’s cottagers live here, unnoticed and unknown, before this scrutiny discovered them? Were the broad acres, subsequently claimed by the monks of Westminster, accounted for in the territories of the neighbouring lords; or did they form but a portion of the home domain of the Convent? Was the village, and the land, known by any other name? Of all these possible suppositions, which is the most probable? To enter fully into a discussion of these questions would require a greater amount of antiquarian knowledge than I possess; and would occupy more space in this work than I can spare. To obtain an answer to the last question satisfactory to my own mind, it is true I have made some researches, and I will, as concisely as possible, convey to my readers the opinions at which I have arrived; detailing in this place only so many of the topographical facts as may be necessary to shew upon what foundations those opinions have been formed. We know, from Fitz Stephen, that an immense forest, “beautified with wood and groves,” but “full of the lairs and coverts of beasts and game, stags, bucks, boars, and wild bulls,” The Fleete, the Tybourn, and the Brent, were the three notable streams which carried the waters from the hills north of the Thames through this forest to the great recipient of them all. And it is probable that the Saxons early settled on the elevated banks of these streams, finding there a more healthful and safer retreat than could be found on the banks of “the silent highway” which was so frequently traversed by the Danes. Another powerful inducement existed in this locality to fix the wandering footsteps of the emigrant. Two roads made through the forest by the skill of the previous conquerors of the country, united in this spot; and remained to show the uncultivated Saxon, what genius and perseverance could effect. These having served the purpose of a military way to conduct the Roman Legions from south to north, and from east to west, were now ready to be used in aid of civilized life. And it is scarcely conceivable that a spot so desirable could have remained long unoccupied by the seekers of a home. This locality is the present site of Paddington by whatever name it was then called. And it was, in all probability, at a very early period of our history occupied by the Saxon settler. The question whether those who settled here were conveyed with the soil to some spiritual, or temporal, lord, previous to, or immediately subsequent to, the Norman conquest, cannot be so satisfactorily determined. Traditions are at variance; documents are not trustworthy; and names have been altered; so that two opinions may be entertained about the things described even in the instruments which exist. There is, however, one general rule which will assist us in coming to a correct decision as to the boundaries we find laid down. When the science of making and interpreting artificial signs had acquired all the potency of a black art; when the acquisition of this art was strictly guarded by all the rules of a craft; and when this art was used to describe a title to lands, and to define the extent of those lands, it still remained necessary, for the safety of those who held this book-land, that the natural signs should be used, if any knowledge of these things was to be preserved by the people, who were carefully excluded from any dealings with so subtile an agency as the lawyer’s quill. And I think we may safely conclude that the most prominent and permanent objects, natural or artificial, would be invariably chosen to point out the bounds of We might expect, therefore, to find that the Westminster monks, in carving out for themselves a comfortable and compact estate, would choose for its boundaries the most prominent and permanent objects in the neighbourhood. And in Edgar’s first Charter—that dated six years before Edgar was King—we do find, with some additions, the Thames chosen for the southern boundary; the Roman road for the northern; the Fleete for the eastern; and the Tybourn for the western. And if we take the largest stream between the Fleete and the Brent to have been the Tybourn, we can readily explain how the convent claimed a manor in Chelsea; and we can clearly understand, too, how the Norman monks read this Saxon Charter so as to make it include the manor of Paddington—as that portion of land, bounded by the Roman roads, and the bourn, was at one time called. Mr. Saunders, in his “Inquiry, &c.” has come to the conclusion that the ancient Tybourn was the stream which has been recently known by that name. But I think those who will take the trouble to examine this subject thoroughly will come to the conclusion that on this point that inquirer has been deceived. It is evident the facts which came under Mr. Saunders’s notice, in the course of his inquiry, did not entirely square with the supposition which he has adopted. And after all, he is obliged to admit that Westminster extended, and extends, to the stream farther westward than the one he has accepted as its western boundary. This West-bourn, or brook, I take to be the ancient Tybourn—the western boundary of the district described in the charter, dated 951; and the western boundary of St. Margaret’s parish, as defined by the Ecclesiastical Decree of 1222. Lysons, writing at the end of the last century, described the stream which crossed the Tybourn road, now Oxford-street, as a “small bourn, or rivulet formerly called Aye-brook or Eye-brook, and now Tybourn-brook.” In the maps of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries we find but one stream delineated as descending from the high ground about Hampstead. In Christopher Saxton’s curious map of 1579; in Speede’s beautiful little map of 1610; in John Seller’s, of 1733; in Morden’s; in Seales’s; in Rocque’s accurate surveys; and in others of less note; we see this stream takes the course of that brook which There is another fact also worthy of note: Holinshed, when speaking of the execution of the Earl of March, which took place in the reign of Edward the third, says, that in those days the place of execution was called “The Elmes,” but was known in his day by the name of “Tiborne.” At the present time enough of “Elms-lane” Dr. Stukeley, and other learned antiquarians, are of opinion that the Edgeware-road, and the Uxbridge-road, represent, very nearly, the sites of the ancient Roman roads. Now if the Tybourn was, in truth, the same stream as the Westbourn, the monks of Westminster had only to follow its course from the Thames till they came to the second “broad military road” which crossed it, instead of stopping at the first they met with, (and the charter says nothing about the first or second), and in their ascent up this stream, and descent by the And if this reading of Edgar’s Charter was objected to by the Great Chamberlain of England, or any other powerful neighbouring lord, there was Edward’s Charter for Chelsea; But the exact time when the words “Et illud praediolum in Padingtune aecclesiae pradictae addidi,” These forged charters, as we shall presently see, could I have just now assumed that the inhabitants of Paddington were free settlers, or King’s cottagers. And although this was undoubtedly the case at first, yet by the time of the Conqueror’s survey they may have been under the protection of some mean lord. And I believe the manor of Paddington subsequently created by the monks of Westminster, was at this time a portion of the manor of Tybourn. For besides the evidence already produced, to shew that Tybourn and Westbourn were synonymous terms; we find in a legal document, even so late as 1734, that “two messuages and six acres of land lying in the common field of Westboune,” and three other acres, also in the same common field, are described as being “parcel of the manor of Tyburn, and called Byard’s Watering Place.” If, then, the districts now called Westbourn and Paddington, were included in the manor of Tybourn in the Conqueror’s survey, it is very evident that a rearrangement, both of these districts and the neighbouring manors, must have taken place when the Westminster monks established their claim to Paddington. And it is not improbable that the lords of Chelsea, Kensington, and Tybourn, insisted upon maintaining, for themselves and their tenants, commonable rights over the Westbourn district. How the monks of Westminster, in the course of time, became both spiritual and temporal masters of the Westbourn district, can be readily conceived by those who know anything of the power engendered by the concentration of all knowledge into a few bodies, especially if those bodies have a perpetual existence. As I have before said, the monks found that their forged charters would not sufficiently serve them legally to inherit Paddington. They were obliged therefore to purchase the interest in the soil from at least one of the families whose ancestors had made it valuable. This appears from a document which I have translated below, and which is to be found in Maddox’s Formulare Anglicanum, page 217, and which as appears by a note, at the foot of it, this learned and indefatigable
Maddox adds that this document “has at the top, the letters, Chiographum, very large ones, cut through indent-wise.” We are not informed by this instrument what was “the extent of the entire tenement,” thus sold to the Abbot of Westminster. But it will be observed, that the land purchased of Richard and William is said to have been held by them “of the Church of Westminster.” From which we might imagine, that the lordship of the soil, had been already legally appropriated to St. Peter, did we not know that it is equally probable, that one of the tricks of the time had been played off, to lessen the risk of the purchased land being forfeited to the Crown. Blackstone tells us that when a tenant—and all were tenants now, either of the King, or some other lord,—wished Other documents, shewing the acquisition by the Convent of other lands in this place and Westbourn, at a later period, will be produced in the next chapter; but this is the only one dated before the end of the twelfth century, having any appearance of authenticity, which I have been able to discover relative to the Abbey lands in Paddington. The Abbot who purchased the interest of the brothers of Paddington, in the Paddington soil, is called Walter of Winchester, to distinguish him from another Walter, called of Wenlock, who was also an Abbot of Westminster, but a century after this time. Of him also we shall have to speak in the next chapter in connexion with the further extension of the Abbey lands in Paddington. Walter, the first, directed that the anniversary of the day on which he died should be kept as a feast day at the Convent: and we are told that he gave the manor of Paddington for its proper celebration. And as this story will well serve to illustrate the manner in which much of the property of the church was spent in those days, and, perhaps, serve also to shew how the neighbouring proprietors were quieted for the transfer of the lordship to this Abbot, I shall reproduce it as it was given to the ArchÆological Society, on the third of May, 1804, by Dr. Vincent, a former Dean of Westminster. The Dean states that the account he read was taken from an ancient MS. preserved in the archives of the Dean and Chapter. The following is the Dean’s own translation of the manuscript in question:—
Widmore, who mentions this anniversary, tells us Dr. Patrick, the editor of Gunton’s History of Peterborough, got his account from John Flete, the Monkish Historian of Westminster, who died in the Convent in 1464, having completed its history, which he wrote at the request of the monks, down to 1386. Of John Flete, Widmore says, in his account of the writers of the History of Westminster Abbey, “He sets down his authorities as he found them; but as criticism was not a study in request in his time, he neither doth, nor was, I suppose, able to distinguish what in antiquity was true and genuine from forgeries.” Of Walter of Winchester, the same learned writer remarks “There is little account left what this man did while Abbot here: he seems to have been too easy in granting out the estates of the church in fee farm: the manor of Denham in Bucks, the tithes of Boleby in Lincolnshire, the Church of St. Alban in Wood-street, what the Abbey had in Staining-lane and Friday-street, and the manor of Paglesham in Essex, were so granted by him. He seems to have been solicitous to perpetuate his memory by an anniversary, having ordered a very pompous one, much beyond those of any of his predecessors, and got the profits of the manor of Paddington assigned for that purpose: but this, sometime after, being thought too great, was very much lowered, and only loaves made of two quarters of wheat were on that day given to the poor, by the Almoner of the Abbey.” Richard de Croksley, who died in 1258, was still more liberal with the funds he could no longer use, for he assigned the whole produce of the manors of Hamstead and Stoke for the celebration of his death-day. The ringers were paid thirteen shillings and four-pence for ringing the bells on the eve of the anniversary; one thousand poor were to receive a penny each on the first day; and for six subsequent days, five hundred were to receive daily one penny, for which sixteen From the Taxatio Ecclesiastica, made under the authority of Pope Nicholas the fourth, and published by the Record Commissioners, we learn that a century after the death of Walter, the whole of the temporalities of Paddington were devoted to the purposes of charity; that they arose from the rent of land, and the young of animals, and were valued at eight pounds, sixteen shillings and four-pence. And the same valuable work informs us of a chapel built and endowed in this place, at the time this survey was taken. In the preface to this work the following account of this taxation is given—
During the twelfth and early part of the thirteenth centuries, disputes of a very unseemly nature frequently took place between the Abbots of Westminster and the Bishops of London, relative to the jurisdiction of the latter over the Abbey, and otherwise as to their respective privileges and districts. Another pretty good proof, as Widmore justly remarks, that the ancient charters, so much spoken of, were mere forgeries. These disputes were at length referred to Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of Winchester If we can rely on the authenticity of the passage just quoted, a chapel must have been built here previous to that date; and now this chapel, as the author of the Ecclesiastical Topography correctly remarks became a Chapel of Ease to St. Margaret’s, Westminster. This writer makes the value of the church and chapel, in 1291, only thirty marks and a half;
No inconsiderable difference in times when the land in Paddington paid only four-pence per acre, per annum, rent. Whatever doubts may arise in the mind as to the accuracy of John Flete’s story, or as to the capability of the land in Paddington to furnish the annual feast we have described as having been appointed in 1191; it appears from this taxation, that in 1291, a chapel was built and endowed here; and the sum we have already mentioned given in charity. The temporal entry in the Taxatio Ecclesiastica is as follows:
This “rent of land” was derived from those lands which If we accept the definition of the word manor given by the learned Judge Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, It was no uncommon thing, for Religious Houses, when they had obtained a few acres of land in any place, to elevate them to the dignity of a manor, and assume on their general licence, manorial rights over the district in which their newly acquired property lay. Moreover, to secure the assistance of the monks, the early Norman Kings were frequently obliged to connive at practices of which they could not approve, but which they dared not condemn. And when the monks of Westminster, after casting a longing eye on the lands of Paddington, produced the charters which they called Edgar’s and Dunstan’s, and claimed the lordship over these outlying districts, the King, who then happened to require their services, may have thought it mattered but little, who reaped the benefits derivable from being the lord of the few tenants in Paddington. And he may have sanctioned that which was in fact an usurpation. If, however, Edgar’s and Dunstan’s Charters were brought forward for the purpose of shewing some sort of title to the manor of Paddington, when the first claim to the lordship was set up, which I think was most likely the case, it is very evident that the monks themselves had no great faith that these charters would bear any sort of legal examination, even in those days, when the wig was adopted to hide the shaven crown. But we must not receive this statement of Walter de Wenlock with implicit confidence, or at all events without some further explanation;
In the reign of the second Edward, we find that three inquisitions were held, to enquire what injury that King would sustain if certain tenements and lands in these places were granted to the Convent; and it was upon one of these inquisitions that the discovery above referred to was made. As these inquisitions refer to the only bona fide grants of land in Paddington or Westbourn, down to the fourteenth century, which I have been able to discover, with the exception of the purchase by Walter of Winchester before referred to; and as they will serve to shew not only the sort of suit and service rendered to the lord, but will also further illustrate the mode in which the land in these places was actually acquired by the Abbey, I shall give a translation of each. These documents are kept in the Tower, and form a portion of the “Inquisitiones ad quod damnum,” so called, and are thus described in the calendar published by the Record Commission. “These inquisitions commence with the first year of the reign of Edward the second, 1307, and end with the thirty-eighth year of Henry the sixth: Thomas Astle, esquire, thus speaks of them.—They were taken by virtue of writs directed to the Escheator of each county; when any grant of a market, fair, or other privilege, or licence of alienation of lands, was solicited, to enquire by a jury whether such grant or alienation was prejudicial to the King or to others, in case the same should be made.”
This sum of twenty shillings and sixpence was, as I conceive, due to and paid to the King. So that although the Convent had managed to obtain a lordship over this land, the King still retained some right over it, and the fee of this land could never have been given to the Abbot. But the result of this inquisition does not appear to have been satisfactory to all parties; for another was held in the twelfth year of the same reign. It will be observed that the same land is the subject of enquiry, but the significant words “with appurtenances,” are added this time to each little plot.
This fine of ten pounds seems to have been made an excuse for obtaining the fee of more land in Paddington and other places; or, at least, so I understand the expression in the following inquisition, “in part satisfaction of ten librates of land, &c.”
From such small beginnings as these the present so-called manors of Westbourn and Paddington arose. Maitland, in his History of London, tells us that foreign merchants were not able to land their goods at the port of London previous to 1236, and that in that year they agreed to pay for this privilege and “to give the sum of one hundred And he further informs us, It is further added, “This grant Henry the sixth not only confirmed but likewise by a writ of Privy seal granted them further advantages toward the performing thereof.” The following is from Tanner’s Notitia—“Pat, in Vaga Rageman temp Ric 2. Buckingh Rot 12. quod Abbas debet mundare aquam vocat Bayard’s Watering Place in paroch de Padyngton.” Now if we except these grants, which, we shall presently see, were not so unimportant as may at first sight appear, I think we may give the Abbots and monks the credit of keeping, as long as they were allowed to keep, all they ever acquired or ever possessed in Paddington. But although the Abbots at length, and by slow degrees, acquired to themselves and their House, either with or without the sanction of the crown, both spiritual and temporal dominion over these places, we must not imagine that all the tenements in Westbourn and Paddington had been by this time transferred by the devout and the timid to their safe keeping; for besides the few small holders, who obstinately preferred their hereditary rights, to the prospect of a speedy post-mortem release from purgatory, there is good reason to believe that the ancient family of De Veres held a considerable tract of land in this parish down to 1461.
The history of the lands which have been claimed by the Bishop of London, and the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, as their portion of the spoils of the Convent can be completely written by those only who have free access to all the records in the archives of St. Paul’s and St. Peter’s. And as it would appear that the time is not yet come for placing at the disposal of the public, for public uses, many of the important documents held in charge by Deans and Chapters, we must be content with that account which can be furnished by those which they have permitted us to see, and those which more confiding holders have thrown open to our inspection. Most of the facts, which I have been able to discover, relative to the acquisition of the Abbey lands in Paddington, have been already related. One or two, however, having an important relation to the lands of the existing church, and the possessions of the people, remain to be told. Aubrey de Vere, “who came in with the Conqueror,” was grandfather to Aubrey, first Earl of Oxford, and held, as we have already seen, a tract of land called in Domesday, Chenesitun. In the patent roll which contains the grant of Henry the eighth to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster—Pat. 34. Henry 8. P. 5. M. 32. (6)—“of the site of the late monastery of Westminster, with all its ancient privileges, free customs, &c., &c.,” we find, at the foot of the same membrane, this continuation of the grant “all those messuages, lands, tenements, meadows, pastures, feedings, rents, reversions, services, and other our hereditaments whatsoever known by the name or names of Seynt Mary Landes, lying and being in Westbourne, in the parish of Paddington, in our said county of Middlesex, and now or late in the tenure or occupation of John Genie, or his assigns, to the said late monastery of St. Peter, Westminster, lately belonging and appertaining, and being parcel of the possessions of the said late monastery.” I have not been able to discover the exact extent of these lands at the time of the reformation; or the amount of their growth during the last three centuries; but I have many reasons for believing that these “Seynt Mary lands lying and being in Westbourne in the parish of Paddington,” were the self-same lands given by St. Mary of Abingdon to St. Peter of Westminster for charitable purposes. That, in fact, this land was the poor allotment of the manor of Abbot’s Kensington. Out of this and another small grant the parvenu manor of “Knightsbridge and Westbourne” was manufactured. Besides these manors of Abbot’s Kensington, and Knightsbridge and Westbourn, another manor, called West-town, was created out of lands called “the Groves,” granted to “his By an inquisition, taken in 1481, we are informed that the Groves, formerly only three fields, had extended themselves out of Kensington into “Brompton, Chelsea, Tybourn, and Westbourne.” “The Groves,” now a manor, passed from Richard Sturgion and William Hall to William Essex. The Marquis of Winchester, Lord High Treasurer of England, purchased it of Thomas Essex, for one thousand pounds, in May, 1570; and the next marquis sold it to William Dodington for seven hundred pounds, who sold it to Christopher Baker for two thousand pounds, and it was afterwards purchased by Walter Cope for one thousand three hundred pounds, who attached the Groves to Abbots Kensington, which he had purchased. But besides the manors, which the Abbots of Abingdon, and Simon the priest, and the Abbots and Monks of Westminster, had so nicely created for themselves, another, called “the manor of Notingbarons, alias Kensington,” then “Nutting Barns,” afterwards “Knotting-barns,” in Stockdale’s new map of the country round London, 1790, “Knolton Barn,” now Notting-barns, was carved out of the original manor of “Chenesitun.” This inquisition states, that “John, late Earl of Oxon. was seized to his own use, the fourteenth day of April, anno regni 12 Edw. IV., of the manors of Kensington, and Knotting Barns, in the county of Middlesex, and that afterwards, by a certain Act, made in the Parliament, which began at Westminster, the sixth of October, in the twelfth year of the reign of King Edward the fourth, and by several prorogations continued to the twenty-third of January in the fourteenth year of the King, it was decreed that the Earl should By this inquisition we perceive that these manors were no longer held by the De Vere’s in virtue of their office of Lord Great Chamberlain; but that this Earl died, possessing the manors “seized to his own use.” And by an Act of the eleventh year of Henry the seventh, we find out what the jurors did not know, viz.—That the widow of the beheaded Earl, “by compulcion, cohercion, and emprisonement,” while her son was suffering for his support of the Lancastrian cause, was obliged to release to Richard “late in dede, and not of right, King Englond, while he was Duke of Gloucetir,” divers manors, lands, &c. &c. This being in all probability one of them. When the said Richard had been dispatched in Bosworth field, and Henry the seventh had ascended the throne, these acts of the usurpers “inordynate covetyse, and ungodly disposicion” were quietly put aside by regular Acts of Parliament. And by the first and eleventh of Henry the seventh, not only this Earl of Oxford, but all his family, were reinstated in their estates, honors and dignities. And by the latter act the compulsory release which Richard had obtained from Elizabeth, Countess of Oxenford, was rendered null and void. But during all these troubles the Earl appears to have got into debt, to discharge which he appears to have sold “a messuage, four hundred acres of land, five acres of meadow, and one hundred and forty acres of wood in Kensington.” In giving us this information, Mr. Faulkner also tells us that the estate was recovered by “The Great Marshall of England,” and sold to Sir Reginald Bray for four hundred marks. He also corrects a mistake into which Lysons has fallen; and shews that it could not have been the original portion of the manor, or the manor of Earl’s Court, that was sold, and suggests that it may have been “one of the smaller manors of West-town or Knotting Barns.” But Lysons and Faulkner throw no further light on this subject. Widmore tells us that this lady, Margaret Countess of Richmond, mother of King Henry the seventh, obtained a licence of Mortmain for one hundred and fifty pounds per annum, and that she proceeded so far as to convey ninety pounds of it to the Convent of Westminster, for the purpose of an anniversary for herself, for three monks to celebrate mass in the Abbey Church, and for the payment of the salaries of the professors founded by her in the two universities, and her Cambridge preacher. And we learn by her will, and by the Valor Ecclesiasticus, that besides the establishment of these professorships, ten pounds per annum was to be given to the poor out of the estates she left for these purposes. We also learn by her will, and by an entry in that Ecclesiastical valuation, which was taken by order of her grandson, in the twenty-sixth year of his reign, that a considerable portion of the land given by the Lady Margaret, for the purposes named, then lay in Paddington. In her will, we find, after the notice of the “licence given unto us by the King our Soverain Lord and most dere son,” and the mention of lands at Drayton, Woxbrig (Uxbridge), and other places, the following words, “and also diverse londs and tenements in Willesden, Padington, Westbourn and Kensyngton, in the county of Midd’x, which the said Abbot, Prior, and Convent, at their owne desire, and by their entire assents and consents, have accepted and taken of us” at such a “yerely valow,” and for such purposes, as therein specified. We also find in the Valor Ecclesiasticus of Henry the 8th, under the heading—
and after the mention of property at Drayton, Uxbridge, and Willesden, to the amount of fifteen pounds, six shillings and eight-pence, these words—
And in the fifth folio of 441 Lansdowne Manuscripts, the I think this evidence is sufficiently conclusive to prove that this manor of Notting Barns, sold to Sir Reginald Bray, was purchased by the Lady Margaret for the purposes of her bequests. It is true that this notable Knight and most noble mason, It may also be true that Sir William, afterwards Lord Sands, or Sandys, succeeded by the aid of William, Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Chancellor of England, the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, “and divers other friends of both parties,” in dividing the great property left by Sir Reginald Bray, between himself and the nephews to whom Sir Reginald had left it in his will. And it is perfectly true that Sir William, who “had married the daughter and heir of Sir Reginald’s elder brother John,” came into the possession of property in Paddington by this Star Chamber decision. But this was through his having had the manor of Chelsea as a portion of his share of Sir Reginald’s lands assigned to him. Neither this “honest country lord,” this “merry gamester,” whom Shakspeare has immortalized, nor the “Gent.” whose choice is still a proverb, held land in Paddington long. Both Lord Sands, and Thomas Hobson, exchanged their lands and manors of Chelsea, and Marylebone, with Henry the eighth, for other manors and lands; and the manor of Chelsea with those lands in Paddington which had belonged to Lord Sands were The beautiful, and perfectly preserved, illuminated indenture, in the Lansdowne collection, B.M., to which I have just now refered, more fully than the Countess’s will, which was printed in 1780, with other royal wills of an anterior date, details the donor’s desires with respect to the property she had disposed of. How far those desires and wishes have been carried out, others can tell much better than I can. No expense or pains appears to have been spared by the munificent donor to make her bequest in accordance with the law, and so far as her knowledge went, useful to posterity. Her Cambridge and Oxford professors are still known. But where is her grant to the poor? Are her professors still paid the stipends she fixed for them; or do the readers and the preachers divide between them the large estates she left? Where is that large estate in Paddington, which was valued in her grandson’s reign at the exact amount she left to the poor? Besides the charitable bequests made by the Countess of Richmond, she left “divers other parcels of the same maners, londes, &c.” valued at six pounds, thirteen shillings and four-pence per annum to her faithful servant Elizabeth Massey; and we find an account of “part of the descent of Massye, of Paddington,” down to 1626, in the Harlein collection of MSS. No. 2012, p. 45. The first authentic document I find relating to the Notting Barns manor after it was disposed of by the Countess of Richmond is an inquisition, taken at Westminster on the ninth of October, in the seventeenth year of the reign of Henry the eighth, after the death of Robert Roper, or Fenroper, citizen and alderman of London. From this inquisition we learn that “The manor called Notingbarons, alias Kensington, in the parish of Paddington, was held of the Abbot of Westminster as of his manor of Paddington by fealty and twenty-two shillings rent;” that the manor at this time “consisted of forty acres of land, one hundred and forty acres of meadow, two hundred acres of wood, twenty acres of moor, twenty acres of furze and heath, and forty shillings rent; and that it was valued by the jurors at ten pounds per annum.” This manor, a lease of which had been, in all probability, purchased of the Abbot by the aforesaid Robert, was left by the Alderman to his wife for life, “Remainder to What “arrangement” was made at the time of the Reformation with respect to this manor I cannot precisely tell; but its further history, so far as I have been able to trace it, is not without interest. Lysons tells us in his account of Paddington, that “a capital messuage called Westbourne-place, with certain lands thereto belonging was granted by Henry the eighth, in 1540, to Robert White;” and he refers to the Augmentation Office, but to no special record there, for his authority. This grant I have not been able to find. But in his account of Kensington, Lysons says Henry White, the son-in-law of the alderman, “in the year 1543 conveyed the manor of Knotting Barns to the King.” By a deed of exchange recited in Pat 34. Henry 8th. P. 8., M. 13 (15), I find that the King purchased Robert White’s interest in this manor, and that “the said Robert White, esquire, having bargained and sold the manor of Nutting Barnes, with the appurtenances, in the county of Middlesex, and the farm of Nutting Barnes, in the parish of Kensyngton, and the capital messuage with the appurtenances called Westbourne in the parish of Paddington, in the same county, and also the wood and lands called Nutting Wood, Dorkyns-Hernes, and Bulfre Grove, in the parish of Kensington, as also two messuages and tenements in Chelsaye, with all other the possessions of the said Robert White, in the same places and parishes; and in consideration of one hundred and six pounds, five shillings and ten pence” had other lands conveyed to him, by the King, in other places, as fully set forth in the patent above referred to. From this M.S. in the land revenue office we also learn that Henry the eighth purchased the then existing interest in other lands in this parish, and in the parishes of St. Margaret, Westminster, and Kensyngton, of one John Dunnington. The gross rental of which I find was put down at nine pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence; “from which there was an allowance, for lands inclosed within the king’s park of Hyde, of twenty-eight shillings per annum; leaving the clear yearly value of eight pounds five shillings and fourpence.” The same document shews, too, that a separate rent of forty-one pounds six shillings and eightpence was received for the manor and rectory of Paddington. Faulkner states that “in 1549 king Edward the sixth, granted this manor or farm of Notting Barns to Sir William Pawlet, earl of Wiltshire,” at a rent of sixty shillings per annum. In 1562, and 1587, it appears to have been in the hands of the lord treasurers of England, the marquis of Winchester and lord Burghley. From lord Burghley it passed to Sir Thomas Cecil who sold it to Sir Walter Cope of Kensington; and in 1601 the queen “granted a pardon to the said Walter Cope, for the sum of six pounds, in consideration that the above alienation had been made without her majesty’s licence.” Thus the Notting Barns manor was claimed by the crown But with “the messuage called Westbourne, and the lands purchased of Robert White,” we have something more to do. Thomas Hues, esquire, doctor of medicine, one of queen Mary’s “principal physicians,” purchased of that queen and others, a considerable quantity of land, in this and the adjoining parishes, fully described in Escact, 2. Eliz. part 2. No. 23, which he gave to his wife for her life, “And in remainder to the Wardens and Fellows of Martyn (Merton) college in Oxford, for the purpose of founding within the said college for evermore two apt and meet persons to be Fellows of the Fellowship of the said College. Or else three scholars, or four, as the land will extend unto, at such times as the same shall come to the hands and possession of the said Warden and Fellows of the said college or to their successors for the time being; to have continuance and succession within the said college as fellows or scholars thereof for evermore. There to be found, governed, and used with the revenues of the said lands, and to be brought up and educated in virtue and good learning according to the rules, good order, and diet of the said College, whereby other the Fellows or Scholars of the said House have in time past been well governed, ordered, ruled and brought up.” By Pat. 2. Mary, P. 1, we learn other particulars respecting the messuages, tenements, &c., which were purchased by Dr. Hues. We find the cost of the whole to have been three hundred and forty-six pounds, one shilling and eight-pence halfpenny; that they were purchased of various owners; and that “a message and tenement called Westbourne” was included in the purchase, and that “four closes of land called by the names of Darking Busshes, Holmefield, Balserfield, and Baudeland, and six acres of arable land lying apart in the common fields; and six acres of arable land lying apart in the fields called Dowries, all in the parish of Paddington” were purchased of the crown. As a description of these four closes of land is still preserved in the Harleian M.SS. No. 606, f. 46 b., I have thought it right to translate and print it in this place, it is as follows:—
The following memorandum is added to this description:—
These were the closes in Paddington then, which belonged to Lord Sands; and it will be seen by this memorandum, and by the patent, that although this land was considered a part of Chelsea manor, it was no part of Chelsea parish at that time. Faulkner speaks of the transfer of the manor of Chelsea to Edward the sixth by the Duke of Northumberland, and of other surrenders backwards and forwards; but neither in his works nor in Lysons can I find anything about Dr. Thomas Hues’ purchase; or one word about his gift to Merton. Neither can I find any notice of this liberal bequest in any of the Histories of the University of Oxford which I have examined. What “arrangement,” then has been come to respecting this property? Are any learned fellows or poor scholars benefitted by this physician’s bequest? Or, is this estate like the other portion of the Lady Margaret’s gift, safely lodged in private hands? I must confess that I am not able to answer these questions. But it would appear that the large and valuable estates bequeathed by the Countess of Richmond and Dr. Hues do not include the whole of the “College Land” in Paddington. Lysons in his Environs, and Chalmers in his History of the University of Oxford, tell us that the Manor of Malurees, “consisting of some houses and about one hundred and twenty acres of land,” situated in the parishes of Willesden, Paddington, Chelsea, and Fulham, was surrendered by Thomas Chichele to King Henry the sixth, who granted it to the Warden and Fellows of All Souls College in Oxford; and this grant has not been wholly lost to this College, for I believe that down to the present day a rent is paid to All Souls for some portion of this land. One of the most important preliminaries to the great Reformation was the institution of a new valuation of church property. The King and people, saw how inefficiently Pope Nicholas’s taxation represented the value of church property in the sixteenth century, for if it had not progressed in value Yet the difference between the Pope’s valuation and the reforming King’s, is far less than the actual value of church property in Queen Victoria’s reign and that which is entered on “the King’s books.” It is true that the clergy are now taxed differently from what they were before the Reformation; and that “the first fruits and tenths” no longer go into the national exchequer. But “the Queen’s bounty” would find the benefit of a valuation taken in our Queen’s reign; and if this payment of first fruits and tenths was anything like what it pretended to be, the whole of the first year’s income, and the tenth of all future years, those who dispense that bounty would not have to be so parsimonious in their assistance to the poorer clergy. To the Record Commission we owe the publication of that valuation which was taken by King Henry the eighth, as well as that taken by Pope Nicholas the fourth. In addition to the quotation I have already given from the former valuation, the following entries are to be found in it relative to Paddington:—
The year after this survey was taken, all monasteries, priories, and other religious houses, whose possessions did not amount to two hundred pounds per annum, were given by the twenty-seventh of Henry the eighth, chap. 28, with all their manors, lands, &c. to the King and his heirs for ever. By this Act, the lands belonging to Kilbourn Priory became the property of the crown; and in the following year these lands were exchanged to Sir William Weston, the prior By the thirty-first of Henry the eighth, chap. 13, the larger monasteries shared the same fate as the smaller ones had done, and the Abbey lands of this place, and those formerly belonging to the priory, reverted again to the crown. In the account which was rendered to the King by the ministers appointed to receive the revenues which came to the crown on the dissolution of Religious Houses, we find the value of the other church property in this parish, set down thus:—
I have extracted this account from the Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. i, page 326, where these sums are repeated thus:—
But the Crown had other possessions in Paddington besides those which fell to it by the suppression of Religious Houses. We have already seen that Henry the eighth obtained land here by exchange and purchase, from Lord Sands, Thomas Hobson, John Dunnington, and Robert White. We have also seen that those lands which were purchased of Lord Sands and Robert White by the crown were sold to Dr. Hues, and given by him with other lands to Martyn College, Oxford. Some part of those lands purchased of John Dunnington went to increase the park made by Henry the eighth, viz. What Henry the eighth did with the manor and rectory of Paddington will be seen by the following translation of a portion of a legal instrument still preserved in the Record Office, Carlton Ride.
This indenture and release, which, so far as I know, has not been noticed before, and which certainly is not spoken of in any of the private Acts of Parliament relating to the manor and rectory of Paddington, is recited at length in another indenture and release, which is generally referred to, which was made and dated the twenty-first day of December, in the thirty-fifth year of Henry’s reign. The manor and rectory of Paddington, and that other “messuage and tenement with appurtenances in the tenure of Edward North, esquire,” being by it demised to Richard Rede, of London, Salter, for a new term of twenty-one years. The large trees and wood, as was usual in such cases, being again reserved for the uses of the crown. We have already seen by the entries in the Valor Ecclesiasticus, taken by order of this King, that in the twenty-sixth year of Henry’s reign, twenty shillings per annum, half the rental of the wood spoken of in this indenture, which was then thirty acres in extent, was set apart for charitable purposes; that the other half was appropriated to the Blessed Mary’s Chapel; that the manor, bringing in nineteen pounds per annum, was dedicated to “the New Work,” probably Henry the seventh’s chapel; that the rectory was valued to the Abbey at two pounds, six shillings and eight-pence; that the tenement formerly belonging to the Countess of Richmond was valued at ten pounds; and that the lands at Knightsbridge and Westbourne were valued at eight pounds, one shining and seven-pence. We see, also, the possessions in Paddington formerly belonging to the church produced the same rent within one shilling and seven-pence, as these lands were valued at six years before. But the crown was not in receipt of these reserved rents more than three or four years after Henry’s death; for his son, The following are the words in this patent which refer expressly to Paddington—“Necnon totum illud Moneriu nrm de Paddington in dco com nro Midd cum suis juribs membris et ptien univeis nup Monasteio Sci Petri Westm modo dissolut dudam spectan et ptinen ac parell possessionu et revencionu ejusdem nup Monastei dudam existen.” Newcourt, in his Repertorium, page 703, says “The manor and rectory of Paddington (which of old did belong to the Monastery of Westminster) were by Edward the sixth, in the fourth year of his reign, upon his dissolving the Bishoprick of Westminster then lately erected by King Henry the eighth, given to Dr. Nicholas Ridley, then Bishop of London, and his successors for ever.” From this one might imagine that Paddington had formed part of the possessions of that short-lived see; which, indeed, Lysons, in his Environs, and Mr. Brewer, in his “London and Middlesex,” distinctly state, but of this I find no evidence whatever; and the words of the patent itself, convey a different impression. There are in this patent other places mentioned as having formed part of that see, but as it will be observed, Paddington is stated to have formerly belonged to the Monastery. It will be observed too, that the rectory is not mentioned in the extract from the grant which I have given, neither do I find it anywhere else alluded to, specially, as is the case with certain other rectories given by this patent. But the spiritualities in all the places named, appear to have been given in general terms to the Bishop. When, with Newcourt, we use the word “given,” we must not do the advisers of the young King the injustice to suppose that no reservation of the rights of the crown was provided for in this open letter; that indeed would be an injustice, for besides the payment of certain specified sums, to certain specified persons and officers an annual rent equal to one-fifth of the sum remaining to the Bishop was to be paid by him to the King, at his Court of First Fruits and Tenths every Christmas day. Which annual rent was in lieu of the first fruits and tenths paid by all bishops and incumbents. Intending, without doubt, to be liberal to the bishops, and at the same time just to the crown, the calculation of the proper sum to be paid in lieu of first fruits was made without any reference to the possible, or probable, augmentation of the income from the lands then granted. The advisers of the young King knew that with the assistance of parliament fresh arrangements could be made with future occupants of the see; and they fixed the sum to be paid to the crown at one hundred pounds per annum, as the then fair proportion for all the lands given by this patent. This sum has been paid for these possessions ever since that time, as I am informed, though the revenue they produce has increased upwards of four thousand per cent. Whatever was the intention of the advisers of the young king, however, in this regard, one thing is pretty clear, viz. that Ridley, and several of his successors, received from the manor and rectory of Paddington, not forty-one pounds, six shillings and eightpence, the sum at which the manor was then let, but that sum, minus one-fifth, deducted by the crown. Strype tells us There is still preserved in the Record Office, Carlton Ride, The following is the account of the descent of the manor of Paddington given by Lysons:—
We have already seen that Alderman Rede’s lease was not the original one granted by King Henry; and there are other additions, and corrections required to make the statement above quoted strictly correct. Both the manor, and rectory, of Paddington were held by the citizen’s family “for a long term,” although their first lease was but for twenty-one years; for I find no mention of any other lessees till the reign of Charles the first. I think it probable, however, that Sir Rowland St. John, to whom it was leased in that reign, held it in the reign of James the first; for in the eighteenth year of this reign I find him charged on the subsidy roll twenty pounds for Land in Paddington. An ancestor of Sir Rowland St. John was related to the Countess of Richmond, was appointed her chamberlain, and one of the executors of her will. The mother of Sir Rowland, lady Dorothy, was the only daughter and heir of Sir John Rede of Oddington, in Gloucestershire; and it was through her, as I suppose, that the Paddington lease came into this family of St. John. It was Bishop Mountayne who leased the manor of Paddington to Sir Rowland St. John, in 1626, and not Bishop Abbot, as stated by Lysons; for George Abbot was bishop of London only a few months, and was translated to Canterbury in 1611. I learn from the survey to which Lysons has referred, but which I think he could not have examined for himself, that the lease granted by Bishop Mountayne was dated the twenty-fourth of November, 1626, the second year of Charles the first, the reserved rent for the manor only, being forty-one pounds, six shillings and eight pence; the wood of thirty acres before referred to, being now separately leased for forty shillings per annum; and besides the payment of this increased rent, the lessee was bound by this lease to find the surveyor and steward of the said Lord Bishop, “with provision for man and horse during the holding of his court upon the premises.” The ordinance which was issued on the sixteenth of November, 1646, for the sale of Bishops’ lands and estates for the service of the Commonwealth, was followed by a valuation of these estates in England and Wales; and from that valuation we learn the following particulars relative to Paddington:—
On the fourteenth of December, 1649, “The manner of Paddington wth ye appurten’ces” was sold to Thomas Browne for the sum of three thousand nine hundred and fifty-eight pounds, seventeen shillings and four pence. How long Mr. Browne enjoyed the revenues of this manor, or what arrangement was come to with respect to this particular purchase on the re-establishment of the episcopacy, I do not know. Lysons informs us that “by the parish accounts, it appears Thomas Browne, esquire, was lord of the manor in 1657,” and it is very probable he continued so after the prelacy was restored; but unfortunately these parish accounts are not now to be found; otherwise more information on this subject, as well as many others, might be obtained. When Dr. Gilbert Sheldon was appointed to the bishoprick of London, after the restoration, he claimed the manor, and rectory of Paddington. If he made his claim good, which he appears to have done, it is quite evident that Sir Oliver St. John stood in his former position with regard to this estate; and although he might not have had the opportunity to renew his lease between the restoration and his death, which took place in 1662, (and not in 1661, as is asserted both by Lysons and Collins vide Peerage, vol. vi.), I found Sir Oliver’s will at Doctor’s Commons; it was proved on the twenty-eighth of June, 1662. He therein directs the sale of certain estates for the purpose of paying his debts, and for enabling his trustees to take another lease of the manor, “which he held of the Bishop of London in Paddington” at that time, and the lease was to be taken either for three lives, or for twenty-one years. But the new bishop had nephews, to whom, it appears he was more willing to grant a lease of this manor than to those whose ancestors had purchased it, and in whose family it had remained for upwards of a century. It would appear that Bishop Sheldon’s relatives received the profits of the manor and rectory of Paddington for nearly eighty years; but Lysons has made a mistake in stating the manor was purchased by Sir John Frederick in 1741; for in the preamble of the first Act of Parliament On the ninth of November, in the thirty-eighth of Henry the eighth, an inquisition was held on the property of Henry Horne, who was found to have died, seized of “one capital messuage, three other messuages or tenements, and one close of land containing by estimation six acres, with appurtenances, in Paddington, which were holden of the lord king, as of his manor of Paddington by fealty, and twelvepence rent for all services, and not in chief; and they are worth by the year three pounds ten shillings.” Escaet 38th Henry VIII. Armigell Waad had licence to alien to Wm. Cecil, Knight, “A messuage and one hundred and twenty acres of land in Kentish Town, Padintun, Hamstead, and St. Pancras.” Pat. 5. Eliz. p. 7. For these references I am indebted to Edlyne Tomlins, esq., and with the exception of those already given, they are all I have been able to procure relative to the estates of private holders of lands in olden times; and of the more modern estates in Paddington I have not much to say. The names still retained by several plots of land point to their previous owners. Desborough House; Denis Chirac, jeweller to Queen Anne, built a large house on Paddington-green, which was called Paddington house. And by an entry in the vestry minutes for May, 1821, I find he was admitted a tenant of the manor on the twenty-fourth of April, 1753, and was permitted to inclose the portion of the green in front of his house. This house was situated at the east-side of the green, very near to the Harrow-Road, and the piece of land enclosed was a narrow strip along the southern-side of the old green. Lysons tells us “Lord Craven has an estate in this parish This land was not used, however, during the plague of 1848–49; and at the present time a grand London-square, called Craven Gardens, alone indicates the site of the Paddington pest-house field. This property consisting of two messuages and nine acres of land was purchased by the trustees of this charity-estate of one Jane Upton, widow, and her son, with consent of the minor’s trustees, for fifteen hundred and seventy pounds. The poor inhabitants of the parishes of St. Clement’s Danes, St. Martin’s-in-the-fields, St. James’s, Westminster, and St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, were to be specially benefitted by these houses and this land. But I must refer those who wish to know more of this charity to the private acts concerning it. Mr Orme, formerly a print-seller in Bond-street, purchased property west of Craven-hill. Mr. Neild is the lessee of all the land claimed by the Dean and Chapter of Westminster in this parish; and is said to have purchased land in and near Paddington, of the descendants of Dr. Busby. A Mr. White now owns land at Westbourn; the Grand Junction Canal Company; the Grand Junction Water Works Company; and the Great Western Railway Company, are large proprietors. Many pieces of land have been given, and purchased for charitable uses; and in 1852 no less than fifty persons claimed to be registered as county voters for freehold land held by them in Paddington. It is not, however, the object of this work to exhibit the COMMONS AND WASTE.Commons originally were those lands which had not been brought into cultivation by the spade and the plough, over which, all who used the spade and the plough had certain rights in common. When the rights of the people over the soil were more limited by the law, there was attached to every portion of arable land a certain portion of waste, over which these common rights extended; and these lands were as much, in proportion, the property of the poorest occupier as of the richest holder. Commons have also been defined to be “wastes and pastures which have never been exclusively appropriated by any individual, but used in common by the inhabitants of a parish or district.” In Paddington, the commons were in more senses than one, “commons without stint,” for they were not only used by the inhabitants all the year round, but the quantity assigned was, for centuries, amply sufficient for all their wants; and these commons in Paddington were not confined to that “universal right” called “commons appendant,” for the people here had the right of taking the material from the neighbouring wood, for their fire as well as for the repair of their houses, carts, and hedges. To those who had obtained the lordship of the soil, the preservation of these commonable rights was of much less importance than to the people, for that which was gained by the labourers’ toil from the waste, and the wood, went to increase the domains of the lord, or to enrich some private owner. To the lords, the Roman law which “considered the individual member of the state,” was much more inviting than the ancient law of England, which “based itself upon the family bond.” The better to secure individual rights, so acquired, the cultivated land was enclosed. But this enclosure of lands Where the allotment for the poor of Paddington was situated; when it was set apart; or what was its extent, I have not been able to discover from any positive evidence now existing; but my impression is that the little piece of charity land remaining in Westbourn indicates the site of a much more extensive portion of the common field which was set apart for the uses of the poor. It is a popular notion that the lord of the manor is entitled to the waste, but this is by no means the case in every manor. In the neighbouring manor of Abbot’s Kensington, we find that “the commons” were “presented” with “Notting-hill, the waste by the highways, and the Gravel Pits,” as lately as 1672; The usual proportion given to the lord for his right in the soil is one-sixteenth. It is true that waste land, and a common field existed in Paddington down to a recent date; and it is equally true, that some kind of right over this land was acknowledged to be vested The common field appears to have existed on each side of the Westbourn, extending, with the poor allotment, from that which is now called the Uxbridge-road to a considerable distance north and east; the portion on the western side the stream being called the Westbourn, or Bayswater, field; the portion on the eastern side, the Town field, corrupted into “Downes?” On the Paddington side, all that remained of the common waste was the Village-green; and for this the villagers must have had the greatest affection. It was their Home-field; on it their forefathers had made merry, and here they had trodden by hereditary right. Yes by hereditary right! And seeing that the title of the noble has descended by law to his feeble son, and the estates of the frugal man to his spendthrift heir; how highly must the people of Paddington appreciate that justice which has preserved to them so magnificent a portion of their ancestors possessions! Unfortunately for the reputation of the past there are but few places to be found where the rights of the weak have not been most shamefully encroached upon by the strong; and the little village of Paddington affords not the least remarkable example of these glaring defects in the working of “our glorious constitution.” Here, as elsewhere, might has usurped the place of right; cunning has lent a helping hand, and documents which would the most plainly bear witness to this fact have been destroyed. However, the one great fact that “land has been lost” remains to speak for itself; and the “eternal remedy” will assuredly come sooner or later, although the wronged be now cast down, and the wrong doer walk so seemingly secure. “The blessings which civilization and philosophy” have brought with them have been undoubtedly a great benefit to the poor as well as to the rich; and one of the most powerful writers of the present day has thought it necessary to point out how those benefits offer a compensation for the loss of many ancient rights and privileges. The tales told of the robberies of public property in Paddington are more fitted for the pages of a romance or a novel, than a sober history. And as to these robberies in Paddington, the dramatist, the novelist, and the writers of romance, have done much more than the historian to expose and correct the vices of the past. One of Mr. Charles Ollier’s novels And if the incidents connected with Paddington Green and its neighbourhood had not been more melo-dramatic than farcical, one might have imagined that the little farce Let those who believe the villagers’ green to be the least altered place in Paddington, turn to Chatelain’s beautiful little delineation of it, as it appeared to him in 1750, or to a larger print published in 1783. In 1783, the enclosed green included all that land which extends from its present eastern extremity to Dudley-house on the west; that is to say, all the present Green, and all the land south of the pathway, from the Green to St. Mary’s Terrace; and from the Harrow-road across this green there was a public foot path to the church, the old church-yard and some houses. Although the Green has wasted to its present dimensions, and although the “commons and waste,” in Paddington have vanished, the following notices, which I have found on the minutes of the Vestry, will shew that the parish has received some compensation for the inclosure of certain pieces of waste, besides those purchased by the bishop and his lessees:— Extracts from the Vestry Minutes.—1794, September twenty-second: at a meeting of the inhabitants, held this day, Mrs. L. le Brown, of Black-lion lane, was permitted to fill up a ditch and enclose the space of ___ feet by ___ feet, upon condition of paying ten shillings per annum to the parish. At the same meeting, Mr. Crompton presented the parish with two plans, one of the entire parish, the other of the waste and charity lands; both appear to have been taken in 1772, by Mr. Waddington, land surveyor. 1801. July 15th: Mr. Cockerell applied to enclose part of the waste of Westbourne green, north and east of the Harrow-road, and agreed to place in the hands of the trustees enough money to produce a dividend of three pounds per annum. On the eleventh of November, in the same year, Mr. White proposed to transfer one hundred pounds to the names of trustees, for the use of the poor, for permission to enclose a piece of land near the Harrow-road and by the side of the canal. The permission was granted. Mr. Kelly also made an application for another piece, but it was resolved that, “as it would have a tendency to establish a precedent for the indiscriminate alienation of the waste, this application cannot consistently with the interests of the parish be complied with.” 1802, October 20th: Mr. Harper is allowed to enclose a piece of waste, the quantity not stated; but the rent to be three pounds per annum, per acre. In this year four hundred pounds were paid by Mr. Cockerell, and one hundred pounds by Mr. White, for the land they had enclosed. 1803, April 12th: the Parish apply to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster for a piece of waste near Westbourn-green, on the south side of the Harrow-road. The application refused. The minutes of the same month, twentieth—notice that the Bishop of London and his lessees had refused to allow the parish to enclose that portion of the Bayswater field belonging to the parish. 1812, September 1st: Mr. Hicks is allowed to enclose a piece of waste, 440 feet long, by 25 feet in breadth, extending from the Uxbridge-road along the south and west side of Black Lion lane; and this he is permitted to do without payment, in consequence of the services he has rendered to the parish for forty years. In September, 1818, there is a letter from George Gutch, In 1825, forty-eight pounds, six shillings and six-pence was paid by Mr. Jenkins, for permission to enclose a piece of waste land near his grounds. When Mr. Jenkins’s land was sold, the parish attempted to establish their claim to this waste, but the claim set up by the bishop of London and his lessees, as lords of the manor superseded it. There is a notice on the minutes this year for the first time respecting the interference of the lords of the manor in the disposal of the waste lands. But although these lords at this time claimed for themselves “its entire control,” the vestry, nevertheless, gave their permission to Mr. Orme to enclose a piece opposite his land, near the second milestone on the Harrow road. No mention is made of money paid on this occasion. As late as 1830 an application from Mr. Nield was laid before the vestry, for pieces of waste adjoining property leased to and purchased by him; and on the seventh of June in the following year, the Rev. chairman reported “that Joseph Neild, Esq., M.P. had paid to the treasurer the following sums for waste lands:”
What took place with respect to the waste lands previous to 1794, there is, unfortunately, now no means of telling, for no vestry minutes are to be found previous to 1793.
The question “What has become of the Charity Lands?” which has been so often asked in other parishes, has been occasionally put to those in authority in this; but so far as I can discover, no satisfactory answer has been returned—unless indeed we may deem it satisfactory to hear “that charity has been so little needed here, that much of that land which was given for this purpose, has been lost.” In the “Abstract of the returns of charitable donations for the benefit of poor persons, made to the House of Commons, by the ministers and churchwardens of the several parishes and townships in England and Wales, 1786 to 1788,” we find the following answers returned by the minister and churchwardens of Paddington: Name of the person who gave the charity? 1—Unknown. 2—Margaret Robinson, and Thomas Johnson. 3—Dr. Henry Compton. When given? 1—Unknown. 2—Unknown. 3—Uncertain. Whether by will or deed? 1—Uncertain. 2—Unknown. 2—Deed. Description of the charity, and for what purpose given? 1—For bread, cheese and beer to the inhabitants. 2—For apprenticing poor children. 3—To the poor. 1—Land. 2—Ditto. 3—Ditto. In whom now vested? All in the churchwardens. The clear annual produce of that given in land, after deducting the rents issuing thereout?
Almost all is “unknown” and “uncertain,” in this Return, and this is the more to be lamented, as it was about the time at which this report was made that the value of land in Paddington began to be known by those who intended to secure the sanction of the legislature to a measure which would enhance its value. Since that time, the “Report of the Commissioners for enquiring concerning Charities,” (1826), has been published, and some little light has been thrown on this subject. This report contains, in fact, almost all that I have been able to discover relative to the Charity Lands; and I cannot do better than reprint it in this place; adding what little information I have been able to obtain.
The account referred to, was made out by the late vestry clerks, Messrs. Robertson and Parton, both of whom are since dead. Bread and Cheese Lands.The lands thus denominated are said to have been given by two maiden gentlewomen, for the purpose of supplying the poor with a donation of bread and cheese, on the Sunday before Christmas. Neither the names of the donors, nor the date of the gift is known, but it is a very ancient one. The land consists of three parcels, viz. 1.—A piece of arable land lying in the common field, called Bayswater field, in this parish, containing two and a half acres, in the occupation (at the time of taking the account) of John Harper, Esq., at the rent of five guineas per annum. This piece was formerly called Five Pieces, and afterwards Three Pieces; it is now divided into two holdings; one, being one and a half acres, is let to Samuel Cheese, as tenant from year to year, at a rent of thirteen pounds; the remainder to Thomas Hopgood, as tenant from year to year, at the rent of four pounds ten shillings. This land lies intermixed with lands respectively belonging to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, and the Bishop of London; and there is a dispute existing among these parties as to the boundaries of their respective properties. The parish claim an acre as belonging to Hopgood’s holding, but they take from the tenant rent for half an acre only, till the dispute be settled. 2.—Another piece of land (formerly two), containing one acre, two roods, and twenty-four perches, lying on the southwest side of the Harrow road at Westbourne Green, and forming part of the lawn and grounds belonging to Westbourne-place, the property of Samuel Pepys Cockerell, Esq. This land, at the time of taking the account, was held by Mr. Cockerell at the annual rent of seven pounds. It has since been demised to him by the churchwardens and overseers, in pursuance of an order of vestry, together with a small piece of waste land lying between the above and the road, containing one acre and seven perches, which he has enclosed and added to his lawn; making together one acre, three roods, and thirteen This lease is granted in consideration of the surrender of a former lease, and of the charge which the lessee had been at in inclosing and cultivating the said piece of waste land, and of the sum of money paid by him to the parish on account of such inclosure; and it is provided that the lessee shall keep up the nine stones, or land-marks, marked P. P. in the places where they now stand, to ascertain the boundaries of the land; and that if the land, or any part of it, or any part of the lawn or grounds adjoining to it on the west and south, and within thirty yards of the same, should, at any time during the term, be let for and used as building ground, it shall be lawful for the churchwardens and overseers for the time being, with the consent of the vestry, to determine the lease at the expiration of any one year of the said term, upon giving six months’ notice in writing. 3.—Another piece of meadow or pasture land, lying near Black Lion lane, in this parish, containing one acre or thereabouts, in the occupation of William Kinnard Jenkins, Esq., under a lease to Jacob Simmonds, for sixty-three years, from Christmas, 1802, at the rent of eight pounds, eight shillings per annum. This lease appears from the vestry minutes to have been granted to Mr. Simmonds, in consideration of his covenanting to lay out the sum of three hundred pounds at least in building on the land, and to contain a reservation of all timber, with power for the grantors, (who are the churchwardens and overseers of the parish) and their successors, to fell and carry away the same, and to restrain the lessees from digging brick-earth, sand, or gravel for sale, or from carrying such earth, sand, gravel or bricks off the land. Simmonds built a good house upon the premises, which have been materially improved by the present tenant. Much more than the stipulated sum has been expended there. It appears to us that all the foregoing rents are adequate to the present value of the respective premises. With the rents of this land it was formerly the custom to purchase bread and cheese, which, on the Sunday before Christmas, were thrown down from the church among the poor assembled in the church-yard. Latterly, a less objectionable mode of distribution has been adopted: bread and coals are now given by the minister and parish officers to poor families inhabiting the parish, of whom a list is made out annually Johnson’s Charity.The account above referred to mentions a rent-charge of one pound a-year, given by Thomas Johnson, merchant-tailor, of London, issuing out of three houses on the east side of Paddington Green, and payable on St. Thomas’s-day in every year, in the following proportions:—
It is not stated when this benefaction was given, nor to what purposes it was appropriated. In the returns of 1786, it is said that this, and Mrs. Robertson’s benefaction after mentioned were given for apprenticing poor children; but they are not now so applied. It appears indeed that Johnson’s rent-charge goes into the churchwarden’s general account, and it is not the subject of any particular application. This seems to have arisen from inadvertence, as it is understood to have been a charitable gift; and we are assured that it shall in future be corrected. Dr. Compton’s Charity.There is a copyhold estate in the Harrow-road, held of the manor of Paddington, and which is stated in the account to have been the gift of Dr. Compton, bishop of London, lord of the said manor, by the description of “one cottage and a piece of land.” The estate now consists of six houses: one of these is at present occupied as a poor house, the rest are let and occupied in the following manner:—
Successive admissions are found on the court-rolls of the manor of Paddington, of certain parishioners as tenants of this and the other copyhold property mentioned below, to the use of them, their heirs and assigns, in trust for the use and benefit of the poor of the parish of Paddington. The last of these entries bears date the ___ 1822, when the late Francis Maseres, esq., John Symmons, esq., the Rev. Charles Crane, D.D., Samuel Pepys Cockerell, esq., Joseph Neild, the younger, esq., John White, esq., and Benjamin Hall, esq., were admitted tenants in trust in the form above stated. Margaret Robertson’s Charity.It appears from “the account” that Mrs. Margaret Robertson, by will, dated sixteenth September, 1720, gave for the use of the poor of this parish, a copyhold estate, on the west side of the Edgeware-road, consisting of a messuage and garden. This property now comprises five houses lately erected under an agreement, dated first March, 1823, whereby in consideration of the surrender of a former lease for sixty-two years, from Lady-day, 1763, at the rent of three pounds ten shillings, the trustees agreed with Stephen Haynes, that they would, as soon as the five messuages, therein agreed to be built, should be covered in, grant to him a lease of the said premises, for the term of twenty-one years, from Lady-day, 1824, at the rent of fifteen pounds, clear of all taxes, with the usual covenants for repairs; and the said Stephen Haynes covenanted to pull down the old buildings, and erect thereon five substantial messuages, according to the specification therein contained. These premises lie at the junction of the Harrow and Edgeware roads, and adjoin two small houses newly erected, which come up to the point of junction, belonging to another proprietor. Alms’ Houses and School-house.There is in the parish a set of alms’ houses, copyhold of the manor of Paddington, consisting of seventeen dwellings, containing one apartment each. Thirteen of these, as appears by an inscription in front of the building, were erected in 1714, at the expense of the inhabitants, for the poor past their labour. The four additional dwellings were built by Samuel Pepys Cockerell, esq.: two of them to be occupied as alms’ houses, and two for the master and mistress of the charity-school. The alms’ houses are inhabited by paupers placed there by the parish. The charity-school has been built near these alms’ houses, upon copyhold land, granted for the purpose by the present bishop. The expense of this erection was defrayed from subscription in the parish, and by the application of certain monies received by the parish as a consideration for the enclosure of some waste land. Chirac’s Gift.Denis Chirac, esq., by his will, dated ninth August, 1775, gave to Francis Maseres and Peter Paget, esqrs., one hundred pounds to be laid out or applied as they should think proper for the use and benefit of the charity children of Paddington. This legacy was applied by Mr. Baron Maseres, together with one hundred and twenty pounds, a year’s rent of his own estate in the parish, towards the building of the school-room. Abourne’s Charity.George Abourne, esq., by will, dated fifth August, 1767, gave, after the death of certain persons therein named, the dividends of three hundred pounds in the four per cent. consolidated bank annuities, in meat and bread to as many poor families as might have eight pounds of good beef and a half-peck loaf a-piece, to be given twice a-year, every Michaelmas and every Lady-day, for ever; and all the butchers and all the bakers of the place where he should be buried, to take their turns in serving the meat and bread. This legacy is now three hundred pounds three per cent. reduced annuities, standing in the name of the testator, George Abourne. The dividends, nine pounds a year, are received by Benjamin Edward Hall, esq., as executor of James Crompton, Mr. Hall furnished us with a statement of the receipts and expenditure from the time that the charity came into action in 1792, from which it appears that, one year with another, more has been given than the amount of the dividends. The poor of this parish owe much to Messrs. Robertson and Parton for the trouble they took to preserve the memory of those rights which remained at the time they accepted the office of vestry-clerks. Had it not been for their exertions, I very much question, judging from what had taken place and from the state of affairs when they were appointed, whether anything respecting these lands would have been known now; and there can be no doubt but their “account” was a very imperfect one. All those who were benefited by past peculation, would studiously avoid giving these gentlemen the benefit of their knowledge; and even now it is exceedingly difficult to obtain any traditional information on this subject. One of the oldest tenants of the charity-lands plainly said to me, with a blunt honesty I could not but admire, “You’ll excuse me, Sir, but if I could tell you any thing, I wouldn’t.” I have already mentioned my notions respecting the origin of the term “Bread and Cheese Lands.” The tale which is told, and which has hitherto been generally received, is to be found in the London Magazine, for December, 1737:—“Sunday, 18th, this day, according to annual custom, bread and cheese were thrown from Paddington Steeple to the populace, agreeably to the will of two women who were relieved there with bread and cheese when they were almost starved, and Providence afterwards favouring them, they left an estate in that parish to continue the custom for ever on that day.” This custom was continued down to about 1838; a single slice of cheese and a penny loaf, being, at last, all that The dispute about the half-acre is settled, as I am informed, by the bishop having established his right to it; and the whole of the second portion of the bread and cheese lands, mentioned in this Report, was sold to the Great Western Railway Company for £1,200. There remains, therefore, of this charity-estate only a portion of the first, and the third parcels, reported on by the Committee of the House of Commons. On the twenty-seventh of July, 1838, the first and second Victoria, Chap. 32, “An Act for enabling the trustees of certain lands situate in the Parish of Paddington, in the county of Middlesex, to grant building leases of the said lands and for other purposes,” confirmed an order of the Court of Chancery relative to the appointment of trustees, and the disposal of the proceeds of this freehold estate. By this Act six trustees are appointed, and future appointments are to be made by the vestry, whenever the number is reduced to three; and to these, and their successors, power is given to grant building leases. And after the payment of all costs and charges relative to their trust, they are directed to “pay and apply the rents and profits arising from the said Charity Estates, in manner following, that is to say, the same to be divided into five equal parts, three-fifths thereof to be applied towards the support of the Paddington Parochial National and Infant Schools, for the instruction of boys and girls, children of poor persons residing in the said parish of Paddington; one other fifth-part towards apprenticing or instructing in business, for their future support, boys and girls, the children of parishioners of and not having received parochial relief from the said parish; and the remaining one-fifth part in the distribution of bread and cheese, coals, blankets, and other necessary articles, at the discretion of the said trustees, for the benefit of and amongst poor parishioners of the said parish not receiving parochial relief.” By the ninth section of this Act, the money paid into the Court of Exchequer for that portion of the estate sold to the Great Western Railway Company, was assigned to the application for and expenses incurred in obtaining this Act. The schedule which is annexed to this Act describes the
Messrs. Hopgood and Cheese are still the tenants of the land north of the Uxbridge-road. The house and grounds, situated “near Black-lion lane,” are now in the occupation of Mr. G. P. Shapcott. With respect to what Bishop Compton gave to the poor of this parish, little appears to be known. The deed of gift cannot be found; but from many circumstances, I am inclined to believe it was the land on which the Alms’-houses now stand, and not that estate which is situated at the entrance of the Harrow-road, for which the poor are indebted to this bishop. The houses, described in the report under “Dr. Compton’s charity,” were pulled down ten or eleven years ago, and the ground was let on building leases; six large and handsome houses, including the public-house, were built on the ground on which the old poor-house, &c. stood; and, as I have been informed, these houses pay to the trustees of the charity-estate a ground rent averaging forty pounds per house. By the cash accounts, it will be seen that the “Enfranchised Copyholds” have for many years past produced an annual income of upwards of five hundred pounds. The “Freehold rents” appear from the same accounts, to be seventy-one pounds and a few shillings per annum. Of the trustees mentioned in the report as having been admitted tenants in trust for the copyhold estates, in 1822, only one, I believe, is now living. New leases have been granted for “Margaret Robertson’s charity,” and also “Dr. Compton’s charity,” by trustees appointed under an order of the Court of Chancery. These charities are now called “The Enfranchised Copyhold Estate.” I am informed by the Rev. Mr. Campbell that the proceeds are applied in the same manner as the rents of “The Freehold Estate,” but that a separate trust exists. I was very desirous to have ascertained the exact dimensions of these separate estates, now held for the benefit of the poor of this parish; but, unfortunately, on my application to the trustees I found they had held their half-yearly meeting. Lysons, writing in 1794 or 5, says, “A benefaction of five pounds per annum, given by Mrs. Margaret Robinson, for the purpose of apprenticing poor children has been lost.” This charity must not be mistaken for a donation of five pounds, which is recorded on the panels in front of the gallery of St. Mary’s Church. On the vestry minutes, I find two entries relative to the copyhold charity-estates; one in October, 1800, the other in May, 1821. From the first entry, I learn that each of the said premises therein described was held at a quit-rent of six-pence per annum. The piece of ground belonging to the alms’ houses is described as “a piece of ground, formerly waste, lying upon Paddington-green;” having 80-feet of frontage, and 90-feet of depth, which was increased by two other pieces; one “in front of the alms’ houses,” 13-feet 10-inches in breadth, by 70-feet long. The other on the east of the alms’ houses, 24-feet broad, by 113-feet 9-inches from north to south. If to this latter piece we add that which was to be given up by the Grand Junction Canal Company, (13-feet by 116 feet) we shall get at all that has been known of the alms’-house land during this century. But these minutes shew there were other pieces of copyhold formerly held in trust for the poor, which have “escheated” into the lord’s domain, or “merged” into other private hands.
The policy which has raised the manor and rectory of Paddington to its present value In 1753, Thomas (Sherlock), then bishop of London, and Sir John Frederick, then lessee of the manor, were parties to an agreement with the parishioners of Paddington; and procured for them, or assisted in procuring, “An Act for enlarging the church-yard of the parish of Paddington, in the county of Middlesex;” which ratified that agreement. It had been agreed, and was now enacted, that “a certain piece or parcel of ground, adjoining to the east side of the said church-yard, containing from east to west, on the north side thereof, ninety-six feet of assize; and from north to south, on the east side thereof, one hundred and eighty four-feet of assize; and from east to west, on the south side thereof, one hundred and twenty-one feet of assize; and from north to south, on the west side thereof, one hundred and thirty-two feet of assize” should “be annexed to the present cemetery or church-yard of the said parish of Paddington,” for ever: The churchwardens, or one of them, paying, after the twenty-fourth of June, 1753, during the continuance of For defraying the expenses of this Act and enclosing the said ground, the inhabitants were permitted to borrow a sum not exceeding two hundred and fifty pounds at four per cent. interest. Sir John Frederick died in 1755, having made a will, dated twenty-seventh of February, 1734, in which he leaves his estate to his sons “in tail male, remainder to the heirs male of the testator’s own body, remainder to his own right heirs;” and added a codicil, dated April tenth, 1742, in which he notices that, since the making his said will, he had purchased the site and capital messuage of the manor of Paddington, held by lease for three lives from the Bishop of London, and “he thereby gave and demised the same to the trustees, in his said will, their heirs and assigns, during the lives of Judith Jodrell, John Affleck, and John Crozier the younger, in the said lease named, and for the life of the longest liver of them, upon trust, out of the rents and profits, to pay the rent reserved by the said lease, and perform the lessees’ covenants therein, and to renew the said lease as occasion should require, and raise the fines and charges for such renewals, and subject thereto, should stand seized of the said leasehold premises, in His eldest son, Sir John Frederick, held and enjoyed the same during his life; and, as he died intestate and without issue, in the month of March, 1757, it came to his second son, Sir Thomas Frederick, who had two daughters. In 1763, the third year of George the third, Richard, (Osbaldeston), then Bishop of London, and Sir Thomas Frederick, then lessee of the manor, agreed to “An Act for vesting certain parcels of land in Paddington, in the county of Middlesex, in the Rector and Churchwardens of the parish of Saint George, Hanover-square, in the said county, and appropriating the same for a burial-ground for the said parish;” by which “five acres or thereabouts, lying at the west-end of the field called Tyburn Field,” and a piece of waste, lying between the highway leading from London to Uxbridge, and the said field, were settled upon and vested in the rectors and churchwardens of the said parish, for ever. These lands being “discharged from the uses in Sir John Frederick’s will, and annexed to the parish of St. George, Hanover-square;” and the life estate or interest in the said five acres of ground having been purchased of Sir Thomas Frederick, the churchwardens agreed, and were bound, to pay, after the decease of Sir Thomas, fifteen pounds per annum to the person or persons who shall be entitled to the site of the manor of Paddington, and the rest of the said leasehold premises under and by virtue of the will and codicils of the said Sir John Frederick, “during the present or any subsequent lease to be granted thereof;” and to “the Bishop of London, and his successors, during the time that the said site of the said manor, and the rest of the said leasehold premises, shall remain in the proper hands and possession of the said bishop, or his successors, and not in lease, to or for the benefit of any person or persons, claiming or to claim under or by virtue of the will and codicils of the said Sir John Frederick, the clear yearly sum of twenty-five pounds;” and to “the churchwardens for the time being of the said Parish of Paddington, for ever, the clear yearly sum of forty-shillings, in lieu of all parochial rates, taxes, and assessments which may, or otherwise might, be due and payable to the said parish of Paddington for or in respect of the said intended burial-ground, or In 1795, a private Act of Parliament, the 35th Geo. III, cap. 83, entitled “An Act for enabling the Lord Bishop of London to grant a lease with powers of renewal of lands in the parish of Paddington, in the county of Middlesex; for the purpose of building upon,” received the sanction of the legislature. We are informed by the preamble of this Act, which occupies thirty-two Act of Parliament pages, and recites wholly or in part fifteen indentures; We are further informed, that this Gascoigne Frederick died intestate, leaving Mary Frederick, Elizabeth Snell, and Susannah Frederick, all of Bampton, in the county of Oxford, his only surviving sisters and co-heirs at law. We are also informed, that in this lease of the fourteenth of August, 1776, Gascoigne Frederick’s “name was made use of therein only for the use and benefit of Elizabeth Frederick and Selina Frederick,” and that they, with their husbands, applied to the ladies of Bampton to sell all the hereditaments and premises demised to the said Gascoigne Frederick, in 1776; and which these ladies kindly did for ten shillings a-piece, as is witnessed by indentures, dated fifth and sixth of February, 1781, which re-convey the said lease and leasehold premises to trustees for the purposes mentioned in the will and codicil of Sir John Frederick, and in the marriage-settlements of the granddaughters of the aforesaid baronet. By a “fine sur concessit,” levied in Trinity Term, in the twenty-second year of George the third, “in order to dock, bar, and extinguish all estates, tail,” &c, this estate was conveyed These indentures are dated respectively the fifth of July, 1782, and fourth of March, 1783. They are set forth, in part, in the Act now under review; and as they were executed during the minority of these ladies, there are also, as we may suppose, references to sundry opinions, reports, orders, &c. of that very ancient Court of Equity, whose interesting proceedings are so excellently depicted in “Bleak House,” by the great teacher of our time. By conveying these lay interests in this estate with other interests in private property to trustees,—by charging the whole with large sums of money,—by carrying the “remainder” over a thousand years in one case, and in the other one thousand five hundred;—by changing “the said leasehold premises from a freehold to a chattle interest;”—and then by making “the tenure thereof as nearly equal to freehold as possible;”—and by certain acts which we are about to examine, Gascoigne Frederick’s lease for three lives has been converted into as snug and nice a little property, as any lady or gentleman in the land need desire; provided always, it could be secured from the anxious care of the ancient court before mentioned, and that more modern tribunal, which will one day be instituted to examine into the claims the public may have on such estates as this. As the chief instruments in the formation of the Paddington estate are those peculiar Acts of Parliament which have been denominated “facts,” to distinguish them from “laws,” it is from these chiefly that I shall gather the facts contained in this chapter: and as this Act of 1795 is somewhat scarce, and as the preamble affords some interesting information, I shall quote several passages from it entire:— Purchase of Waste Lands.—“And whereas there are certain Pieces or Parcels or small narrow strips of Land, containing in the whole about five acres, which lie as Waste or Commonable Lands in the Lanes and Road-Ways dispersed in, about, and within the said Parish of Paddington, and are contiguous to and in front of some of the said Lanes, Hereditaments, and Premises comprised in the said lease, between the Hedge Rows of the same Lands and the different Road and Carriage Ways Contemplated Destruction of Parsonage and other Souses.—“And whereas some few Farm Houses and Messuages have many years since been erected, and are now standing on Part of the said demised Premises, but the same with the Out Buildings are now become very ancient and much out of repair, and in some respects so very ruinous as to be incapable of being repaired; and a variety of other small and temporary Buildings of Lath and Plaster, and of a very inferior quality, have also been lately erected and built, and now are erecting and building thereon, and which by means of the Persons who inhabit therein may become a great Burthen to the said Parish in the increase of their Poor Rates, but the principal Part of the said Ground demised by the said Indenture of Lease of the fourteenth day of August, 1776, still lies open and unbuilt upon, and on account of its vicinity to London, the whole is capable of very great and capital improvement, and if such Improvements were made would render a very large Increase of Rent, as well to the said Lessees and their Heirs and Assigns, as to the said Lord Bishop and his Successors for the Time being, but by reason of the nature of the present Tenure such Improvements cannot be effected, and therefore in order to induce Builders and other Persons to take the same and build capital Houses and Squares thereon, it is The Nature of the Lease to be Changed.—“And whereas it would be greatly for the Benefit and Advantage of the said Lord Bishop of London and of his Successors, and of the said Sir John Morshead and Dame Elizabeth, his wife, and their Issue, (instead of granting Leases for Lives as has been usual and customary on Fines paid for the same) if a power was given to the said Lord Bishop and his Successors to grant a new Lease of the said Premisses comprised in the said Lease of the fourteenth day of August, 1776, together with the said Strips of Waste Land within the said Parish of Paddington, for such Terms of Years, and with such Powers of Renewal as are hereafter mentioned, and particularly with a power for the Lessees therein to grant Under Leases thereof, at such Rents, and under such restrictions, and in such manner as is hereinafter expressed with respect to such Original and Under Leases respectively.” Division of Profits.—“And whereas the value of the Interests of the said Lord Bishop of London and his successors and of the said Lessees in the said Premises, having been taken into consideration, it is conceived that the Rents, Issues and Profits which at present are reserved or payable, or which shall or may arise from and out of the Messuages, Lands, Hereditaments, and Premises comprised in the said Lease, or which shall hereafter be reserved or payable, or arise from and out of the said Premises, and every part thereof, upon any reserved Lease or Leases to be made under the authority of this Act, or any Under Leases in pursuance thereof or otherwise, should be appropriated between the said Bishop of London and his said Lessees in the shares hereinafter mentioned, (that is to say), One Third thereof to the Bishop and his Successors for the Time being, and Two Thirds thereof to his said Lessees, their Executors, Administrators, or Assigns, subject to the said present Annual Rents and Pension, and such other Deductions as are hereinafter mentioned.” Increase of Forty Pounds a year in the Stipend of a Single Curate.—“And whereas the said clear yearly pension or stipend of Eighty Pounds, so payable to the Curate of the said Parish of Paddington for the time being, who is appointed to serve the said Cure by the said Lord Bishop and his Successors, and which now stands charged upon the whole of the said Hereditaments and Premises so comprised in the said Lease of the Sole benefit of contemplated change, with the exceptions above mentioned, to be for the Bishop and his Lessees.—And whereas, notwithstanding it would be for the mutual benefit of the said Lord Bishop of London and his successors, and the said Sir John Morshead and Dame Elizabeth his Wife and their infant issue, and the said Robert Thistlethwayte and Selina his Wife and their Infant issue as aforesaid, that the said herein-before mentioned Proposals should be carried into complete Execution, yet the same cannot be effected without the aid of Parliament.” Wherefore His Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, Beilby (Porteus) Lord Bishop of London, on behalf of himself and his successors, Thomas Wood, (the surviving Trustee of the marriage settlements of the under-mentioned ladies,) Sir John Morshead and Dame Elizabeth his Wife, on behalf of themselves and their six children, Robert Thistlethwayte and Selina his Wife, on behalf of themselves and their six children, and Sir John Frederick and Arthur Stanhope (new trustees appointed under the provisions of the aforesaid marriage settlements) joined in beseeching his Majesty that it might be enacted, and it was enacted, in the usual form: “That it shall and may be lawful to and for the said Beilby, Lord Bishop of London, and his successors for the time being, and he and they are hereby required and directed by Indenture under the Episcopal Seal of the said Lord Bishop, and his successors, to demise, lease, and to farm let” to the said trustees “their Executors, Administrators, or Assigns, or the Trustees or Trustee for the time being, to be hereafter named or appointed under the Powers” of Indentures of settlement of the 5th of July, 1782, and 4th of March, 1783, partly recited in this Act, all the “Hereditaments whatsoever of the The Act provides “That before the Execution of the said first Indenture of Lease, or of any Indenture of Renewal, and at the end of every year afterwards there shall be delivered by the Lessees therein to be named to the said Bishop and his successors, or his or their Agent or Steward, a true and particular account, in writing, of the Rent or Rents, at which the Premises thereby to be leased, are then let or demised, and to whom, and for what term or number of years respectively.” The Act also provides “that there be reserved in such Lease and renewed Leases a chief rent chargeable on the said Lands, Tenements, &c.,” “for the benefit of the said Lord Bishop of London and his successors for the time being, of forty-three It was also provided that the aforesaid pension or annual stipend of £120, payable to the curate, should be secured on and made payable from the tithes of the Parish of Paddington, also on “a farm, called Kilburn Bridge Farm, containing about forty acres or thereabouts, and of the yearly value of £230.” It was also provided, that the lease now to be granted or any renewed lease should contain such or the like covenants as are mentioned and contained in the Indenture of the fourteenth of August, 1776, “touching the accommodation of the Surveyor or Steward of the said Lord Bishop and his successors, their servants and horses, on any court or courts, survey or surveys to be held of or for the said Premises.” “Provided always, that there be a covenant inserted in such Lease and Leases so to be granted as aforesaid, that the said Thomas Wood, Sir John Frederick, and Arthur Stanhope, their Executors, Administrators, and Assigns, or any succeeding Trustee or Trustees to be appointed as aforesaid, their or his Executors, Administrators, or Assigns shall not lease or demise any part of the said Hereditaments and Premises to be comprised in the Leases so to be granted to them as aforesaid, except in the manner hereinafter mentioned.” A power was given to the said Trustees or their Assigns to demise any part of the said premises comprised in the lease and leases to be granted by the bishop and his successors, “not exceeding two hundred acres thereof,” without application to The leases were to contain covenants to build and keep in repair the messuages, &c. agreed to be built, and to keep these buildings “insured from damage by fire to the amount of four-fifths of the value thereof;” and “to surrender and leave in repair the messuages, &c. to be erected and built, or rebuilt and repaired” at the end of the term or terms in such leases granted. And all “other usual and proper covenants, provisos, and conditions” were to be inserted “usually contained in building leases near the City of London.” These under-lettings were to take place from time to time by public auction to the best bidder, (if approved of by the bishop and his lessees), notice of the time and place of such auction having been given to the bishop or his agent by the said lessees. Separate lots were to be made for every house, “whose breadth in front shall be twenty-eight feet and upwards;” and for houses of smaller dimensions no more than one hundred feet frontage was to be let in one lot. The under-lessees were to be bound to build on this land, so taken, within a specified time, “and agreeably to such a plan as shall be approved by the Lord Bishop of London and his successors, and the said lessees for the time being.” Three counterparts of these under-leases were to be provided, one to be delivered to the bishop or his agent, for the registration of which a fee of six shillings and eight pence was to be paid; the other two being for the trustees of the two families interested in the Bishop’s lease. Any number of these sub-leases might be taken by any one person, so that the quantity altogether did not amount “to more than fifteen acres of the said land.” It was also provided, that “Farm Leases at Rack-rent for twenty-one years may be granted with the consent of the Bishop of London,” but to be determinable on six months’ notice being given. The trustees were not to make any leases under the authority of this Act, without the consent in writing of Sir John and Lady Morshead, and Mr. and Mrs. Thistlethwayte. And this Act was not to prevent the Bishop and his Lessees from treating with the Grand Junction Canal Proprietors “for such part or parts of the said premises, over and above the number of acres hereinbefore limited for building on;” neither did it do so; for by “An Act for making a Navigable Cut from the Grand Junction Canal, in the precinct of Norwood, in the county of Middlesex, to Paddington, in the said county,” passed in the same year as the preceding, the 35th Geo. III, cap. 43, we find that although the cut was not to be made through the Paddington Estate without the consent of owners yet that consent had already been given as to certain lands at Westbourn-green; and in 1798, by an Act for confirming and carrying into execution certain articles of Agreement made and entered into between Beilby, Lord Bishop of London, the Lessees of the Paddington Estate, and the Company of Proprietors of the Grand Junction Canal, “and for other purposes therein mentioned”—the 38th Geo. III, cap. 33.—we find that the said Company had then entered into a covenant with the said Lord Bishop, and his lessees, for certain other Pieces or Parcels of Land lying in the Parish of Paddington, amounting in the whole to “Forty Acres, Two Roods and Thirty-seven Perches,” at a yearly rent of £814 12s. 6d. being at the rate of twenty pounds per annum per acre; also certain other Pieces or Parcels, all in the aforesaid Act particularly set forth, Nine years after the passing of the Bishop’s first Building Act, it was found that it required “altering and amending,” and the 44th Geo. III. cap. 63, was passed for that purpose; “and for granting further powers, the better to carry into execution the purposes of the said Act.” By this Act, two new trustees, Frederick Treise Morshead, eldest son of Sir John and Lady Morshead, and Henry Frederick Thistlethwayte, son of Sir Robert and Selina Thistlethwayte, were appointed in the place of Thomas Wood, deceased. And we are informed that those parts of the first Act which limited the letting to public auction only, and required, in the leases for twenty-one years, the insertion of a notice that the occupancy might be terminated after any six months thereof, were “found to be very prejudicial to the interests of the parties interested in the said estate, and a great check to the future improvement thereof,” and it was thought that it would “tend greatly to the advantage of the See of London, and the other parties interested in the said estate,” if further powers were given. These clauses of the aforesaid Act were, therefore, repealed, and in lieu thereof, the lessees or lessee of the Bishop, with his previous consent first had and obtained in writing, were allowed to treat, by private contract, or otherwise, with any person or persons, willing to build on this land, for the whole or any part of the two hundred acres in the previous Act mentioned to be let for building upon, for any term not exceeding ninety-nine years. The previous Act limited the use of the brick-clay, gravel, &c. which were dug out of this estate, to the improvement of the premises whereon these were found, but to no other purpose; Provision was made by this Act for the redemption of the land tax, which was charged at £132 per annum, the consideration for which is stated to have been £4,840 capital stock in the three per cents. This was bought for £3,075 0s. 10d., by the sale of 4A. 1R. 36½P. which brought in £3,653 4s. 5d., the expenses thereon being £64 11s. 10d. In 1805, another Act of Parliament relative to the Paddington estate, the 45th Geo. III. cap. 113, became the law of the land, and “all judges, justices, and others” were directed to admit, as evidence, printed copies thereof; but as this Act can be obtained in the usual way, my notice of it will be very brief. It recites in part the two preceding Acts; states that “considerable progress has been made for carrying into execution the said Acts;” and attempts to remove “doubts which have arisen whether the trustees of the original lease for the time being, though with the consent of the said Lord Bishop, (Beilby, still bishop of London), or his successors, have a power under the said Acts, or either of them, to enter into contracts for granting building leases at a rent to be specified in the contract, payable for the whole ground agreed to be demised; and afterwards, as the houses or buildings shall be completed or covered in, to grant separate leases of such houses or buildings, at separate rents, amounting in the whole to the rent originally contracted for.” Which mode of contracting, we are told, “is by experience found to be a necessary preliminary to the granting of any such Lease.” The Act therefore declares that the lessees or lessee of the Bishop for the time being, with his consent, may contract and agree, to demise, lease, or grant any part of the premises to be let, (but not exceeding the two hundred acres agreed to be let by the first Act,) and afterwards grant separate leases under certain conditions; one of which is that if the ground-rent of The second clause of this Act provides that a memorial of every lease, and also of every contract, shall be registered at the public Office for registering Deeds and Conveyances, as prescribed by the seventh of Anne; and that every such memorial shall contain a full description of the land, the term of years for which it was let, and the yearly rent or rents reserved thereon. Sir John Morshead being at this time absent from the kingdom, “and restrained from returning to the same by His Majesty’s enemies,” certain clauses are enacted respecting his consent being obtained, before leases are granted. In 1808, another Act “for altering and enlarging the powers” of the 35th. 44th. and 45th. of George III. appears to have become necessary; for in that year we have the 48th Geo. III. cap. 142, passed for this purpose. The preamble of this Act notices an Indenture of Assignment, bearing date on or about the twenty-fourth of July, 1807, made between Eliza Mary Thistlethwayte, widow of Alexander Thistlethwayte, on the one part, and Thomas Thistlethwayte, her brother-in-law, the third, but eldest surviving son of Robert Thistlethwayte, on the other, wherein it is witnessed that, “for the consideration therein expressed,” the said lady assigned her interest in the Paddington Estate to the said Thomas Thistlethwayte, his executors, &c. “for his and By this Act certain parts of previous Acts are repealed; power is given to the lessees to pull down all buildings standing upon the premises comprised in any under-lease; the Bishop’s chief rent of forty-three pounds, six shillings and eightpence, is no longer to be charged on the whole of the hereditaments and premises; all lands comprised in the under-leases, to be exonerated and indemnified from the payment of the same; and the signatures of Sir John Morshead, Robert Thistlethwayte, and their wives, to the under-leases are to be no longer necessary. The sale of brick-earth, sand, gravel, &c., having been found totally inadequate for payment of costs of Acts, making drains, streets, &c. The eighth section of this Act relates to the “conduit upon the said estate belonging to the corporation of London, situate near Bayswater, and the pipes or drain therefrom, and the tanks or wells connected therewith.” And it is stated that as these pipes “run through the same estate diagonally so as to intercept the carrying on of the building improvements upon any eligible plan,” the Bishop and his lessees were empowered to treat with the mayor and commonalty and citizens of the said city of London, for the removal or varying the line of the said pipes, &c., and to make satisfaction for all damages which may be sustained by the city in consequence thereof: the estate to be charged with any sum not exceeding two thousand pounds for effecting this object. In a schedule to this Act annexed, signed S. P. Cockerell, we find the “estimate of the expence of building a main drain or sewer for carrying off the water from the estate being at least, five thousand three hundred feet in length, four feet clear breadth,” was ten thousand and sixty-four pounds. And the “estimate of the expence of moving the pipes and drains from the conduit at Bayswater, and the tanks and wells connected therewith,” was two thousand pounds. Yet this arrangement, with respect to the Bayswater conduit and the pipes, &c., proceeding therefrom, was not sufficient to satisfy the owners of the Paddington estate; for, in four years after it was made, another Act was passed “to enable the mayor and commonalty and citizens of the city of London to sell, and the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of London and his lessees of the estate at Paddington belonging to the See of London to purchase, certain waters and springs and the conduits and other appurtenances thereto within the several parishes of Mary-le-bone and Paddington, in the county of Middlesex.” 52nd Geo. III. cap. 193. And articles of agreement dated the first of July, 1812, relative to the purchase of the said conduit, springs, &c., for the sum of two thousand five hundred pounds, are confirmed by this Act. It also empowers John (Randolph) Lord Bishop of London, and his successors for the time being, with consent of the lessees, to raise money “for the completion of the said purchase and payment of the incidental expenses;” either by sale of all or any portion of thirty-two acres of land particularly described in a schedule to this Act annexed; or by a mortgage on any portion of the estate; or by annuities; but the sum of money “which may be raised under or by virtue of all, any, or either of the provisions contained in this Act, shall not together and in the whole exceed the sum of four thousand five hundred pounds.” We are informed by a schedule attached to the 6th Geo. IV. cap 45. that under the powers of this Act, eight acres, one The lands, described in the schedule annexed to this Act, are said to be “the most convenient for sale,” being “detached parts” of the estate. How there came to be any “detached parts” in so snug an estate, the Act does not inform us. But it does tell us that in these detached parts there are two closes of land called “The Lower Readings,” and “The Upper Readings,” names very significant in themselves, and which must, I think, at some time, have had some connection with Readers. Another Act—the Regent’s Canal Bill—was the same day added to the list of those Acts which, together, have made the Paddington Estate a subject of such notoriety. But there was an Act also for each of the intervening years. In 1810 “An Act for further enlarging the Church-yard of the parish of Paddington, in the County of Middlesex,” the 50th Geo. III. cap. 44, enabled the trustees appointed under previous Acts, relative to the church and church-yard, to charge the burial-fees, pew-rents, and church-rates, with a sum not exceeding two thousand five hundred pounds, in order to complete a purchase of two acres, one rood and twenty-nine perches of land belonging to the said John, Bishop of London, and his lessees. For this piece of ground, with the trees standing thereon, and the old manor-house, the parish paid two thousand, two hundred and sixty-three pounds, seven shillings and sixpence. This sum I presume was divided in the usual proportion between the Bishop and his lessees: for this does not appear to have been any part of the land authorised to be sold for the purposes mentioned in one of the preceding Acts. In 1811, the fifty-first of Geo. III. cap. 169, established the Grand Junction Water Works Company; the thirty-third section of which Act confirms and ratifies a previous arrangement, made by the previous Bishop, Beilby Porteus, with the Grand Junction Canal Company, for the supply of the tenants on the Paddington estate, with water at ten pounds per cent. less than they could be supplied by others. The clause is as follows:—
Whether or not the tenants of the Paddington estate have, up to this time, received the full benefits of this important clause, I leave them to decide for themselves. I, for one, can say that I have not; and after a full investigation of this subject, I cannot undertake, (as I have been requested to do, by a gentleman very much interested in the Company,) to point out the injustice of this clause. I make no doubt this clause was well considered, before it was allowed to form a portion of this Act; and was taken by the bishop and his lessees as a part of the quid pro quo in their arrangements with the Company. Whether it was done as an act of kindness to the tenants, as a compensation for the loss of the public watering places which existed on several parts of this estate, or to increase the value of the estate matters little to our purpose: but we cannot suppose that a public Company would have consented to this clause without some adequate consideration; and even if the value of this consideration is no longer felt, which I believe is not the case, After fifteen years, in the seventh of Geo. IV, cap. 140, the same clause is again to be found; and in the seventh and eighth of Victoria, cap. 30, this agreement for supplying cheap water to the tenants of the Paddington estate is again ratified and confirmed; so that the subject has been well considered and ought to be fully enforced by a co-operation of the tenants. By the fifty-second Geo. III, cap. 192, the Act just referred to, anno 1812, the said articles of agreement are “absolutely ratified, confirmed, and established,” by which thirty-six acres, three and a-half perches of land are demised to the end of the term for which the land previously leased to this Company was let, renewable for a further term of ninety-nine years, every fifty years, on the tender of a fine of twenty shillings, at a rent commencing at £427 3s. in 1812, and advancing year by year to 1818, when the annual rent was fixed at £570 3s.; one-third part of which was to be paid to the Bishop of London for the time being, the other two-thirds to his lessees. Besides this lease of fresh portions of the estate, certain small pieces were exchanged, and the Company reconveyed to the bishop and his lessees rather more than two acres of that which had been previously leased to them, so that, altogether, rather more than eighty-two acres of the Paddington Estate is leased to the Grand Junction Canal Company, at a rent of £1,454 3s. per annum. In the same year, 1812, the fifty-second of Geo. III. cap. 195, incorporated the Regent’s Canal Company, and gave full power and authority to that Company, “to make and maintain a Navigable Canal from the Grand Junction Canal, in the parish of Paddington to the River Thames in the parish of Limehouse;” This canal was opened from Paddington to the Regent’s Park Basin two years after this Act passed, but was not finished till August, 1820. The other Canal and Water Company Acts which affect the Paddington Estate, are the fifty-sixth of Geo. III. cap. 4 and 85; the fifty-ninth Geo. III. cap. 3; and the seventh Geo. IV. cap. 140. But it appears that one Act of Parliament was not sufficient to ratify and confirm the articles of agreement of the twenty-fourth of March, 1812; for the fifth of Geo. IV. cap. 35, passed in 1824, was called into operation “to carry into complete effect” these articles of agreement; and the twenty-six pages of which this Act is made up, shew pretty clearly that “some doubt” must have been entertained whether the things therein agreed to be done, could be “legally and effectually” done. After setting forth the title of those claiming the Paddington Estate at this time, (1824,) the Act renders it lawful for William (Howley) Bishop of London, and his successors, and their lessees, and further requires and directs him and them to ratify and confirm to the said Company all the parcels of land mentioned in the said articles of agreement. This Act informs us, too, of a field called “Lower Field,” containing ten acres thirty-eight perches, which was purchased or agreed to be purchased, by the Grand Junction Canal Company, of James Crompton, esq., in 1801, but which was forfeited to his Majesty in consequence of not having been used for the purposes of the said Canal; which forfeiture, however, his Majesty was graciously pleased to remit: and by the third section of this Act, the said field is “discharged of all forfeiture to his said Majesty, his heirs and successors, under any Statutes of Mortmain.” These Statutes are also dispensed with by the tenth clause for other lands conveyed; and the Company indemnify the bishop and his lessees from the rent-charge of £349 15s., payable to the aforesaid James Crompton, his heirs and assigns. The twentieth section confirms the leases already granted to this Company; and the twenty-first, enacts that all future leases shall be conformable to the one already granted. A plan, but on a smaller scale, similar to the one attached to the preceding Act, is also appended to this.
In 1824, the rate-payers of Paddington were seduced, in a manner hereafter to be mentioned, to resign into the hands of the wealthy proprietors, and a certain number of vestry-men, elected under the detestable principles of Sturges Bourne’s Act, those inherent rights which their predecessors had protected, with more or less determination, for centuries; and the next year saw the official representatives of this select body, and the curate of the parish, joining the Bishop of London and his lessees, in beseeching his Majesty that the several objects contained in the aforesaid Act, might be accomplished. One object was, to increase the quantity of land to four hundred acres, for which building leases might be granted; and another, to exclude the “Curates of Paddington, the said Churchwardens and their successors” from “all estates, right, title, interest, benefit, claim, or demand whatsoever of, into, out of and upon the lands and hereditaments comprised in or which are or may be subjected to” “the lease granted by Bishop Porteus, in 1795; excepting in so far as is expressed in this Act.” And in consideration of this wholesale surrender of all the interest, benefit, &c. which the inhabitants of Paddington ought at this time to receive out of the Rectory and other lands, William (Howley) Bishop of London, and his lessees were graciously pleased to consent, that it may be enacted, “that the Curate’s former stipend of £120 a-year shall be increased to £200 per annum;” that ground may be granted for the site of the said Curate’s residence, “not exceeding one acre;” and “that any quantity of the said estate not exceeding four acres may be conveyed by deed to trustees or commissioners, appointed under Church Building Acts.” Having already analysed preceding Acts, it only remains for It further informs us that the previous mortgage of ten thousand pounds was settled on Dame Morshead; and it enacts that the former sum, as well as this, shall be paid off by fines on the renewal of the present building leases; the Bishop of London for the time being, to be answerable for one-third of the interest on these sums, and the trustees for the other two-thirds. The sum permitted to be borrowed by this Act is to be used in improving the estate, as well as all monies received for the sale of gravel, &c., and any sum that may arise from selling or letting the waters, springs, &c, purchased of the corporation of London; which by this Act the Bishop and his lessees are empowered to let or sell for that purpose. There are two schedules annexed to this Act, both bearing the signature, J. H. Budd. The first is a description of the several pieces and parcels of land composing “the Paddington Estate,” amounting in the whole, it is here stated, to six hundred and eleven acres and a half. The second contains an account of sums received and paid on account of the same property. By this account we learn that twelve acres, three roods, and fifteen perches and a half of land belonging to this estate had been sold under the Land-tax Redemption Act, and the 52nd George III; for which, it is stated, £6573 0s. 11d. was received. £2000 was also received for two acres, three roods, and twenty-eight perches, “used by the Regent’s Canal Company.” £10,256 12s. 3d. “by sale of brick earth, gravel and sand.” And £1140 18s. 2d. by sale of old materials, water pipes, &c. Making with the £10,000 borrowed, a sum of £29,970 11s. 4d. The payments being £27,857 6s. 2d. including the small item of £4,530 17s. 11d. for law expences. With the exception of the Great Western Railway Bills there has been, so far as I know, only one Act of Parliament passed since the great Act of 1825, having especial reference to the Paddington estate. This was “an Act for confirming and carrying into execution certain articles of agreement made and entered into between Charles James, Lord Bishop of London, the Trustees of the Paddington estate, the Grand Junction Canal, and the Grand Junction Water Works Companies, and for other purposes therein mentioned.” By this Act we learn that the Grand Junction Water Works Company, having erected other works and reservoirs near Kew Bridge and at Camden Hill, were desirous of using their land in Paddington for building-ground, as it had become much more valuable for that purpose than for the purposes for which it was originally leased. To enable them to do this the Company had to apply to the Bishop of London, and the trustees for their consent; and this consent was granted, upon condition “that the said sites, as well the freehold as the leasehold parts thereof, shall be laid out and built on by such class and description of buildings as approved by the surveyor of the Paddington estate.” “And also upon condition that the said Company shall give up and relinquish, for the site of an intended hospital,” a plot of ground two hundred feet from north to south, and one hundred and eighty feet from east to west; and also give up and relinquish another plot, seventy feet by one hundred feet, “for the site of an intended new church.” By this Act the Grand Junction Canal Company are for ever released and discharged from all covenants, agreements, and undertakings, relating to the powers and privileges of supplying with water the inhabitants of this parish; and the We have already seen how preceding Acts direct that “no fine, premium, or foregift, or any thing in the nature of a fine” should be taken on letting any portion of the land which Parliament permitted to be let for building; excepting at the end of the terms for which the first leases were granted; but this arrangement extended only to four hundred acres, and as the situation of these acres was nowhere defined in these Acts, the Great Western Railway Company, when they wanted thirty-nine acres of land belonging to this estate for the completion of their line and terminus, obtained the same at a rent of sixty pounds, thirteen shillings, and seven-pence three-farthings per annum, per acre, Since this bargain was struck the bishop and his lessees have sold other parcels, though at a less famous figure. On the nineteenth of February, 1841, a special meeting of the Vestry of Paddington was called to receive and take into consideration a communication from the Lord Bishop of London, respecting a piece of ground west of the church-yard. It was feared this breathing spot was about to be purchased by the insatiable builders. So, besides the “cordial thanks of the vestry for his kind and timely communication,” an offer of £3500 was made to the bishop and his lessees for this little lot. Four thousand pounds, however, was the lowest sum they would take for this portion of the old green; and the vestry were obliged to be content with the southern portion; for which the parish paid £2000. The northern portion was sold to one of the much-dreaded builders; and is now covered with houses; while on that portion purchased by the parish On the first of April, 1845, the Vestry received a letter from Messrs. Budd and Hayes, stating that the portion of “The Upper Readings,” found by the recent admeasurement of Mr. Gutch to be 5a. 2r. 27p., may be secured by the Vestry for the purposes of building a workhouse thereon; “provided that the powers of the local Act are sufficient to enable his lordship and the trustees to effect such sale;” and that £5,700 be given for the same. Another portion of “The Upper Readings” was sold to the trustees of the Lock Hospital. Subsequently to these purchases, some mutual exchanges took place, which have reduced the workhouse plot to 5¼ acres, and the cost of the land to £5,168 15s. Other facts relative to this estate, will be found in the next part of this Work, and after perusing them, in conjunction with those I have collected in this, I think my readers will conclude, with me, that the inhabitants of Paddington—who have to pay the owners of the Paddington Estate most exorbitant prices for the privilege of living on their land—owe but little gratitude to these lords of the soil for the small favours they have given, in return for the enormous wealth the industry of others is placing in their hands. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
THE POSSESSIONS OF THE CHURCH,
THE CROWN, & THE PEOPLE.
CHARITY LANDS.
THE PADDINGTON ESTATE.
