Part 2 — FOOTNOTES

“First up from Thames, along Merfleet to Pollen-stock, so to Bulinga-fen: afterwards from the fen, along the old ditch, to Cowford. From Cowford up along Tyburne to the broad military road: following the military road to the old stock of St. Andrew’s church: then within London fen, proceeding south on Thames to midstream; and along the stream by land and strand to Merfleet.”

In the decree of 1222, the western boundary is described to be “The water of Tyburne running to the Thames.”

But it has been imagined that a considerable portion of the parish of Paddington formed part of the ancient manor of Chelsea. And it is a fact that a piece of land, one hundred and thirty-seven and three quarter acres in extent, is now claimed by Chelsea as part and parcel of their parish, although it is two miles from any other portion of that parish; and, although, as I shall hereafter produce evidence to prove, it has been considered a part of Paddington.

Further, we find that “Robert de Heyle, in 1368, leased the whole of his manor of Chelchith, except Westbourn and Kingsholt, to the Abbot and Convent of Westminster for the term of his own life,” upon condition that he was allowed to live in a certain house in the Convent; that he was provided with a robe of esquires’ silk, and twenty pounds yearly; and daily with two white loaves, and two flagons of Convent ale.

In speaking of the ancient manor of Chelsea, I refer to the one spoken of in the Dom Boc; and not to that which “it is possible might have been included by the monks amongst their possessions in Westminster.”

Vide Lysons and Faulkner.

Sir H. Anderson, an Alderman of London, gave £3,400 for this manor the same year in which “the Queen’s pardon” was obtained. In a presentment made of the manor of Abbot’s Kensington, 1675, we find Sir R. Anderson’s land set down at 400 acres, Free, but then said to be included in that manor.—Ibid 598.

“A Chelsea Pensioner having been to visit a poor lame grandchild who was being educated in good and sound learning at the Free School, established by John Lyon, at Harrow-on-the-hill, was so much delighted with his visit, that to celebrate the occasion in a proper manner he drank to the memory of the generous founder a little too often and a little too deep. The ale continued to affect his upper story till he passed the seventh mile stone, (and it must be known that the mile stones on this road were numbered from Harrow, and not as on every other road from London,) mistaking a white line of water, the Paddington Canal, for the road, at this point, he found, when it was too late, that a man was not destined by his Maker to walk on that element; his corps was not found for some days. When it was discovered no one would own it; and what was worse no one would bury it, till at length it became necessary for the civil magistrate to interfere; he sent for the Chelsea clergyman, directed him to read the proper service, and bury the corps where it was lying. Before the clergyman consented to do this, however, he insisted that it should be carried round a certain number of fields which he pointed out. That magic circle constitutes this dry “Chelsea Reach;” and within it, and in consequence of this incident, the Chelsea Rector always claims tithe over it. Beneath the piece of ground not claimed by either parish the corps lies buried.”

This, as any story-maker will readily perceive, is a sad hodge-podge. But this is the story for the ignorant, perhaps made by them. The knowing ones have their simple story:—

“A certain prebend, of a certain Cathedral, seeing this land without an owner kindly took it under his care. It became his corps. He grew birches on it for the boys in his school; and when his occupation was gone, his relatives claimed the land as his freehold.”

Whether there is any, and if any, what amount of truth in either of these stories, I must leave the reader to discover. A key, perhaps, may be found to the latter in another story which is told of the purchase of this land of the descendants of Dr. Busby, and by the fact of a Dr. Busby having held the prebendal corps of Boxgrave, which was situated in Westborne in the County of Sussex.

It would appear that these closes, “containing by estimation fifty acres,” were all that remained in Paddington of the Old Chelsea Manor: but as we have already seen 137¾ acres are now claimed by Chelsea as belonging to that parish.

This practice of granting church lands for three lives appears to be very ancient. It was the common practice of Oswald, Bishop of Worcester, at the end of the tenth century; and for doing which he was accused of wasting the revenues of the church.—Mr. Kemble’s Introduction, p. 34.

The sixth section of the seventh of Ann, chap. 20, (the Act referred to), provides that the “Registrar or Master shall keep an Alphabetical Kalendar of all the Parishes, Extra-parochial Places and Townships within the said County, with reference to the number of every Memorial that concerns the Donor’s Manors, Lands, Tenements, or Hereditaments in every such Parish, &c.” But here, as at other Offices, where important historical documents are kept, no Index Locorum is known. To be able to turn to any particular parish, and at once find the deeds belonging to that parish, would be much too easy a process, whatever the framers of this Act may have thought of its convenience.

By an entry on the Vestry Minute Book, I find the Grand Junction Canal Company, leased eight acres of their land to the Water Works Company at a pepper corn rent.

The extracts from Mr. Kemble’s work shew how this encouragement to church buildings was abused; and how little the parvenu aristocracy, thus made, knew of moral obligation.

There is an error in a previous notice of this church in the Builder, Vol. IV., page 395, which may have led to the belief, that it did not much concern the rate-payers of Paddington, how it was built; the printer of this notice having made the church commissioners give ten thousand pounds, instead of one thousand—the actual amount given.