in 1222 among the possessions of St. Margaret's. He is unable to
ascertain how the manor of Westbourne came to belong to the Abbot of
Westminster. In the reign of the second Edward several inquisitions of
land were made which are quoted by Robins in his "Paddington, Past and
Present." In one we find mentioned "that Walter de Wenlock [a second
Abbot Walter] had acquired to himself and his house ... twelve acres of
land in Padinton of William de Padinton, and three and a half acres of
Hugh de Bakere of Eye, and thirteen acres of land in Westbourn of John
le Taillour, and eleven acres of land there of Matilda Arnold, and two
acres of land there of Juliana Baysevolle, after the publication of the
statute edited concerning the nonplacing of lands in mortmain, and not
before. And they (the commissioners) say that it is not to the damage
nor prejudice of the Lord the King, nor of others, if the king grant to
the Prior and Convent of Westminster that the Abbots of that place for
the time being may recover and hold the aforesaid messuages and land to
them and their successors for ever."
But the Abbot had to pay the King a small yearly sum, and cause certain
services of reaping and ploughing to be performed for him, which showed
that he held the land in some sense subject to the Crown. In Henry
VII.'s reign his mother, the Countess of Richmond, bought certain lands
in Kensington, Willesden, Paddington, and Westbourne. She left the
greater part of her possessions to Westminster, so that the Abbey lands
in this vicinity must have been increased. The manor acquired by the
Countess seems to have consisted chiefly of two farms--Notting Barns in
Kensington, and "Westborne" in Paddington; the former is fully dealt
with in the section devoted to Kensington. Besides the lands left to the
Abbey, she bequeathed part of her possessions to the Universities of
Oxford and Cambridge.
In the account of the Church property which fell into Henry VIII.'s
hands at the dissolution of the monasteries we find mentioned
"Westborne."
King Henry also held other lands here, which he had obtained by exchange
or purchase. He made Paddington a part of the endowment of the new See
of Westminster. After the abolition of that See Edward VI. gave "the
mannor and rectory of Paddington" to Dr. Nicholas Ridley, then Bishop
of London, "and his successors for ever" (Newcourt).
Westbourne remained in the possession of the Dean and Chapter of
Westminster; thus the two manors parted company. Paddington was
confiscated during the Commonwealth, but was claimed by Bishop Sheldon
at the Restoration. It was restored to him, and he let it to his nephew,
Sir Joseph Sheldon, knight, and Daniel Sheldon. It was held by the
Sheldon family until 1740, when it was let by Gibson, the Bishop of
London, to Sir John Frederick, in whose family it remained for many
generations.
_Perambulations._
A survey of London in 1827 shows us very few streets in the quarter to
the south of Praed Street and east of Westbourne Terrace and Street.
Connaught Square and Connaught Place are marked, and the curious
rectangular piece of ground of about 5 acres belonging to St. George's,
Hanover Square. This was bought by St. George's Vestry in 1764, when the
land was surrounded by fields, and was suitable for a cemetery. Among
others buried there was Laurence Sterne, whose body is said to have been
exhumed by body-snatchers. But this ground does not belong to
Paddington. In the above-mentioned survey Cambridge Street is Sovereign
Street, and the oval piece with Southwick Crescent at one end is Polygon
Crescent, a name now only retained in Polygon Mews.
Hyde Park Gardens is marked "Intended Crescent," but except in the
triangular corner, now bounded by Cambridge and Albion Streets, there
are few houses.
Cambridge Street and Oxford and Cambridge Terraces and Squares preserve
in their names the memory of the gift of the Countess of Richmond to
those universities.
In Southwick Crescent stands St. John's Church, built originally in
1826, and then known as Connaught Chapel. In 1832 a district was
allotted to the chapel. In 1844 a portion of this was transferred to the
new church of St. James. Four years later St. John's obtained a portion
of the chapelry district, and in 1859 the district itself was made into
a new parish. Part of the new parish was transferred to St. Michael and
All Angels in 1864. The church is in a late Gothic style. It was
completely renovated during 1895, when the present reredos was added.
In Titchborne Road are St. John's Schools. In Junction Mews, off Sale
Street, is a boatmen's chapel. In Market Street is one of the Dudley
Stuart night refuges for the destitute. And to the north, in Praed
Street, is a small Baptist tabernacle with painted front, and further
westward the church and schools of St. Michael and All Angels. The
church was built in 1862; it is in the Decorated style, and the
architect was Mr. Hawkins. Its predecessor was a chapel of ease to St.
John's, but in 1859 the district was made separate. The organ is by
Hill.
In Norfolk Square we find All Saints' Church. This has been lately
rebuilt, having been burnt down on May 31, 1894. The old church was
consecrated on All Saints' Day, 1847, and its architecture is described
as having been "Gothic of the eleventh century." The first architect was
Mr. Clutton. The building was restored and the chancel added in 1873
from Mr. J. Brooks's designs.
The new church is striking, being of red brick with terra-cotta
mouldings over the doors and windows. The architect was Ralph Nevill,
F.S.A., F.R.I.B.A. The old walls that remained have been engrafted into
the new building. The organ is by Hill. The floor of the church is of
mosaic, and stalls, screens, and nave seats are of Burmese wood, called
padouk. The church is lit by electric light.
In the 1827 map a spot at the extreme end of Stanhope Street, just where
it touches Westbourne Street, is marked Archery Ground, and a little to
the north, at the corner of Bathhurst Street, are "Bagnigge Wells,"
probably named after the more famous Bagnigge Wells, near Gray's Inn
Road.
In Maitland's "History of London" we are told that in the year 1439 the
Abbot of Westminster granted to the Mayor and citizens of London one
head of water containing twenty-six perches in length and one in
breadth, together with all its springs in the manor of Paddington, for
which two peppercorns were to be paid annually. In these wells of water
we have the origin of the latter part of the word Bayswater. Some
writers affirm that the name originated in a public-house kept by a Mr.
Bays, where horses were given water, hence the more ancient rendering
"Bayswatering." Lysons says of it, "The springs at this place lie near
the surface, and the water is very fine." He adds, "The conduit at
Bayswater belongs to the City of London, and, being conveyed by brick
drains, supplies the houses in and about Bond Street, which stand upon
the City lands."
Robins quotes an Act (49 George III.) in which "Byard's Watering Place"
is mentioned in Tyburn.
In George III.'s reign the mayor and citizens were empowered by an Act
of Parliament to see their water rights at Bayswater, which was done for
the sum of £2,500.
Robins says that a Juliana Baysbolle held land in Westbourne, and
conjectures that the former part of her name may have descended to the
place. He adds: "At the end of the fourteenth century we find from
Tanner's note, before quoted, that the head of water given by the Abbot
was called Baynard's Watering Place; and although this may have been the
name used in legal documents for the district surrounding it, yet
Bayswatering has been the name used by the people."
From the springs doubtless arose the names of Brook's Mews, Conduit
Mews, Spring Street West, and Eastbourne Terraces.
Bayswatering is marked on Rocque's 1748 map at a spot nearly due south
of Christ Church. St. James's Church was built and made parochial in
1845. Loftie says that then "the parish for the fourth time changed its
patron and reverted to its former saint."
The old parish church will be noticed at Paddington Green, on which it
stands. The new church of St. James's, one of the finest modern churches
in London, was rebuilt, with the exception of the tower and spire, in
1882, the material used being flint, and the design was the last of G.
E. Street's. The chancel is now at the west end, having been transformed
at the time of rebuilding. There are some very fine stained-glass
windows, and the organ is by Hill. The walls of the chancel and nave are
faced with Devonshire marble, and the pulpit and font are of the same
material. The reredos, of the Last Supper, is a marble bas-relief. The
old registers are now held by St. James's, and contain some interesting
entries, notably those referring to burials in the time of the Great
Plague. Among other items there are the following, which, it must be
remembered, really refer to the old church:
"William Hogarth, esq., and Jane Thornhill of St. Paul's, Covent Garden,
married March 23, 1729."
"Joseph Francis Nollekens, buried Jan. 24, 1747." This was the father of
the famous sculptor.
"Sarah Siddons, buried June 11th, 1831."
On the east side of Craven Terrace is a finely-built Congregational
Church. This is in a decorated style, with a large wheel window and
elaborately ornamented pinnacles. It was built between forty and fifty
years ago, and contains seats for about 700 people. St. James's Schools
are opposite. Craven Terrace and Hill, and Hill Gardens, recall the
memory of the fine old Earl Craven, who remained in London during the
1665 plague, when most of those able to do so had fled. He married the
titular Queen of Bohemia, a daughter of James I., whom he had loved
devotedly all his life.
The pest-house marked so prominently on Rocque's map was almost on the
site of the present Craven Terrace Chapel. Lord Craven gave a site at
Soho for the purpose of a burial-ground, having seen the difficulty
attending burial after the plague of 1665, and also for a cottage
hospital for the suburbs. When this site was built over, he gave another
site, presumably the pest-house marked by Rocque. Lysons says, "which if
London should ever again be visited by the plague is still subject to
the said use"--a sentence which reads quaintly in these days of the
Intramural Burials Act.
Lord Craven's own house was further westward. Lysons says: "Lord Craven
has an estate in this parish, called Craven Hill, on which is a small
hamlet very pleasantly situated." It was to Lord Craven's house Queen
Anne first took her little son on account of his health, but, finding it
too small for the numerous retinue, she afterwards removed to Campden
House. Christ Church, in Lancaster Gate, is in a decorated style of
Gothic. It was consecrated July 17, 1855, and the architects were
Messrs. F. and H. Francis. It contains a very fine marble pulpit, and a
fresco reredos, enclosed in a heavy stone setting. Though Paddington is
of such modern date, the streets are not conveniently built; it is
frequently necessary to walk the whole length of a street or terrace
for lack of a cross-cut into a parallel one, and this is particularly
noticeable just at this part. In Queen's Road there is a United
Methodist Free Church, built in 1868 of white brick with stone facings.
It has an open arcade on to the street. The interior is circular, and
seats about 900 persons. In the Bayswater Road are many palatial houses
facing Kensington Gardens. Orme Square, on the north side of the road,
was built in 1815, and is therefore ancient for Paddington. It was
doubtless named after Mr. Edward Orme, of Bayswater, who built a chapel
at his own expense in Petersburgh Place 1818. In Petersburgh Place there
is a large red-brick synagogue in the Byzantine style. It was opened in
March, 1879. The walls are lined with slabs of alabaster set in marble,
and the details of the fittings are rich in gilding. The pillars are of
light-green marble from the quarries near Sion in the Rhone Valley.
These decorations are the result of many separate memorial gifts.
Further northward, on the west side of Petersburgh Place, is the fine
church of St. Matthew, consecrated on May 20, 1882. The church contains
1,550 seats, of which 355 are free. The church is in an Early English
style, and has an immensely high spire. Westward is what was known as
the Shaftesbury House Estate, through which Palace Court now runs.
Lysons says "Little Shaftesbury House in this parish (near Kensington
gravel pits), the seat of Ambrose Godfrey, Esq., is said to have been
built by the Earl of Shaftesbury, author of the 'Characteristics,' or
his father the Chancellor."
The borough boundary turns out of Kensington Gardens in Palace Gardens,
and, crossing the Bayswater Road, goes up northward between Ossington
Street and Clanricarde Gardens. North of Moscow Road there is a Greek
church of St. Sophia, built of red brick with a high central dome.
There is a small Baptist chapel at the back of Porchester Gardens.
Across the Queen's Road there are St. Matthew's Parochial Schools, built
in 1831, enlarged 1861. Further northward in Queen's Road are the
capacious buildings of the Paddington Public Baths and Washhouses,
erected at a cost of £40,000.
Holy Trinity Church, in Bishop's Road, was consecrated July 30, 1846,
and considerably renovated in 1893. It is a very handsome church, of
Kentish ragstone, in the Perpendicular style, with quatrefoil parapet,
ornamental pinnacles and spire. The site on which it stands was formerly
a deep hole, and consequently the cost of foundations alone came to
£2,000.
Almost on the spot where Royal Oak Station now is was once the rural
Westbourne Green, companion to Paddington Green further eastward. In
Rocque's time there were a few scattered houses here. At Westbourne
Farm, which stood until about 1860, Mrs. Siddons lived for some time.
Lysons says: "A capital messuage called Westbourne Place, with certain
lands thereto belonging, was granted by Henry VIII. anno 1540 to Robert
White. This estate was some years ago the property of Isaac Ware, the
architect (editor of Palladio's works and other professional
publications), who, with the materials brought from Lord Chesterfield's
house in Mayfair (which he was employed to rebuild), erected the present
mansion called Westbourne Place a little to the south of the old house,
which was suffered to stand several years longer. Westbourne Place was
sold by Ware's executors to Sir William Yorke, Bart., Lord Chief Justice
of the Common Pleas in Ireland, who resided there a short time and
afterwards let it to a Venetian Ambassador. In the year 1768 he sold it
to Jukes Coulson, Esq., who expended a very considerable sum in
enlarging the house and laying out the grounds. The library which he
added to the house is said to have cost about £1,500. The situation is
extremely pleasant, and so uncommonly retired that a person residing
here could hardly conceive himself to be in a parish adjoining that of
St. George's, Hanover Square." The vast meshes of the railway network at
present on the spot are in eloquent contrast to the above. Further down
in the Porchester Road is the Westbourne Park Chapel, a red-brick
building in the Pointed or Gothic style, built in 1876.
To the south, near Westbourne Grove, lies St. Thomas's Church, a
temporary iron building. Close by is a Presbyterian church named St.
Paul's. It is faced with Kentish ragstone, and was consecrated 1862. In
the Artesian Road is a Roman Catholic church, St. Mary of the Angels,
consecrated on July 2, 1857, but since enlarged three times. The
architect of the latter portions was J. F. Bentley. There is in the
interior a fine painting of St. Anthony of Padua, supposed to be a
genuine Murillo. The schools in connection are on the south side. In
Westbourne Park Road is St. Stephen's Church. The organ is by Hill. At
the north end of Westbourne Park Road are national schools.
St. Paul's Church and schools stand in Marlborough Street. The church
was built in 1873, and is of earth-brick, without spire or tower. This
part of Paddington is considerably cut up both by the railway and canal.
Crossing the latter at the Lock Bridge, we see the Lock Hospital and
Asylum standing on the west side of the road. The hospital was
established in 1737, and the asylum in 1787. Adjoining the hospital is
the workhouse, occupying with its infirmary about 5 acres. The
workhouse has 623 beds, and the infirmary 280. All the wards are here
and all the paupers except the school-children. Beyond the workhouse
still remain some nursery gardens, and in the continuation of the Harrow
Road is a Roman Catholic church, the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes and
St. Vincent de Paul, of Kentish ragstone with a wheel window in the east
end. The foundation-stone was laid in 1878, and it was opened in 1882 as
a private chapel. In 1893 it was opened to the public. The altar and
altar-rails are of white Carrara marble inlaid with malachite. In
connection with the church next door is the St. Vincent's Home for boys.
This was begun by a railway clerk, and passed into the hands of the
Brotherhood of St. Vincent de Paul. Lord Douglas took up the work,
established the home in its present position, and built the church. In
1889 St. Joseph's Home, Enfield, was amalgamated with St. Vincent's. The
home contains 100 boys, received between the years of twelve and
sixteen, who are taught various trades by which to earn their own
living. Further on in the Harrow Road, opposite Ashmore Road, is
Emmanuel Church, built of brick in a plain Pointed style. The
foundation-stone was laid in 1886. The schools in connection are next
door.
The new bit of Paddington at Kensal Green requires little comment;
chapels, schools, and St. John's Church break the monotony of dreary
streets. In fact, all this part of northern Paddington, though varying
in the width of streets and the class of its houses, contains nothing of
any interest. We must now return southward and eastward to what is known
as Church Ward, which contains nearly all that is most interesting of
old Paddington. The old parish church, named St. Mary's, stands to the
north of the Harrow Road. It is a small building of earth-brick in the
form of a Maltese cross, with a cupola in the centre, supposed to have
been designed after a Greek model. The side fronting the road has a
portico, and on the south and west walls there are curious niches formed
by bricks. The interior is heavy and ugly, with a massive circular
gallery running round three sides. The pulpit stands right over the
central aisle, supported by the steps on one side and the reading-desk
on the other, making thus a curious arch under which everyone must pass
to reach the Communion rails; it is of mahogany which has been painted,
and the figures of Dutch oak on the panels are supposed to be Flemish
work. The church holds about 800 persons. There are many monuments and
tablets on the walls, but only two worthy of note: one in memory of Mrs.
Siddons, who is buried in the churchyard, on the north side of the
chancel; one to Nollekens the sculptor, who died 1823, on the south
side of the chancel. This is a bas-relief of a man seated by the side of
a pallet or bench, on which rests a woman holding a baby; behind, an
angel, representing Religion, points upward. The apparently irrelevant
subject excited much comment until an explanation was suggested. In the
Howard Chapel of Wetherall Church, in Cumberland, there is a sculptured
monument in memory of one of the ladies of the Howard family who died in
childbirth. The bas-relief over Nollekens' tomb is the facsimile of this
sculpture, with the exception of the male figure in the foreground. The
sculpture was executed by Nollekens himself, and is supposed to be one
of his masterpieces. The monument to Nollekens is, therefore, obviously
representative of the sculptor himself executing this great work. The
present church was built in 1791, and stands on the site of a pond. Its
predecessor was dedicated to St. James, a saint to whom the present
parish church has returned, and stood a little to the northward on the
site of the present right of way.
But this itself was only the successor of a still more ancient building,
of which Newcourt says: "As to the church here, I guess it was dedicated
to St. Katharine, because, before the old church was pulled down, I
observed the picture of St. Katharine to be set up in painted glass at
the top of the middle panel of the east window in the chancel.... The
church was but small, and being very old and ruinous, was, about the
year 1678, pulled down, and new-built from the ground at the cost and
charges of Sir Joseph Sheldon, knight, sometime Lord Mayor of the City
of London, and his brother, Mr. Daniel Sheldon, then Lessees of the
Mannor of Paddington."
These Sheldons were the nephews of the Bishop Sheldon to whom the manor
was restored at the Restoration in 1661. Newcourt tells us that before
the Parliament had seized it the church was a donative or curacy in the
gift of the Bishop of London; that the pension of the curate was but £28
per annum. This was increased by Bishop Sheldon to £80, and the larger
sum was fixed by Act of Parliament, and the lessee was bound by his
lease to pay the Vicar £80 a year. The first curate mentioned is one
"Griffin Edwards, A.B., licentiat., December 18, 1598." The churchyard
proper only comprises about 1 acre of land, but the old burial-ground,
including the site of the older church, adjoins to the northward and
includes 3 acres. This was laid out as a public garden in 1885. The
freehold rests with the Vicar of Paddington. On the east side, above the
centre pathway, is a flat stone to the memory of Mrs. Siddons, who died
1831, aged 76. On it are three glazed vases added later by the parish.
In the same vault is buried Mrs. Martha Wilkinson, her dresser, who
died in 1847, and was laid here by her own especial request. On the west
side, below the centre path, is a flat stone to the memory of one John
Hubbard, who lived from 1554 to 1665, and therefore reached the
patriarchal age of 111 years. The churchyard also contains the remains
of Collins, an artist, who painted English coast scenery; Dr. Geddes,
translator of the historical books of the Old Testament; Banks, the
sculptor, 1805; Nollekens; the Marquis of Lansdowne; Vivares, the
engraver, 1780. The churchyard was enlarged in 1753, when Sherlock was
Bishop of London, and further in 1810, when the piece of ground at the
north-east corner, which is marked on a map of the beginning of the
nineteenth century "Manor House," was enclosed. To the east of the
church is the famous Paddington Green, now shrunk to very small
dimensions. A statue of Mrs. Siddons in white marble has been erected on
Paddington Green. The statue was designed by M. Chavalliand, and
executed by Messrs. Brindley. The total cost was about £450.