KENNINGTON COMMON.
Before all traces be lost of Kennington Common, so soon to be distinguished by the euphonious epithet of Park, let me put a Query to some of your antiquarian readers in relation thereunto; and suffer me to make the Query a peg, whereon to hang sundry and divers little notes. And pray let no one ridicule the idea that Kennington has its antiquities; albeit that wherever you look, new buildings, new bricks and mortar, plaster and cement, will meet your eye; yet, does not the manor figure in Domesday Book? Is it not dignified by the stately name of Chenintune? Was it not held by Theodoric of King Edward the Confessor? And did it not, in times gone by, possess a royal residence?
Here, at a Danish marriage, died Hardi Knute in 1041. Here, Harold, son of Earl Godwin, who seized the crown after the death of the Confessor, is said to have placed it on his own head. Here, in 1231, King Henry III. held his court, and passed a solemn and a stately Christmas. And here, says Matthew Paris, was held a Parliament in the succeeding year. Hither, says good old Stow, anno 1376, came the Duke of Lancaster to escape the fury of the populace of London, on Friday, February 20, the day following that on which Wicliffe had been brought before the bishops at St. Paul's. The Duke was dining "with one John of Ipres" when the news arrived, borne by a breathless messenger, that the people sought his life. When the Duke "leapt so hastily from his oysters, that he hurt both his legges against the foarme: wine was offered to his oysters, but hee would not drinke for haste; he fledde with his fellowe Syr Henry Percy, no man following them; and entring the Thamis, neuer stinted rowing vntill they came to a house neere the manor of Kenington (besides Lambeth), where at that time the Princesse was, with the young Prince, before whom hee made his complaint." Doubtless, Lambeth Marsh was then what its name imports. Hither also came a deputation of the chiefest citizens to Richard II., June 21, 1377, "before the old King was departed," "to accept him for their true and lawfull King and Gouernor." But the royal residence was destroyed before 1607. "The last of the long succession of royal tenants who inhabited the ancient site," says a writer in the Illustrated London News not long since (I have the cutting, but neglected to note the date of the paper), "was Charles I., when Prince of Wales: his lodging, a house built upon a part of the site of the old palace, is the only existing vestige, as represented in the accompanying engraving (in the Illus. Lond. News), unless earlier remains are to be found in the lower parts of the interior." But I believe that the identity of the site of this ancient mansion (which is situated on the western side of Lower Kennington Lane), with part of the site of the old palace, is not quite so certain as the writer appears to intimate. In 1720, however, the manor gave the title of Earl to William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, second son to George II.
Kennington Common acquired an unenviable notoriety from being the place of execution for malefactors tried in this part of the county. "After the suppression of the rebellion in Scotland in 1745, many of the insurgents having been convicted of treason at Southwark, here suffered the sentence of the law" (Dugdale's England and Wales, p. 1015.). "Seventeen officers of the rebel army were hanged, drawn, and quartered" on this spot. (Goldsmith's History, continued by Morell, 4to., 1807, vol. ii. p. 165.)
"One of the last executions which took place on Kennington Common was that of seven men; three of whom belonged to a notorious gang of housebreakers, eighteen in number. These men kept shops, and lived in credit: of the three who were executed, one made over a sum of 2000l. to a friend, previous to his trial. They confessed that the profits of their practices, for the five years past, had been upwards of 1500l. a year to each. This was in the year 1765."—From a cutting, sent me by a friend, from the Sunday Times' "Answers to Correspondents," March 13, 1853.
Here too occurred the Chartist meeting, on the memorable 10th of April, 1848.
Now comes my Query. Was there ever a theatre on Kennington Common? In the Biographia Dramatica of David Erskine Baker (edit. 1782, vol. ii. p. 239.), we are told, that the "satyrical comical allegorical farce," The Mock Preacher, published in 8vo. in 1739, was "Acted to a crowded audience at Kennington Common, and many other theatres, with the humours of the mob." Was it acted in a booth, or in a permanent theatre? The words, "many other theatres," almost give one the impression that the latter is indicated.
Many more notes might be added, but I fear lest this paper should already be too local to interest general readers. Suffice it to say, that Clayton Street, close to the Common, takes its name from the Clayton family; one member of which, Sir Robert Clayton, was sometime Master of the Drapers' Company, in whose Hall a fine portrait of him is preserved. Bowling Green Street derives its name from a bowling green which existed not very many years since. And White Hart Street from a field, which was so called certainly as early as 1785. On the Common was "a bridge called Merton Bridge, which formerly was repaired by the Canons of Merton
Abbey, who had lands for that purpose." (Lysons' Environs, edit. 4to., 1792, vol. i. p. 327.)
It is due to your readers to state, that the authorities for the statements made in the former part of this paper are these: Lysons' Environs, ut supra, vol. i. pp. 325. 327.; Manning and Bray's Surrey, Lond., 1809, fol., vol. iii. pp. 484-488.; Stow, Annales, edit. 4to., 1601, pp. 432, 433.; and Bibl. Top. Brit., 4to., 1790, vol. ii. "History and Antiq. of Lambeth," p. 89.
W. Sparrow Simpson.
Kennington.