The Abbot, Osbert de Clair, Prior of Westminster, augmented the grant to the cell of Kilburne by a rent of thirty shillings and land at Knightsbridge, after which it became a nunnery of the Benedictine Order, dedicated to the Virgin and St. John the Baptist. At the dissolution of the monasteries the lands of Kilburn nunnery at Hampstead and Kilburn were given by Henry VIII., in exchange for Paris Garden and other estates, to the Knights of Jerusalem, whose Order he soon after dissolved (1540).
Subsequent to the dissolution of the Knights of St. John it became the property of John, Earl of Warwick, who lost no time in alienating it to Richard Taverner, Esq. In 1604 Sir Arthur Atye died seized of Kilburn and Shuttop Hill. It was recently in the family of the Powells, an old name at Hampstead.
At no time does it appear to have been a religious house of any importance, though dignified with the name of Priory. Park states its revenue at the time of the Dissolution to have been under £200 per annum. Dugdale sets it down at £74 7s. 11d. per annum, and the whole building, inclusive of kitchen, larder, bakehouse, and brewhouse, beside the church, contained only twelve rooms.
From a rude but interesting etching in Park’s ‘History of Hampstead,’ of some parts of the domestic buildings, the only relics of it remaining, and which were standing in 1722, no idea can be formed of the appearance of the conventual structure, the site of which was distinguishable at the beginning of the present century by a rising bank in what was called the Abbey Fields, near the Tea Gardens.
No doubt the Kilburn well, a mild chalybeate, was one of the so-called holy wells with which the vicinity of London abounded in Catholic times. But it was not until 1714 that some speculator bethought him of converting the slightly-medicated waters to use.
The George Inn before 1870.
The spring or well is situated at the south-western extremity of the parish of Hampstead. It rises about 12 feet below the surface, and is enclosed in a large brick reservoir, with the date cut in the keystone of the arch over the door. It is a simple saline water with too little iron to give it the character of a true chalybeate, as may be easily imagined when we read that in 1813 it was used chiefly for the domestic purposes of the adjoining tavern. In 1773 the Kilburn wells were attached to a tea-drinking house, ‘well known to the holiday folk of London,’ the advertisement of which, transcribed by Park from the Public Advertiser in the July of that year, is amusing:
‘Kilburn Wells, near Paddington.—The waters now in the utmost perfection; the gardens enlarged and greatly improved; the house and offices repaired and beautified in the most elegant manner.
‘The whole is now opened for the reception of the public, the great room being particularly adapted to the use and amusement of the politest companies; fit for music, dancing, or entertainments.