Such are the contrasts of Chiswick, one of the last outposts of rural things in these parts. To find the last we must travel on through the Mall and on to the more sophisticated Mall of Hammersmith; thence proceeding across the bridge and along the Hammersmith Bridge Road to Barnes. That is the very last village. Near by is Mortlake. No one has ever satisfactorily explained that place-name, nor attempted to define the mortuus lacus—the dead, or stagnant lake—that would seem to have originated it. Nowadays it is rather to a dead level of commonplace that Mortlake is descending, in the surrounding jerry-building activities. All that is left of the old church is the tower, apparently restored in the time of Henry the Eighth, for a tablet on the western face is inscribed “Vivat R.H. 8, 1543.”
TOMB OF EDWARD ROSE, BARNES.
To speak of Barnes in these days of suburban expansion as a “village” may at the first mention appear to be unduly stretching a point, but although Suburbia spreads for miles in every direction, and although Barnes is completely enfolded by modern developments, the ancient village is still where it used to be. It is true that a frequent service of motor-omnibuses does by no means tend to the preservation of the old-time rural amenities of Barnes, nor do those who remember the Barnes of thirty or forty years ago welcome the sudden irruption of modern shops and flats opposite the old parish church; but very much of old Barnes is left embedded within these twentieth-century innovations; and while Barnes Common remains, it is not likely that the place will decline to the common characterless condition of an ordinary suburb. Of the original Barnes—the “Berne” of Domesday Book—the place owned by the canons of St. Paul’s, before the Reformation, nothing, of course, is left; and we may but dimly picture that rural riverside manor, then considered remote from London, with its great spicaria, or barns (the barns that were so much larger, or more numerous, than the usual type that they gave the place its name); but there is a half squalid, half quaint appearance in the narrow, winding streets and lanes that hints, not obscurely, of the eighteenth or even of the seventeenth century. The church, too, although an examination of the interior proves it to have been, in common with most other once rural churches round London, swept almost entirely bare of ancient features, is picturesquely placed, and its sixteenth-century red-brick tower, partly clothed with ivy, looks venerable. There is little of interest within the church, beyond the somewhat curiously-worded epitaph to a former parson, which deserves the tribute of quotation:
Merentissimo Conjugi
Coniux Moerentissima.
To the best of hvsbands Iohn Sqvier the
Late Faithfvll Rector of This Parish; the only
Soñ to That most strenvovs Propvgnator of Pietie
and loyaltie (both by Preaching and Svffering) John
Sqvier, sometime Vicar of St. Leonards, Shoreditch near
London: Grace Lynch (who bare vnto him one only
Davghter) Consecrated This (such as it is) small
Monvment of Theyr mvtvall Affection.
He was invested in This Care An: 1660 Sept: 2,
He was devested of all Care An: 1662, Jan. 9,
Aged 42 yeares.
The really most sentimentally interesting thing here is something that might well be overlooked by ninety-nine of every hundred whose curiosity prompts them to enter the churchyard; and it is probably so overlooked. This is the not at all striking tomb of one Edward Rose, citizen of London, who died in 1653, and lies buried in the churchyard, against the south wall of the church, by the great yew tree. He left £20 for the purchase of an acre of land, from the rent of which he ordained that his grave should be maintained in decent order, and bequeathed “£5 for making a frame or partition of wood” where he had appointed his burying-place; and further ordered three rose-trees, or more, to be planted there. The bequests were to the minister, churchwardens, and overseers for the time being, so long as they should cause the wooden partition to be kept in repair and the rose-trees preserved or others planted in their places from time to time, as they should decay.
Thus it is that, duly honouring his sentimental fancy, rose-trees are to this day to be seen here, enclosed within a low wooden railing.