The Gravel Pits are now occupied by Clanricarde Gardens, and the six shops known as Nos. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12, High Street, Notting Hill.
It would take too long to describe the various uses to which these sites have been put, and all the applications of the income derived from them. Suffice it to say, that the whole was always conscientiously applied to the purposes intended by their donors, except, that under an Act of Parliament passed in 1777 the original parish workhouse was built upon that part of Butt’s Field where Kensington Gate now stands, and the Act provided that the then existing rents of the three estates, amounting to £54, should be applied to the apprenticing of poor boys, but that any further rents that might be obtained beyond that sum should be applied in aid of the parish rates until the expense incurred in erecting the workhouse should be discharged. And accordingly they were so applied until Lady Day of 1816. This, no doubt, was a perversion of the fund, because, although the workhouse was for the relief of the poor, still by law all the parishioners were rated for that purpose, the rich as well as the poor; and in proportion as anyone was relieved from the payment of rates, so was the money diverted from the poor intended to be objects of the bounty. However, this distinction in 1777 escaped attention; but in the report of 1810, to which I have alluded, the point was strongly made, and since 1816 the whole income has been applied to its proper purpose.
As we have seen, in 1777 the total receipts from the lands were £54.
| In 1810 the Charecroft Estate produced | £103 | 0 | 0 per annum. |
| „ Butt’s „ „ | 39 | 17 | 6 „ |
| ,, Gravel Pits „ „ | 38 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | £180 | 17 | 6 „ |
of which £54 was applied to putting out apprentices, £29 to pay two remaining annuities; the amount necessary for building the workhouse having been obtained by the then fashionable expedient of settling life annuities, while the balance of £97 17s. 6d. was applied in aid of poor rates.
Let me now approach much nearer our own times, and, by referring to an elaborate report of the trustees of Campden’s Bequest appointed for the purpose in December, 1853, ascertain what was the income derived from these lands in 1854. Among the trustees at that time there were some well known persons, including the Venerable Archdeacon Sinclair, the then Vicar of Kensington, who many of us now present can well remember; the Rev. Dr. Hessey, Vicar of S. Barnabas; Sir Henry Cole, C.B., well known to many of us in connection with the South Kensington Museum; the Rev. E. P. Denniss, Vicar of S. John’s, Notting Hill; and Dr. Frost, of Ladbroke Square; who, if I mistake not, is the same Charles Maynard Frost who yet remains an active trustee of the charity.
| In 1853 Charecrofts was let in two lots, producing | £99 | 0 | 0 per annum. |
| Butt’s Field, let in various lots (among which was the site of the old workhouse, let at £235 a year), producing annually | 445 | 7 | 0 „ |
| The Gravel Pits, let in various lots, producing | 123 | 0 | 0 „ |
| Total | £667 | 7 | 0 „ |
In the year ending Lady Day, 1853, £253 had been paid in pensions to poor persons, and £157 10s. applied for apprenticing poor boys, while £373 1s. 5d. remained to the credit of the pension fund, and £308 6s. 7d., to the credit of the apprenticeship fund.
Thus we see that the sum £465 invested in land in the years 1635 to 1651 produced in 1777 £54; in 1810, £180 17s. 6d.; and in 1853, £677 7s. per annum in rents.
And the application of the funds had, except as regards the old parish workhouse for the period mentioned above, been in accordance with the intention of the donors, namely:—