Hampstead and Marylebone

by G. E. Mitton

In Northumberland Street stands the workhouse, built about 1775, and adjoining is a solid, well-built stone edifice containing the offices of the Guardians of the Poor. At the north-east corner of the street is the Cripples' Home and Industrial School for Girls. The inmates are taught sewing, basket-making, and are educated, clothed, and boarded.

Marylebone Church.—William de Sancta Maria, who was Bishop of London in the reign of King John, appropriated the church at Tybourn to the Priory of St. Lawrence de Blakemore in Essex, but with the reservation of a maintenance for a vicar. In 1525 the Priory suffered the fate of its fellows, and the King seized the control of Tybourn Church. He passed it on to Wolsey, with license to appropriate it to the Dean and Canons of Christ Church. At Wolsey's request they granted it to the master and scholars of his old college at Ipswich. When the Cardinal was disgraced the King resumed the Rectory, and in 1552 granted it to Thomas Reve and George Cotton. Before 1650 it came into the possession of the Forset family, from which time its history has been identified with that of the manor.

The ancient church stood at what is now the Oxford Street end of Marylebone Lane, and on account of "its lonely situation" was repeatedly robbed and despoiled. In 1400 the inhabitants made a petition to the then Bishop of London, Robert Braybrooke, to remove it to a more advantageous situation. This was granted, and license given them to erect a new church of "stones or flints" at the place where they had recently built a chapel. The former church had been dedicated to St. John the Evangelist; the new one was dedicated to St. Mary. The spot on which it was built is the same on which the old parish church now stands, near the top of High Street.

This church is described as having been a "mean edifice." It was the original of the church delineated by Hogarth in the marriage of the rake, in his famous "Rake's Progress." This series was published in 1735, and the church was then in a ruinous condition. It was subsequently pulled down and rebuilt (1741) in the form in which it now stands, with the exception of some slight alterations. In a curious diary in the Harleian MSS. collection it is stated that the Rev. Randolph Ford, curate of Marylebone between 1711 and 1724, on one Sunday "married six couples, then read the whole of the prayers and preached; after that churched six women; in the afternoon read prayers and preached; christened thirty-two children, six at home, the rest at the font; buried thirteen corpses, read the distinct service over each of them separately—and all this done by nine o'clock at night."

The only ancient charity connected with the church is a bread bequest left by Thomas Verley in 1692. He left £50, the interest to be spent in bread, twelve penny loaves to be given to the poor every Sunday. This ceremony is still observed, but the value of the money has increased, so that 5s. worth of bread is distributed every Sunday after service. The mural tablets and monuments on the walls of the church are of some interest and of great variety. The earliest dates back to 1644. The Viscountess Ossington about ten or twelve years ago had them all restored at her own expense.

Among the entries in the register are: J. Michael Rysbach, buried January 11, 1770; Allan Ramsay, buried August 18, 1784; Rev. Charles Wesley, buried April 5, 1788. Horatia, daughter of Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton, was baptized here, and also Lord Byron.

About 1770 the necessity for providing increased church accommodation became apparent, and it was first proposed to erect the new building on the north side of Paddington Street, where Mr. Portman offered a site. This land was afterwards used for a burial-ground. The next suggestion was for a site to the north of Portland Place, but this was also abandoned. Finally, the present site to the north of the old church was secured after many delays. Mr. Thomas Hardwicke (a pupil of Sir W. Chambers) was the architect of the new church, which was designed at first to be merely a chapel of ease. The first stone was laid July 5, 1813; when the building was finished it was resolved to make it the parish church, and the old church the chapel of ease. Accordingly, this was done by Act of Parliament, and the new church consecrated on February 4, 1817. In this church Robert Browning was married in 1846.

The building is of great size, seating over 1,400 people. The front is ornamented by an immense portico with six Corinthian columns, and the building is surmounted by a high belfry tower. In 1883-84 a thorough investigation of the church took place. The interior was restored in the Italian Renaissance style, the architect employed being T. Harris. An apse was added and other alterations made. The necessary funds were raised by a bazaar held in the Portman Rooms, Baker Street, in which all the features of the old Marylebone Gardens were reproduced. Close beside the church are the Central National Schools of St. Marylebone, with a higher grade Technical School for boys and girls opening on to the High Street. The latter building overlooks the graveyard filled with hoary tombstones.

At the top of High Street, in the Marylebone Road, formerly stood a turnpike, otherwise there is little to remark on in High Street. It has fallen from its former importance, and is a dingy, uninteresting thoroughfare with poor shops. This, being one of the older streets, follows a tortuous course, in contrast with more modern streets westward. We are now at the nucleus of the old village of Marylebone.

Nearly opposite to the old church was the manor-house, and its site can be fixed accurately; it was at the end of the present Devonshire Place mews, and is incorrectly described in one or two books as having been on the site of Devonshire mews, which would take it out of the High Street altogether.