But although the Abbots at length, and by slow degrees, acquired to themselves and their House, either with or without the sanction of the crown, both spiritual and temporal dominion over these places, we must not imagine that all the tenements in Westbourn and Paddington had been by this time transferred by the devout and the timid to their safe keeping; for besides the few small holders, who obstinately preferred their hereditary rights, to the prospect of a speedy post-mortem release from purgatory, there is good reason to believe that the ancient family of De Veres held a considerable tract of land in this parish down to 1461.
CHAPTER III.
THE POSSESSIONS OF THE CHURCH,
THE CROWN, & THE PEOPLE.
The history of the lands which have been claimed by the Bishop of London, and the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, as their portion of the spoils of the Convent can be completely written by those only who have free access to all the records in the archives of St. Paul’s and St. Peter’s. And as it would appear that the time is not yet come for placing at the disposal of the public, for public uses, many of the important documents held in charge by Deans and Chapters, we must be content with that account which can be furnished by those which they have permitted us to see, and those which more confiding holders have thrown open to our inspection.
Most of the facts, which I have been able to discover, relative to the acquisition of the Abbey lands in Paddington, have been already related. One or two, however, having an important relation to the lands of the existing church, and the possessions of the people, remain to be told.
Aubrey de Vere, “who came in with the Conqueror,” was grandfather to Aubrey, first Earl of Oxford, and held, as we have already seen, a tract of land called in Domesday, Chenesitun. [28] His eldest son, Geoffry having been cured of a sickness by the Abbot of Abingdon, while grateful for the skill and kindness shewn him, persuaded his father to bestow the church of Kensington on that Monastery. The grant was made, and confirmed by the next heir, Geoffry having died during his father’s lifetime. This footing having been obtained, a subsequent Abbot claimed the privileges of a manor for the lands given to that church. This claim, which appears to have been set up previous to the issue of a quo-warranto, seemed to the Earl then in possession, rather more than his ancestors, in their liberality had given. He appears to have opposed the claim: and it was ordered that the matter should be investigated. From some cause or other, however, the suit did not proceed, and the Abbot’s Kensington became a manor like its progenitor, the Earl’s Kensington; and so the Reformation found a goodly quantity of land firmly grasped in the dead hands of the Abingdon monks. This good thing, however, had not been kept wholly to themselves. They had allowed their brothers at Westminster to have a finger in the pie. And that portion of this manor which was set aside for charitable purposes, was intrusted to the charitable care, of St. Peter. This portion of the Abbot’s manor was valued, in the year 1371, at five marks; while the other portion, “the church and vicarage,” was valued at thirty-six marks. [29]
In the patent roll which contains the grant of Henry the eighth to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster—Pat. 34. Henry 8. P. 5. M. 32. (6)—“of the site of the late monastery of Westminster, with all its ancient privileges, free customs, &c., &c.,” we find, at the foot of the same membrane, this continuation of the grant “all those messuages, lands, tenements, meadows, pastures, feedings, rents, reversions, services, and other our hereditaments whatsoever known by the name or names of Seynt Mary Landes, lying and being in Westbourne, in the parish of Paddington, in our said county of Middlesex, and now or late in the tenure or occupation of John Genie, or his assigns, to the said late monastery of St. Peter, Westminster, lately belonging and appertaining, and being parcel of the possessions of the said late monastery.”
I have not been able to discover the exact extent of these lands at the time of the reformation; or the amount of their growth during the last three centuries; but I have many reasons for believing that these “Seynt Mary lands lying and being in Westbourne in the parish of Paddington,” were the self-same lands given by St. Mary of Abingdon to St. Peter of Westminster for charitable purposes. That, in fact, this land was the poor allotment of the manor of Abbot’s Kensington.
Out of this and another small grant the parvenu manor of “Knightsbridge and Westbourne” was manufactured.
Besides these manors of Abbot’s Kensington, and Knightsbridge and Westbourn, another manor, called West-town, was created out of lands called “the Groves,” granted to “his dear and faithful chaplin, Simon Downham,” by Robert the fifth, Earl of Oxford, in 1214.
By an inquisition, taken in 1481, we are informed that the Groves, formerly only three fields, had extended themselves out of Kensington into “Brompton, Chelsea, Tybourn, and Westbourne.”