Paddington: Past and Present

by William Robins

This sum has been paid for these possessions ever since that time, as I am informed, though the revenue they produce has increased upwards of four thousand per cent.

Whatever was the intention of the advisers of the young king, however, in this regard, one thing is pretty clear, viz. that Ridley, and several of his successors, received from the manor and rectory of Paddington, not forty-one pounds, six shillings and eightpence, the sum at which the manor was then let, but that sum, minus one-fifth, deducted by the crown. [46b]

Strype tells us [46c] that in exchange for the grants contained in this patent the bishop gave up to the crown other lands to the annual value of four hundred and eighty pounds, three shillings and ninepence, and Ridley has been blamed for making this exchange; Strype, however, has well defended him, and shewn that the see was in reality the gainer even at the time the exchange was made; and if the present values of the exchanged lands were compared I think it would be found that the successors of Ridley had not lost by his bargain.

There is still preserved in the Record Office, Carlton Ride, [47a] a manuscript record which shews that Henry Rede held the manor of Paddington in the ninth year of Elizabeth’s reign. The reserved rent being as before, forty-one pounds, six shillings and eightpence. But the wood was not included even in this second lease to Rede, supposing he had one; for we are informed by this document that the rent was increased twenty shillings, “for the farm of one wood called Paddington Wood, thus demised this year.” [47b] And this omission does not appear to have been accidental, for I found in another manuscript in the same office [47c] a memorandum dated November 26th, 1561, to this effect: “To speak to Mr. Barton touching a certain wood at Paddington.” So that the mode of disposing of this wood had evidently been under consideration.

The following is the account of the descent of the manor of Paddington given by Lysons:—

“The manor of Paddington was leased in the reign of Henry the eighth to Richard Reade for a long term, which being expired, Bishop Abbot demised it in the year 1626, (together with the capital mansion and rectory) to Sir Rowland St. John, fifth son of Oliver Lord St. John, of Bletsoe), for the lives of himself, his wife Sibyl, and their son Oliver. Sir Rowland, died in 1645. The next year a survey of the manor was taken by order of Parliament; which states the demesne lands to have been six hundred and twenty-four acres, the reserved rent forty-one pounds, six shillings and eight-pence. The great house in which Sir Rowland St. John had lived was then in the occupation of Alderman Bide. The manor was afterwards sold by the Parliamentary Commissioners to Thomas Browne, esquire. After the restoration (in the month of January, 1661), Oliver St. John, the only survivor in the lease (then a baronet), died without having renewed; upon which the estate fell in to Bishop Sheldon, who granted it to his nephews Sir Joseph Sheldon, knight, and Daniel Sheldon, esquire. The lease continued for several years in that family, being renewed from time to time. In the year 1741, it was purchased by Sir John Frederick, baronet, and is now vested in Sir John Morshead, baronet, and Robert Thistlethwayte, esquire, in right of their wives, Elizabeth and Selina, daughters and co-heirs of Sir Thomas Frederick, baronet, deceased, and grand-daughters of Sir John Frederick.”

We have already seen that Alderman Rede’s lease was not the original one granted by King Henry; and there are other additions, and corrections required to make the statement above quoted strictly correct.

Both the manor, and rectory, of Paddington were held by the citizen’s family “for a long term,” although their first lease was but for twenty-one years; for I find no mention of any other lessees till the reign of Charles the first. I think it probable, however, that Sir Rowland St. John, to whom it was leased in that reign, held it in the reign of James the first; for in the eighteenth year of this reign I find him charged on the subsidy roll twenty pounds for Land in Paddington.

An ancestor of Sir Rowland St. John was related to the Countess of Richmond, was appointed her chamberlain, and one of the executors of her will.

The mother of Sir Rowland, lady Dorothy, was the only daughter and heir of Sir John Rede of Oddington, in Gloucestershire; and it was through her, as I suppose, that the Paddington lease came into this family of St. John.