Paddington: Past and Present

by William Robins

DEFINITION—SITUATION—BOUNDARIES AND EXTENT—GENERAL AND MEDICAL TOPOGRAPHY—ETYMOLOGY OF NAMES—ORIGIN.

Blackstone defines a parish to be “that circuit of ground which is committed to the charge of one parson, or vicar, or other minister having cure of souls therein.” In ordinary language a parish is “that place, or district, which manages its local affairs, and maintains its own poor.”

Newcourt says, “This parish of Paddington (which is a very small one) is within the liberties of Finsbury and Wenlakesbarn, and lies about three or four miles north-westward from London.”

Lysons tells us, that “The Village of Paddington is situated in the hundred of Ossulston, scarcely a mile north of Tyburn turnpike, upon the Harrow-road.”

All the other descriptions of the situation of the “pretty little rural village of Paddington,” which I have seen, resemble these given by Newcourt and Lysons; but these are now so inapplicable to its present state, that it would be useless to quote from other authorities.

The hundred of Ossulston originally comprised, as I have already observed, nearly, if not quite, half the county of Middlesex; but after a time “the liberties of Westminster,” and “the liberties of London,” were taken out of this hundred: that is to say, these places became of so much importance as to claim and obtain separate jurisdictions. The hundred of Ossulston was then reduced to a small portion of the county north and east of London, while by far the greater part of the old hundred, still waste and wood, was included under a separate jurisdiction, called in the old maps “Fynnesberry and Wen Lax Barne.” Another re-arrangement however has taken place; the ancient liberties of Finsbury and Wenlakesbarn are now included in the hundred of Ossulston; the hundred itself is separated into four divisions, and Paddington is included, with certain other districts, in “the Holbourn division” of this re-arranged hundred.

It has been shown, too, in the previous part of this Work, that the district, first known by the name of Paddington, was, very probably, confined within the comparatively small space bounded by the two Roman roads and the bourn; and that, antecedently to the establishment of this separate district, it formed a portion of the Tybourn manor. It is also very probable that Paddington was included in the Parish of Tybourn, before the monks of Westminster established their claim to it, and annexed it to St. Margaret’s. At a later period, when Paddington became a separate parish, the whole of that district which is now known as Westbourn; the manor of Notting Barns; and all that Chelsea now claims north of the Great Western Road; as well as the manor of Paddington, and a considerable portion of that which now belongs to Marylebone, were included in it.

The post-office authorities, even to this day, include a considerable portion of Marylebone in their map of Paddington; and if we take the “Via Originaria” of the Romans, “The Watling Street” of former days, to have been the eastern boundary of this parish at all periods, still even that would give to Paddington a long strip of the south-west corner of the present parish of Marylebone; for I think those who will examine this subject, will come to the conclusion, that the old Roman road was that road which is seen in Rocque’s maps, continuing in a straight line from Tybourn-lane along the high ground to the top of Maida-hill.

In “Baker’s Chronicle of the Kings of England,” p. 313, we find a record of many works of public utility, performed, in the reign of Edward the sixth, by the Rowland Hill of that day. And in the third year of that king’s reign, when Sir Rowland was Lord Mayor of London, we find it chronicled “that he likewise made the highway to Kilburne near to London;” previously to which time, I presume, the old military way was the only road in use.

In Rocque’s maps we see three roads branching off in a northerly direction from the Tybourn-road (now Oxford-street); one, opposite North Audley-street, another, opposite Tybourn-lane (now Park-lane), and the third, the present Edgeware-road. I believe it was the road nearest the city which was made by Sir Rowland Hill; the central one, as above indicated, being the ancient Roman road; and the present road being the most modern; but both “Watling-street” and “Watery-lane” are now obliterated from the map; and the land occupied by these roads, with the triangular or gore-shaped piece which lay to the west, between the ancient road and the present Edgeware-road, now forms a portion of the adjoining parish.