The burne, bourn, or brook, which ran through Paddington gave its name to a district. Tybourn I believe to have been the original name; but the houses erected on the west side of this stream, with the district surrounding them, were eventually called by the name of Westbourn; the name which was given to the stream. Respecting the origin of the word Bayswater—a name given to a portion of the Westbourn district—many suggestions have been offered; but the first of the three given by Mr. Osborne in his letter to Mr. Urban, in the Gentleman’s Magazine, dated March 25th, 1798, appears to me to be the correct one. He says “Perhaps the name of Bays is derived from the original owner of the land;” and from the Inquisitions taken in the early part of the fourteenth century, to be found in the first part of this Work, it will be perceived that there was then a Juliana Baysbolle holding land in Westbourn. At the end of the fourteenth century, we find from Tanner’s note, before quoted, that the head of water given by the Abbot was called Bayard’s Watering Place; and although this may have been the name used in legal documents for the district surrounding it, yet Bays Watering has been the name used by the people. There may, indeed, have been two watering places for the weary traveller; and mine host Bays, and mine host Bayard, may have been rivals for public favour; the one living on one side of the King’s highway, and the other on the opposite.
Knotting, or Notting, seems to have been but a corruption of Nutting; the wood on and around the hill of that name, having for centuries being appropriately so called.
Kensell, or Kensale, comes, as I take it, from King’s-field. In the Harleian MS. (printed at page 38,) the green of this name is called Kellsell, and Kingefelde. In Mary’s reign, we perceive by this document, also, that “the Green-lane” and “Kingsefelde-green” were the same place. And as “the Green-lanes” now exist—in name—we may ascertain with something like accuracy the situation of this field, or green, which formerly belonged to the King.
The names of Squares, Terraces, Streets, &c., have been for the most part furnished by the names of the owners of property, past or present, their native counties, or country residences.
Spring-street, Brook-street, Conduit-street, Market-street, &c., point out the situations of objects formerly on, or near, those sites.
“Tichborne-street,” although not built in the time of Henry the eighth, reminds us of one “Nicholas Tychborne, gent., husband of the second daughter and co-heir of Alderman Fenroper;” of Alderman Tichbourn, one of Cromwell’s peers and King Charles’s judges; and of a dirty ditch which ran down the side of the Edgeware-road from Maida-hill; and Maida-hill, itself, reminds us of the famous battle of Maida. Praed-street preserves the memory of the banker of that name; one of the first Directors of the Grand Junction Canal Company; and of the lands they secured, as well for the purposes for which they professedly obtained them, as for the purposes to which they have been applied.
The name of Frederick, once well known here, became so distasteful to the people of Paddington, that it is preserved only in a mews; while the memory of the capacious generosity of the Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond, to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, will be long preserved in Paddington by the Squares and Terraces of those names. There is now a Shelden-street, to remind us of a bishop’s gift to his nephews; and a Porteus Road and Terrace, that we may not forget the good and generous Beilby who gave away, or sold, two-thirds of the proceeds of the Paddington estate. Pickering-place and Terrace preserve the memory of a former curate, and of a friendly Chancery suit relating to the property here; and while all sorts of changes are rung on the names of the living, it has been thought expedient to place Blomfield and Cromwell Terraces in a continuous line in the highway to a Public School.
The civil division of the land, recognised by the Anglo-Saxons, were the Mark, or March; the Gâ, or Shire; and the Hid, or Hide. To understand these divisions, as Mr. Kemble has described them, is to comprehend the natural origin of every inhabited place in this country; and the origin of all our constitutional law.
The Mark he describes to be the smallest and simplest division of the land which was held by many men in common, or by several households under settled conditions, the next in order to the private estates, the hids or alods of the markmen. “As its name denotes, it is something marked out or defined, having settled boundaries; something serving as a sign to others, and distinguished by signs. It is the plot of land on which a greater or lesser number of free men have settled for the purposes of cultivation, and for the sake of mutual profit and protection; and it comprises a portion both of arable and pasture land, in proportion to the numbers that enjoy its produce.” [113] Other meanings were attached, to this word, Mark, which are thoroughly examined by this learned historian, and to his works I must refer those of my readers who wish to obtain a complete insight into the ancient divisions of the land, and the manners and customs of our Saxon ancestors.
The Gâ or Shire was but a number of these marks united under one general government.