Paddington: Past and Present

by William Robins

We might expect, therefore, to find that the Westminster monks, in carving out for themselves a comfortable and compact estate, would choose for its boundaries the most prominent and permanent objects in the neighbourhood. And in Edgar’s first Charter—that dated six years before Edgar was King—we do find, with some additions, the Thames chosen for the southern boundary; the Roman road for the northern; the Fleete for the eastern; and the Tybourn for the western. And if we take the largest stream between the Fleete and the Brent to have been the Tybourn, we can readily explain how the convent claimed a manor in Chelsea; and we can clearly understand, too, how the Norman monks read this Saxon Charter so as to make it include the manor of Paddington—as that portion of land, bounded by the Roman roads, and the bourn, was at one time called.

Mr. Saunders, in his “Inquiry, &c.” has come to the conclusion that the ancient Tybourn was the stream which has been recently known by that name. But I think those who will take the trouble to examine this subject thoroughly will come to the conclusion that on this point that inquirer has been deceived.

It is evident the facts which came under Mr. Saunders’s notice, in the course of his inquiry, did not entirely square with the supposition which he has adopted. And after all, he is obliged to admit that Westminster extended, and extends, to the stream farther westward than the one he has accepted as its western boundary. This West-bourn, or brook, I take to be the ancient Tybourn—the western boundary of the district described in the charter, dated 951; and the western boundary of St. Margaret’s parish, as defined by the Ecclesiastical Decree of 1222. Lysons, writing at the end of the last century, described the stream which crossed the Tybourn road, now Oxford-street, as a “small bourn, or rivulet formerly called Aye-brook or Eye-brook, and now Tybourn-brook.”

In the maps of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries we find but one stream delineated as descending from the high ground about Hampstead. In Christopher Saxton’s curious map of 1579; in Speede’s beautiful little map of 1610; in John Seller’s, of 1733; in Morden’s; in Seales’s; in Rocque’s accurate surveys; and in others of less note; we see this stream takes the course of that brook which was at one time called Westbourn, and which I believe was anciently called the Tybourn, and discharges itself into the Thames at Chelsea. The Eye brook on the other hand scarcely appeared before it came to the conduits built by the citizens of London; it then crossed Oxford-street in the valley west of Stratford-place, and emptied itself into a reservoir at the north-eastern corner of “The Deer Park,” or as it is now called “The Green Park.” It appears to have been originally very little larger than the Tychbourn which ran down the Edgeware-road; the former carrying the waters from the southern side of Primrose-hill, the latter from the south of Maida-hill. The Eyebourn, however, was very much increased in size when the superabundant supply from the conduits, which were fed by the water brought from Tybourn, and from springs near the village of Eye, were emptied into it. When the reservoir in the Green Park was enclosed with brick and supplied by the Chelsea Water-works Company from the Thames, this brook was covered in, carried beneath the old reservoir, and converted into a sewer, and is now known by the name of the King’s Scholars Pond Sewer; while the larger stream to the west, the Tybourn or Westbourn, has degenerated into the Ranelagh Sewer.

There is another fact also worthy of note: Holinshed, when speaking of the execution of the Earl of March, which took place in the reign of Edward the third, says, that in those days the place of execution was called “The Elmes,” but was known in his day by the name of “Tiborne.” At the present time enough of “Elms-lane” [9] remains, at Bayswater, to point out where the fatal Elm grew, and the gentle “Tiborne” ran.

Dr. Stukeley, and other learned antiquarians, are of opinion that the Edgeware-road, and the Uxbridge-road, represent, very nearly, the sites of the ancient Roman roads. Now if the Tybourn was, in truth, the same stream as the Westbourn, the monks of Westminster had only to follow its course from the Thames till they came to the second “broad military road” which crossed it, instead of stopping at the first they met with, (and the charter says nothing about the first or second), and in their ascent up this stream, and descent by the road, they would have included not only their Manor of Chelsea, but the Manor of Paddington also. [10a]

And if this reading of Edgar’s Charter was objected to by the Great Chamberlain of England, or any other powerful neighbouring lord, there was Edward’s Charter for Chelsea; [10b] and Dunstan’s for Paddington in reserve.

But the exact time when the words “Et illud praediolum in Padingtune aecclesiae pradictae addidi,” [10c] first formed a portion of that “forged instrument in Latin” called Dunstan’s Charter; or when those who cultivated the soil in this neighbourhood had to adopt their new lord, and transfer their services from the palace to the convent, does not very plainly appear. Undoubtedly, “a little farm in Padintun” became every year, after the Conqueror’s survey, more and more desirable.

These forged charters, as we shall presently see, could not, of themselves, secure the monks of Westminster their Paddington estate; and another expedient had to be resorted to.

I have just now assumed that the inhabitants of Paddington were free settlers, or King’s cottagers. And although this was undoubtedly the case at first, yet by the time of the Conqueror’s survey they may have been under the protection of some mean lord. And I believe the manor of Paddington subsequently created by the monks of Westminster, was at this time a portion of the manor of Tybourn. For besides the evidence already produced, to shew that Tybourn and Westbourn were synonymous terms; we find in a legal document, even so late as 1734, that “two messuages and six acres of land lying in the common field of Westboune,” and three other acres, also in the same common field, are described as being “parcel of the manor of Tyburn, and called Byard’s Watering Place.” [11]