[50b] Judith Jodrell, wife of Sir Paul Jodrell, was a daughter of Mr. Daniel Sheldon; and it appears her life was the last of that family in the estate. I find by a private Act of Parliament, that the family of the Sheldons were obliged to sell their estates at Ditchford, in Worcestershire, to pay their debts, and it is probable that their life interest in the manor and rectory of Paddington was disposed of for the same purpose.
This practice of granting church lands for three lives appears to be very ancient. It was the common practice of Oswald, Bishop of Worcester, at the end of the tenth century; and for doing which he was accused of wasting the revenues of the church.—Mr. Kemble’s Introduction, p. 34.
[51] The Desborough estate was leased by Bishop Porteus and his lessees to the Grand Junction Canal Company; but how the Bishop and his lessees became possessed of this estate I do not know.
[52a] Mr. Macaulay, in his History of England, when speaking of London, as it existed in 1685, describes this Pest-house Field as being the place used as a burial place for many of those who died of the plague twenty years before; but from the account given by Lysons, and from the Acts of Parliament relating to this charity estate, I am induced to believe it was purchased after that calamity and for future use.
[52b] A plan of Upton Farm, taken by William Gardner, in 1729, was presented to the parishioners of Paddington by Mr. Thomas, a surgeon, who lived in Brown-street, and it is still preserved in the Vestry-room.
[54a] Vide Faulkner’s History of Kensington, p. 596.
[54b] The hog was one of the most important possessions of the cottager, and as this animal obtained the chief part of its food in the wood, this right of the wood was of more consequence than the right of pasture to the poorer villagers.
[54c] Penny Cyclopædia; article—“Commons.”
[55a] It is said that even for the russet spot which is still, for auld lang syne, called Paddington-green, the parishioners are indebted to the generosity of a private gentleman.
[55b] Macaulay’s History of England, vol. i. page 421.