Category Archives: London History

Brentford

Another in the occasional series on historic sites on the “Capital Ring” walk

Brentford was first recorded in 705, as Breguntford, meaning place of the ford over the River Brent (the ford being replaced by the first bridge in the thirteenth century). The town lies in a strategic position, and has been fought over many times. A granite statue at the western end of the High Street commemorates the sites of the battles fought in Brentford between the ancient Britons under Cassivellaunus and the Romans under Caesar in 51BC; between the English under Edmund Ironside and the Danish under Cnut in 1016; and between the Parliamentarians and Royalists in the English Civil War in 1642.

Church of St Lawrence

The church of St Lawrence was first founded at least as long ago as the twelfth century, although the present stone tower dates only to the fifteenth, and the brick nave to the eighteenth, to 1764. The church was closed down in 1961, when the monuments were removed. It is currently for sale.

Boston Manor House

Boston Manor was first recorded in the eleventh century, and later, as being owned by the Priory of St Helen Bishopsgate in the City of London, in the twelfth. The manor was confiscated by the Crown during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538. It was later given by Edward I to Edward Seymour, the First Duke of Somerset, and Lord Protector of England – and taken back again after his execution in 1552. It was then given by Elizabeth I to Robert, Earl of Leicester in 1572, and sold by him to Sir Thomas Gresham, who already owned adjoining Osterley Park, in 1573. After Gresham’s death in 1579, the manor passed to his step-son Sir William Reade, and later to Sir William’s widow, Lady Mary, in 1621.

It was Lady Mary Reade who built the core of the present house here in 1622-3. After her death in 1658, it passed to her relative John Goldsmith, and after his death in 1670 it was bought – and considerably extended – by James Clitherow, a wealthy City merchant with interests in the East India Company. The house then remained in the Clitherow family until it was sold by Colonel John Bourchier Stracey Clitherow to Brentford Urban District Council in 1923 (the contents, including paintings by Rubens, van Dyck, Kneller, Hogarth and Romney, having been auctioned off the previous year). It is currently owned by Hounslow Cultural and Community Services, and open to the public at weekends throughout the spring and summer.

The Drawing Room retains many original Jacobean features …

… including an ornate moulded plaster ceiling and overmantel, probably by Edward Stanyon, and possibly, in part, to designs by the Flemish painter Marcus Gheeraerts.

Isleworth

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Another in the occasional series on historic sites on the “Capital Ring” Walk …

Isleworth takes its name from the Old English personal name Gislhere’ and worth, meaning enclosed settlement. It was first referred to, in a Saxon Charter of 677, as Gislheresuuyrth (although it had evidently been occupied as long ago as the Neolithic). By the time of the Norman Domesday Survey of 1086, there was a manor house here, together with two mills and a fishing weir, making the most of the riverside position.The manor house was rebuilt in the thirteenth century by the then owner, the Earl of Cornwall, although it no longer exists (the site now being occupied by the Duke of Northumberland public house). The church of all Saints was founded in the fourteenth century (see below). The nearby nunnery of St Saviour and St Bridget of Syon, also known as Syon Abbey, in the fifteenth; Syon House, on the site of the by then dissolved nunnery, in the sixteenth (although it was subsequently substantially rebuilt in the eighteenth). A number of other riverside estates and stately homes sprang up in the vicinity in the eighteenth century. Isleworth was finally overtaken by the spread of the suburbs in the late nineteenth century.

Church of All Saints

The church of All Saints was originally built in 1398, probably on the site of an older church referred to in a Saxon charter of 695. It was rebuilt in 1705, to a modified version of a design submitted by Christopher Wren two years earlier (the original plan having been rejected on the grounds of expense). It was then substantially destroyed in 1943, not by wartime bombing, as one might have surmised, but by an act of arson (those responsible also burning down the church of Holy Trinity in Hounslow). It was subsequently rebuilt in 1967-70, with the surviving old stone tower incorporated into the new brick structure.

The churchyard was the site of the burial of a total of 149 parishioners who died in the “Great Plague” in 1665. A yew tree and plaque mark the site of the so-called “plague pit”.

Ham

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Another in the occasional series on historical sites on the “Capital Ring” walk …

Ham was first recorded in c. 1150 as Hama, from the Old English hamm, meaning an area of land substantially enclosed by a bend in a river (in this case the Thames).

The church of St Peter was originally built here in the thirteenth century; Ham House in the Jacobean period of the early seventeenth.

Church of St Peter

The church of St Peter was originally built here in the thirteenth century, and subsequently substantially rebuilt in the seventeenth. The west tower was rebuilt again, with an attractive octagonal lantern, in 1790, and the south transept was enlarged in 1840.

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In the interior of the church are memorials to, among others, George Cole (d. 1624); Sir Thomas Jenner, Recorder of London (d. 1683); and Captain George Vancouver, explorer (d. 1798).

Ham House

Ham House was built by Sir Thomas Vavasour, Knight Marshal to James I, in 1610. In 1637, it was acquired by William Murray, 1^st Earl of Dysart, whose family continued to live here for the next three hundred years. It passed to Sir Lyonel Tollemache, the second cousin of the 9^th Earl of Dysart, in 1935, and was given by him to the National Trust in 1948.

John Evelyn visited the house in 1678, and wrote in his diary:

“After dinner I walked to Ham to see the House and Garden of the Duke of Lauderdale, which is indeed inferior to few of the best villas in Italy itself; the House furnished like a great Prince’s; the Parterres, Flower Gardens, Orangeries, Groves, Avenues, Courts, Statues, Perspectives, Fountains, Aviaries, at the banks of the Sweetest River in the World, must needs be surprising”.

Richmond

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Another in the occasional series on historical sites on the “Capital Ring” walk …

Richmond was first recorded as such in 1502, after the then King, Henry VII’s earldom of the same name in Yorkshire. Up until that time, it had been known as West Shene, which was in turn first recorded in circa 950 (East Sheen is still known as such). Note also that there is a Neolithic barrow-burial here, known as “King Henry’s Mound”.

Shene Palace

Shene Palace began life as a manor-house in the Manor of Shene, granted to the Norman Belet family during the reign of Henry I (the manor having thereunto been part of the Royal Borough of Kingston). The manor and house reverted to crown ownership in 1313, and the house then came to be used in turn by a succession of Plantagenet Kings, including Edward I, Edward II and Edward III, the last-named converting it into a palace that came to be known as Shene Palace. After Edward III’s death there in 1377, the palace became a favoured haunt of Edward’s successor Richard II and his Queen, Anne of Bohemia, although after Anne’s death of the plague there in 1394, Richard ordered it to be destroyed. Henry V then began work on a new palace on the old site in 1414, which was completed sometime in the reign of Henry VI in the 1440s (*). On December 21^st or 23^rd (sources differ), 1497, this new incarnation of the old Shene Palace, where the succeeding first Tudor King, Henry VII, and his family and retinue had gathered in readiness for Christmas, was destroyed by fire.

(*) Incidentally, at the same time Henry V also granted nearby Royal land to the Carthusian Order to enable them to build the monastery that came to be known as the Charterhouse of Jesus of Bethlehem. The monastery was dissolved under the Tudor King Henry VIII, temporarily re-established under Mary, and dissolved again under Elizabeth I. The former monastic site was converted into Old Deer Park under Elizabeth’s successor, the first Stuart King, James I (the land on the opposite bank of the Thames was converted into Richmond Park by James’s son and successor Charles I). None of the former monastic buildings survives.

Richmond Palace

Shene Palace was rebuilt again by Henry VII in the years leading up to 1502, and at that time was renamed Richmond Palace. It remained a favourite royal residence throughout the remaining part of the Tudor period of the sixteenth century, and many lavish celebrations were held there. After the defeat of the royalists by the parliamentarians in the Civil War in the early Stuart period of the early seventeenth century, it was sold off. Most of the former palace buildings have now been demolished.

The surviving Gate-House

However, the Gate-House and some associated buildings still survive, on Richmond Green.

Drawings of the palace made by Wyngaerde in 1562 and by Hollar in 1638 also still survive.

Church of St Mary Magdalene

The church of St Mary Magdalene was originally built in c. 1220, and rebuilt between 1487-1506.

It has subsequently been much modified, in the early and late seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Only the tower still survives from the post-Medieval period (the lower part dating to 1487-1506, and the upper part to 1624). A number of post-Medieval memorials also still survive, including those of Robert Cotton (d. 1591), Officer of the Wardrobe to Mary and Elizabeth I; Walter Hickman (d. 1617); Margarite Jay (d. 1623), wife of Thomas Jay (d. 1646), Commissary-General of the Royalist Cavalry “in these unhappy wars”; Margaret, Lady Chudleigh (d. 1628); Dorothy, Lady Wright (d. 1631), portrayed with her husband Sir George Wright (d. 1623); Robert Lawes (d. 1649); Simon Bardolph (d. 1654); and John Bentley (d. 1660). Particularly notable among the eighteenth- and nineteenth- century memorials are those of William Rowan (d. 1767), attributed to Rysback; the Hon. Barbara Lowther (d. 1805), by Flaxman; and Major George Bean (d. 1815, at the Battle of Waterloo), by John Bacon the Younger.

Wimbledon

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Another in the occasional series on historical sites on the “Capital Ring” walk …

Wimbledon was first recorded in c. 950 as Wunemannedune, from the Old English personal mane Wynnmann and “dun”, “hill” (note also, though, that there is an Iron Age earthwork nearby, at “Caesar’s Camp”). The original church of St Mary was built here in the Saxo-Norman period. A manor house, known as the Parsonage House and later the Old Rectory, was built here in c. 1500; and a second one, known as Wimbledon House or Palace in c. 1588.

The village of Wimbledon grew up around the church and manor houses.

Eagle House as it appeared prior to its recent sale

Eagle House, on the High Street, was built for Robert Bell, Master of the Worshipful Company of Girdlers and Co-Founder and Director of the British East India Company, in either 1613 or 1617 (sources differ).

Rose and Crown

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The Rose and Crown, also on the High Street, was built in the middle part of the seventeenth century.

The area only began to become densely built up after the arrival of the railway in 1838. It is now part of the London Borough of Merton.

Church of St Mary

2 - Seventeenth-century grave slab built into wall

As noted above, the original church of St Mary was built during the Saxo-Norman period, and is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. It was rebuilt in the later Medieval period, at the end of the thirteenth century, and again in the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries. The oldest surviving part is the chancel.

2 - Fifteenth-century stained glass in Cecil Chapel

3 - Cecil altar-tomb and other memorials in Cecil Chapel

The Cecil Chapel contains a stained-glass window dating back to the fifteenth century, and a number of memorials from the seventeenth century, including that of Edward Cecil, 1^st Viscount Wimbledon (d. 1638), son of Thomas, and grandson of William. Elsewhere in the interior are memorials to Philip Lewston, who died in 1462, and William Walter, who died in 1587. And commemorative plaques to the abolitionist William Wilberforce, who lived locally and died in 1833, and who is buried in Westminster Abbey, and to the “Sewer King” Joseph Bazalgette, who also lived locally, and died in 1891, and who is buried in the family vault in the churchyard.

Old Rectory

Old Rectory

What is now known as the Old Rectory was built in c. 1500 for the church, the manor at that time being owned by the Archbishops of Canterbury. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the King, Henry VIII, gave it to Thomas Cromwell, in 1536, and then – after Cromwell’s fall from grace and execution – to the Queen, Catherine Parr, in 1543. Henry visited the house in 1546, after being taken ill on a tour of his Surrey palaces, and indeed was so ill he could not make it up the stairs, such that a bed had to be made up for him in front of the fireplace in the entrance hall. In 1550, it became a grace-and-favour home for William Cecil, who went on to become 1st Baron Burghley – and Elizabeth I’s chief adviser. The house still stands to this day, its appearance altered from that in Tudor times essentially only by the demolition of some parts and the restoration of others in the early eighteenth century. However, it is now carefully screened from public view.

Wimbledon House or Palace

Wimbledon House

Wimbledon House or Palace was built in c. 1588 for William’s son Thomas Cecil, 1^st Earl of Exeter. It was subsequently rebuilt – by Inigo Jones and Nicholas Stone – in 1639, for King Charles I’s Queen, Henrietta Maria, taken away from her during the Civil War in 1642, and only given back after the Restoration in 1660, and sold – in a sorry state of repair – in 1661. It was eventually demolished in 1717.

Streatham

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Another in the occasional series on historical sites on the “Capital Ring” walk …

the-church-in-the-eighteenth-century

Streatham was first founded in the Saxon period, possibly on the site of an earlier, Roman settlement. It was first recorded in 675 as (Totinge cum) Stretham, and later recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Estreham, from the Old English straet, in this context probably the Roman road that ran from London to Portslade (near Brighton), and ham, meaning homestead or village. In the Saxon period it, together with nearby Tooting, was owned by the Abbey of Chertsey. In the Norman period, both estates were given by William I to his cousin Richard of Tonbridge, who when he died bequeathed them to the Abbey of Saint Mary of Bec in Normandy (whence Tooting Bec). In the later Medieval to post-Medieval/early modern period, the area came to be owned in turn by Eton College, Edward VI, the Howland family, the Russell family (the Dukes of Bedford), and the Du Cane family, and remained sparsely populated. Many wealthy City families evidently established country retreats here after the Great Fire of London in 1666. The area remained at least semi-rural, and fashionable among the bourgeois elite, into Georgian and Regency times. It began to become much more built-up and densely populated from the latter half of the nineteenth century onwards, after the arrival of the railway. The number of inhabitants increased over ten-fold during the period of Victoria’s reign, to around 100000. A significant amount of new or replacement housing had to be built in the area after the bombing of the Second World War.

Church of St Leonard

general-view-of-the-present-church

The church of St Leonard was probably originally built in the Saxon period; rebuilt in the fourteenth century, in c. 1350; rebuilt again in the nineteenth century, in 1830-1; and restored in the twentieth, after sustaining serious damage in a fire, in 1975. The tower survives from the Medieval church. A number of seventeenth- to eighteenth- century memorials also survive, in the interior, including one to John Howland (d. 1686), and one to the sometime brewery business proprietor, Alderman and Sheriff of the City of London, and Member of Parliament Henry Thrale of Streatham Place (d. 1781), featuring an epitaph by his close friend Dr Samuel Johnson.

ward-window

tylney-window

thrale-window

Later stained-glass windows commemorate Sir John Ward, a knight who fought alongside the Black Prince at the Battle of Crecy in 1346, and who commissioned the rebuilding of the church in c. 1350; Edmund Tilney or Tylney, the Master of the Revels under Elizabeth I and James I, who lived locally and died in 1610; and the aforementioned Henry Thrale and his wife Hester (shown with Johnson and Boswell).

Beckenham

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Another in the occasional series on historical sites on the “Capital Ring” walk …

Beckenham was first recorded in an Anglo-Saxon charter of 862 as Biohhahema mearcae, from the Old English personal name Beohha, ham, meaning homestead or village, and mearc, meaning mark or boundary. It remained essentially rural for much of its later history, only really beginning to become (sub)urbanised in the nineteenth century, after the arrival of the railway in 1857. Historically part of the county of Kent, it is now part of the London Borough of Bromley, created in 1965.

Part of the thirteenth-century manor house has been incorporated into the Old Council Hall. The seventeenth-century George Inn also still stands, on the High Street.

Church of St George

The church of St George was originally built in the twelfth century, and subsequently substantially rebuilt at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth. It was damaged by V-1 flying bombs in 1944.

The lych-gate dates to the thirteenth century, and is said to be the oldest in England.

The Lost City of London – Before the Great Fire of 1666

e-mail: lostcityoflondon@sky.com

Category Archives: London History

Brentford

Isleworth

Ham

Richmond

Wimbledon

Streatham

Beckenham

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