St. Pancras; Being Antiquarian, Topographical, and Biographical
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
BERKELEY LIBRARY ^ UNIVERSITY OF I *^ / \ ^ CALIFORNIA AA-XA-*-^ \Ci — 0-2- CO < o < CO fc St. PancraS; BEING ANTIQUARIAN, TOPOGRAPHICAL, AND BIOGRAPHICAL MEMORANDA, RELATING TO THE EXTENSIVE METROPOLITAN PARISH OF St. Pancras, Middlesex: WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE PARISH FROM ITS FOUNDATION. BY SAMUEL PALMER. " " COMPILER OF THE INDEX TO THE TIMES NEWSPAPER," "EPITAPHS AND EPIGRAMS," BYRON " PAINTED EV HIS COIMPKERS," SEEDS FOR PRODUCTIVE MINDS." ETC., ETC. LONDON : SAMUEL PALMER, 20, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND; AND FIELD & TUER, 50, LEADENMALL STREET, CITY. 1870. JAl, 7. yl^ /^/. 2.DiiDon: FIELD & TLER ' ^M PRINTERS IN 50, LEADENHAI.L ST , <^/;10 'axTIQL-E TYPE/ 1)0 (.25 S33P3 TO THE i'erjj |Ub. i\n §tKn oi |locfjtshr/ Canon of Si. Paul's, i^c, 6r'C., WHO WAS FOR UPWARDS OF FOURTEEN YEARS RECTOR OF THIS PARISH, AND UNDER WHOSE FOSTERING CARE, GENIAL INFLUENCE, AND UNTIRING DEVOTION, MOST OF THE of ^t. Institutions '^^nncnis OWE THEIR BIRTH AND GROWTH, THIS VOLUME, WHICH WILL RECALL TO HIS MIND HIS WORKS OF FAITH AND LABOURS OF LOVE, IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED (wiTH PERMISSION), BY HIS FAITHFUL SERVANT, SAMUEL PALMER. HiGHGATE IIiLL, April, 1870. 363 PREFACE. It is now nearly a thousand years since the parish of St. Pancras was founded, and yet during the whole of that lengthened period no complete history of the parish has been published. Many have attempted it, but the antiquity of the parish, its vast extent, and the immense mass of material that can be collected or ought to be collected relating to it, have at first dispirited, then exhausted the patience, and ultimately led to the relinquishing of their object. Many collections have been made, but the collector, viewing the paucity of his materials, has shrunk from the task, and left the parish as it is at the present day—destitute of any local history. When an account of a parish has been published, however meagre the same may be, it furnishes stepping- stones for the successor, as dottings of dates and boundaries for but when a man has to be his subjects ; own pioneer, has to lay down his own plan, classify his own materials, chronicle his various events, with a VllI PREFACE. blank space only whereon to lay the whole, then the task, which otherwise might be amusing, is both intri- cate and perplexing. Such is the case with the local of this and were it not that history parish ; many interested in the work have kindly lent a helping hand, the present attempt, like its precursors, might have passed away. The Author begs, therefore, to thank Rufus Waugh, Esq., for his advice and assistance, for many valuable local documents, and for his valuable list of the vicars of the parish, which forms a most of the work as also for the list of interesting portion ; churchwardens which T. E. Gibb, Esq., the vestry clerk, has so obligingly completed to the present day. He has also to return his sincere thanks to John Bullock, Esq., of the neighbouring parish of Islington, for the numerous items of intelligence which he only could supply, and which not only enrich the volume, but give a liveliness and interest to the work. To many others also the Author would thus publicly return his thanks, and he only hopes that the volume may meet with that acceptance which such a work ought to receive, and give as much pleasure to the reader as it has afforded to him. Unfortunately, he has scarcely diminished the pile of memoranda which he himself and the kindness of his friends have but it is his accumulated ; intention, PREFACE. IX follow this provided his subscribers should wish it, to with a second volume, which the Author feels quite sure will be as amusing and interesting as he thinks a thousand the present to be. A parish of years' existence must be very unfortunate if even two such is value volumes as the present can contain all that of to the but the Author believes the parishioners ; fully be con- majority of that which is really valuable m.ay densed into a second volume, and if any subscriber can infor- enrich it with any antiquarian or topographical mation, it will be received with thanks. With this second volume will be given a series of Twenty Engravings of the most interesting spots in this interesting parish, so that the reader may be able to view the scene which has engrossed his attention, and thereby derive a double pleasure from the volume before him. MEMORANDA RELATING TO THE PARISH OF ST. PANCRAS. INTRODUCTION. Parochial history possesses a peculiar charm to per- sons residing in its locahty. They seem to have a sort of interest in all that is done or doingf within its boundary. Like family history, each resident appears to claim a sort of association with it. Whatever Is beneficial to their fellow-parishioners they pride them- selves in and as in the workhouse and effecting ; when, infirmary cases of this great parish, disclosures are made, harrowing to the feelings and repulsive to all right management, the slur cast on the parish seems to attach itself to each and every one, and then the per- sonal stigma incites the entire body to investigate and determinately alter. It is this local association that prevents the older parishes from settling down Into that stagnant state in which otherwise the crust of years would embed them. Passing on, year after year, in the one monotonous round of parochial rule, they would undeviatingly follow the steps of their progenitors in office, and meet but to approve and congratulate each other on their appointments, and then to pass their offices to those who are to succeed them. But local management now is not what local management was. B 14 HISTORY OF ST. PANCRAS. The unofficial peer into what the official is doing, and reformation worms itself into the decaying system, and demands what it ultimately obtains—a new and a better system of legislature. The parish of St. Pancras, in the county of Middle- sex, is just such a parish, and is one of the largest in the kingdom. It is of great antiquity, forming, as it did, part of the great forest of Middlesex. It derived its name from that of the martyr who suffered death about the year 290. Its population is estimated, at the present day, at a little over a quarter of a million, its number being only exceeded of all the metropolitan parishes by the neighbouring one of Marylebone. It is bounded on the north by Hornsey and Finchley, on the south by the several parishes of St. Giles in the Fields, St. George's, Bloomsbury, St. George the Mar- on the east Clerk- tyr, and St. Andrew's, Holborn ; by enwell and Islington, and on the west by St. Mary- lebone and Hampstead. The parish is computed to contain 27,000 square acres of land, and its circuit twenty-one miles. So extensive a district is divided for municipal purposes into eight wards, and the whole governed by a vestry. The vestrymen are elected by the ratepayers, of either a of three one-third of the number sex, for period years ; passing out of office annually, but are eligible for re- election. Two churchwardens and forty guardians of the poor are annually elected on Easter Monday by the assembled vestrymen. The burial board of the of parish is constituted of nine ratepayers, three whom are also annually elected for three years. There are four ancient prebendary manors in the or Kentish Town Pancras ; parish, namely, ; Cantlowes, Court or Tothill, or Tottenham ; Ruggemure, Rug- mere. HISTORY OF ST. PANCRAS. 1 5 This parish can also boast of its regal residences, as King John once had a palace in Tottenham Court from whence it receives its name and it Road, ; was at Tottenham Court where Edward IV. resided with the celebrated Jane Shore : it was afterwards converted into a religious house. This palace was situated in what is now called the Euston Road, near the corner of Tottenham Court Road, about where the King's Head Tavern stands, and from it ran a subterranean passage to the Old Church, which some enterprising antiquaries explored with lighted torches about the middle of the last century. Queen Elizabeth had a palace in Kentish Town,—it was her hunting palace, where she repaired to enjoy her sports of hawking and other amusements it afterwards a re- ; became country sidence of the noted Nell Gwyne, and occupied " the site of what is known as The Old Farm Tavern." Oliver Cromwell, the stern old Protector, also had a palatial residence at Highgate, near unto Hornsey Lane, — all which prove that in bygone days this suburban of the metropolis was neither despised nor neglected •by the aristocracy of their in his of day ; although Hive, Survey London, printed at the Globe in Newgate Street in 1742,' says, " in his quaint old style, Though the parish of St. Pancras-in-the-fields be without the bills of mortality, I have nevertheless thought it necessary to insert an account of that part thereof where the houses are contiguous to the suburbs of London, and this part of St. Pancras parish, which pays to the poor about ;^i32 a year, contains one. hundred and twenty-two houses, and one person that keeps a coach!' This parish was particularly noted for its places of public resort and pleasure, the greater part of which are now records of the past. Amongst them may be named 1 6 HISTORY OF ST. PANCRAS. St.