Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/394

 322

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. x. OCT. 24, MOB.

some trouble found the site, much to my satisfaction, it was afterwards made evident to me that the discovery was not mine, or only in the degree of corroboration. For the Ordnance surveyors had found the site of the manor house c. 1869, and marked it on their map of largest scale (5 ft. to the mile] published in 1873. That it should have remained unknown, and speculation still continued, can only be attributed to neglect of the use of the map, or to the omission of the site on the more generally used map of 25' 344 inches to the mile.

Writers from Dugdale and Lysons down to those of the present day refer to the manor indefinitely, and in regard to the manor house they are still less precise.* The ever useful Walford, though apparently he had not found the site, gave me a cue to it in ' Old and New London ' (iv. 3) : "In the Clause [sic] Rolls, 28 Henry VIII., is a grant wherein is mentioned the manor of Neyte with the precinct of water called the Mote of the said manor." At the Record Office the grant, with the Close Rolls, proved to be that of Abbot Boston (afterwards Dean Benson) to the King of " all that site, soil, circuit, and precinct of the manor of Neyte within the compass of the mote, with all the housings, buildings, yards, gardens, orchards, fishings, and other commodities in and about the same site." I take the English form of the grant (in Latin) as incorporated in the Act 28 Henry VIII. cap. 49, ' Statutes of the Realm,' iii. 709. The moat served as my cue, and with the Crace Collection (Brit. Mus.) were easily found several copies of old plans in the archives of the Grosvenor Westminster estate, the earliest of which (x. 21), date 1614, showed me " Nete House " in an oblong enclosure encompassed by a moat. The house in plan, as might be expected, surrounds a court which is open to the road in front, where doubtless the moat was bridged. The road, forming a loop round the premises, is the continuation of the " Willow Walk," which ia identified with Warwick Street, Pimlico, the name being preserved in " Willow Street " on the east side of the Vauxhall Bridge Road, at the point where Warwick Street starts to run westward. If we compare the old plan with a modern map, the site of Nete House is soon detected about 700 yards from the above point along Warwick Street; the loop is still made by

(1892), p. 8, indicates the site of "the Neat Houses and Gardens," but does not seem to identify it as that of the Manor House.
 * Mr. George Clinch in ' Mayfair and Belgravia '

side streets, though the road is continued straight, and the insula formed on the south side of Warwick Street represents the old site. To-day the spot is not attractive ; no willow or other green thing relieves the arid monotony of brick and stucco ; although at the east end of the block of houses named Sutherland Terrace (lately St. George's Row) is " The Monster," a well-known public- house and 'bus terminus, where the thirst of the explorer may be assuaged ! " The Monster " has its reminiscence of vanished tea-gardens, but more, the name must be an ugly declension of Minster or Monastery, and thus is a witness to the former dwelling of Abbots. It is here that on the Ordnance map of largest scale is marked "Neyte Manor House (site of)," and my discovery of it is, I repeat, no more than corroboration.

Another plan very interesting in our study is one of 1675 (x. 18). Here again is " Nete House " in the same position, but the moat is gone. The house is shown in a little, roughly sketched elevation, and it is valuable as evidence ; for against a lower tier of building is indicated a tower with a broken battlemented top, which, taken in connexion with the central court and surrounding moat of the 1614 plan, may fairly impress us as mediae val. In the earlier plan there is also, about 330 yards north of Nete House, a group of buildings marked " Eybury"; they border the " Road to Chelsea," and in the 1675 plan, which is entitled ' A Map or Plot of the Lordship of Eburie,* we have the same buildings in elevation, showing rather a large house (apparently of three stories), against which is written " Lordship House," circumstances presently to be considered. The date 1675 is that of the year preceding the Grosvenor acquisition.

One other plan (x. 19) will have our notice : George's Parish, as it was in 1723.' Nete House is gone, unless represented by a square block on the site. The plan is interesting in that on a large field in front of the site is written " The Balywick of Neat " ; this at least assures us of the locality, and suggests question as to the manor which we will defer until we have put together what has been gathered in relation to Neyte (Nete, Neet, or Neat) Manor House. As to local development shown on the plan of 1723, the Canal of the Chelsea Waterworks (established the previous year) has been made ; it cuts the by-road between Nete House and " the Manor of Ebury," and is crossed by a bridge, a slight wooden structure (as we learn fromWalford),.
 * A Map of the Grosvenor Estate in St.