Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/499

 to s. x. NOV. 21, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

411

RALEIGH'S HOUSE AT BRIXTON. (10 S. x. 348.)

THE fine old Jacobean house known as Raleigh House was demolished about twenty years ago, and COL. PBIDEAUX will find some account of it at the following references: 2 S. ix. 243, 410; 6 S. vii. 294. The Illustrated London News for 6 Aug., 1887, contained a woodcut of the house from a pen-and-ink sketch by Mr. Louis Wain.

As I was born in this house, where my maternal grandmother, Mrs. Edward Harvey, lived from 1843 to 1887, I may perhaps be allowed to say that I consider Mr. E. F. Rimbault's conjecture the most plausible of several. He thought it probable that the house had been occupied by Capt. George Ralegh (Sir Walter's nephew). Capt. George, who was sometime Deputy Governor of Jersey, certainly resided in the parish of Lambeth ; and in Lambeth Church his wife, Judith Jermyn, is buried (ob. 1701). The great Sir Walter was imprisoned in the Tower 160316, and cannot have lived at Brixton between the latter date and his execution in 1618. Moreover, the house itself was later than Elizabeth's reign.

The Daily Mail appears to have recorded a vigorous tradition which is still growing. Ivy Lodge, the house opposite, was known in our time as Burleigh House ; and, appa- rently, at some earlier period as Sir Walter's dog-kennel ! I know nothing of the Queen's cottage, but fear that Queen Elizabeth's hypothetical visit must have taken place before it was built. But if she ever visited Ralegh at Brixton and chose to spend the night there, she would rather, I imagine, have sent her host to lie in a cottage than have hidden the majesty of England under so humble a roof. This was not Gloriana's way.

One somewhat suspects underground passages nowadays, even when visible to the naked eye. There was a mysterious passage used by tradesmen, &c., at Raleigh House. You came up an avenue from the high road ; entered the passage, which ran under a shrubbery at the side'of the lawn ; and attained the house. Concerning this <?atacomb-like back-entrance several antique legends erew up ; but it had been built by Daniel Whittle Harvey (1786-1863), the Radical politician, a former occupant of the house ! A. R. BATTLE Y.

I think that the following quotation from an article recently written by the eminent Streatham antiquary Mr. H. Baldwin in reference to Ivy House, Brixton Hill, will be of interest to COL. PBIDEAUX :

"I have known the house for many years, but regret to say that I have found no grounds on which to base such an association [i.e., that con- necting it with the name of Queen Elizabeth]. All antiquaries are familiar with Elizabethan 'local traditions.' I remember another old home just opposite, which was called Raleigh House ; and another just beyond the new * White Horse,' called Manor House. There was a tradition concerning the last to the effect that it had a subterranean communication under the road with a religious house on the site of St. Matthew's Church, and there was some confirmation of this in discoveries made near the foundations when the ' Horse ' was pulled down. Many years ago an old Brixtonian accounted to me for the names Elizabeth and Raleigh by a tradition that the Queen came in her barge from Greenwich to this spot by the river Effra (the name of which is still preserved), a tributary of the river Thames ; but in no history of Lambeth or Camberwell, in which parishes Brixton Causeway and the Effra are, can I trace evidence of this."

JOHN B. TWYCROSS.

" ISING-GLASS " (10 S. x. 346). May I append to PKOF. SKEAT'S early quotations for this name two early quotations as to the substance ?

The first is from Ace. Exch. (K.R.) Bundle 178, No. 17, at leaf 5. This account is headed

" Particule compotus Willelmi de Redenesse clerici quern Rex assignauit xmo die Decembris anno regni sui xliijcio per breue suum patens de magno sigillo suo Receptorem et Custodem omnium victualium suorum in villa Gales videlicet de omnibus Receptis solutis misis et expensis per ipsum Willelmum in eodem officio factis a dicto xmo die Decembris dicto anno xliijcio vsque ix diem Decembris anno xlvto videlicit per ij annos integros." The payments are grouped, so that all similar expenditure appears with one mar- ginal title. There is but one under the heading noted ' Hussblass ' :

" Willelmo Foxtone pro v Ib. de Glew vocati

husblass' per ipsum emptis ibidem precium libre ijs. iijd. ob. per manus dicti Thesaurarii xjs. vd. ob."

This document may be dated 1371, as may also the one next following in the same bundle, which records the delivery

" Patricio Byker artillario Regis ibidem [of] iiij c xxxiiij Ib. salpetre pro v xx, iiij xx Ib. di. sulphuris

viui Ixiiij Ib. fili pro cordis balistarum, lij Ib.

trussyng thred, Ij Ib. di. trenchefyll, xx Ib. cordi canabis, xlij gaithorns, xl bukhorns, xiiij Ib. di. glewe, j Ib. husblass', y Ib. Cere, vj bussellos carbonis maririi, vj gaddes calibis, vj Ib. pulueris gunnorum iiij ml pennarum aucarum."

R. J. WHITWELL.