Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/36

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XL J A >-. , 1009.

Richard Whasshe, probably son of the above, and complaint was made of him to Lord Burghley, High Steward of the Queen's manors of Westminster, that he had sublet, and allowed to be enclosed, land that had been common at Lammastide. Like com- plaint was at the same time made in respect of 108 acres at " the Neat," in the tenancy of Linde and Turner.* Here it may be said that the extent of Eia south of the Knightsbridge Road being, as I calculate, 608 acres, if Ebury Farm contained 430 acres, there remained 178 acres which then or later may have formed the bailiwick of Neat. Now it so happens that this measure- ment 178 acres corresponds remarkably well with the area which, as above indicated, appears naturally to form the division of Neyte or Neat.

In 1676 Eybury, or the larger portion of it, passed to the Grosvenor family by the marriage of Sir Richard Grosvenor, a young Cheshire baronet, with Mary the child heiress she was but eleven years old of Alexander Davis, who had died owner of Eybury Farm in 1665. The plan of 1675, which has been noticed, shows that then Edward Boynton was tenant, and we are puzzled in reading that the " proprie- tress " was " Mrs. Mary Dammison," who, if " Dammison " be not a mistake for Davis, may have had the lease. The house was of considerable size, if we may credit the little roughly sketched elevation of " Lordship House," which, indeed, appears to be of three stories ; farm-buildings were grouped around ; there were gardens and a large orchard. This farmstead lay along the " Road from Chelsy to Goring House," then standing where is now Buckingham Palace. In the plan of 1723 the place ia marked as " The Manor of Ebury " ; on Rocque's map of 1746 the name is " Avery Farm," possibly a Frenchman's mistake ; but both forms, Ebury and Avery, are yet found on the spot. In Bowles's map of 1787 a row of houses occupies the site ; in Horwood's fine map of 1795 the Chelsea Road has become " Belgrave Place," thus indicating the spread of London, while rurality. Gradually the Chelsea Waterworks became developed, and the Canal was made to terminate in a large basin where is now Victoria Railway Station ; for later inventions have hustled aside older ones, .and the Brighton Railway has superseded the watercourse later known as the Grosvenor
 * ' Avery Farm Row " is a memento of passing

Stow's ' Survey,' Strype's ed., Book VI. 78.

Canal, a remnant of which, however, yet keeps its course alongside the iron way. And " Jenny's Whim Bridge," the frail timber structure which had carried the by- road between Neyt Manor House and Ebury Farm, has given place to the ponderous iron Ebury Bridge, now spanning both railway and canal. Pimlico, here on either side, does not invite residence ; yet in summer- time, at least, the green foliage of young trees planted round the vicarage and schools of St. Michael's, Chester Square, which now cover the site of Ebury Farm, relieves the sterility of noisy commercial streets ; Ebury Square, of small size, close by, also affords shady seats to toilers ; and Avery Farm Row yet recalls the past.

The site of Ebury Farm is assured, but who will define the limits of Ebury manor if a division of the original Eia ?* The great manor, if the assumption be correct that it extended northward to the Oxford Road, had the extent, according to my computation on the map, of 1,090 acres. This area was intersected by the Knights- bridge or Brentford Road, 482 acres lying north and 608 south. The southern moiety was certainly the manor of Ebury, enclosing the moated manor house of Neyte. The northern moiety contained the manor of Hyde, and the question arises, Was it all Hyde ? It is the existence of Hyde which makes it difficult to accept the judgment of Sir Henry Ellis that Eybury was Eia. It does not seem that topographers have ever much troubled themselves about the limits of Hyde, and people generally have been content to consider the manor identical with Hyde Park as far westward as the Westbourne stream, now merged in the Serpentine ; while as for the area between Park Lane and the former course of the Tyburn stream, the hazy impression is perhaps that it too is Ebury, inasmuch as the Grosvenor estate lies though not with- out interruption both south and north of the intersecting road. I must leave the question open, merely remarking that manors are not prone to cross main roads, and that the shape of Ebury manor is decidedly awkward on the map if it takes in Berkeley and Grosvenor Squares. Park Lane was, as the name indicates, a mere

as that of Mandeville's grant of Ese or Eia to the Abbey. It was taken from Davis, who seems to have misinterpreted Widmore. The grant made in the time of Abbot Gilbert Crispin was confirmed by the Conqueror; therefore the date fell during the interval 1085-7.
 * I would here correct the date 1102 (10 S. x. 321)