Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/644

 A HISTORY OF SURREY

��for working the Kew ferry." Thomas Tunstall acquired the ferry from William Churchman in 1732," and in 1758-9 a wooden bridge was built by Robert Tunstall to take its place. 101 This bridge was replaced by a stone one which was begun in 1783-4"" by Mr. Tunstall, whose descendant sold it to Mr. G. Robinson in 1819. A toll was charged on this bridge until 1873, when it was bought by the Corporation of London and the Metropolitan Board of Works for .75,000 and made free. 103 This bridge was closed to traffic in 1899, and a temporary one erected during the construction of the present bridge, which was opened 20 May 1903.""

Most of the houses in Kew are built round the Green and along the eastern side of the Richmond Road looking towards the gardens. The Green itself is a big triangular space. It is mentioned in a Parliamentary Survey of Richmond taken in 1649, and is there described, as ' a piece of common or uninclosed ground called Kew Green, lying within the Township of Kew, conteyning about 20 acres." 04 An 18th-century view, taken from a meadow to the east, shows the bridge on the right, a small irregular lake with an island to the left. A road led to the western point of the Green, where the palace was visible, a windmill behind it ;and trees, the trunks engirdled by seats, grew opposite the square-built church which stood isolated on the Green. 106 Some land at the end of the Green was inclosed by George IV, and a meadow east of the bridge was made common, 107 as part of a design, never carried out, of building a new palace at Kew in place of the Dutch House. 108 In the early igth century Sir Richard Phillips described the Green as 'a triangular area of about 30 acres bounded by dwelling-houses," 01 and another description of a slightly later date speaks of the ' well-built houses and noble trees ' surrounding it. 110 In the last century the Green was the scene of village sports, such as climbing the pole, jumping in sacks, grinning through horse-collars, &c. 111

The ecclesiastical parish of St. Luke, formed in 1890, includes a part of Kew. There are Roman Catholic (Our Lady of Loretto) and Wesleyan chapels in the parish.

St. Luke's Schools (National) were opened when the church was built. For the King's School, see Richmond, to which parish it properly belongs.

KEW formed part of the royal manor M4NOR of Richmond (q.v.). The name occurs in a Richmond Court Roll in 1348,"' and Lysons quotes another of the time of Henry VII which also mentions Kew." 3 In 1484 the issues of the manor of Kew were granted to Henry Davy, keeper of the manor and park of Sheen, towards the maintenance of the deer in winter," 4 but this appears to be the only reference to it as a separate manor.

The church of ST. 4NNE is a

CHURCH building of brick and stone in the

Italian classic style consisting of a chancel,

north organ-chamber and vestry, south chancel-aisle,

nave, north and south aisles, and west porches and

��vestry. It stands at the south-east corner of Kew Green.

The building dates from 1714, but it has been much enlarged since that time, first by George III in 1770, and again by William IV in 1837. A plan dated 1805, in the church, shows a very small chancel and a nave with aisles of three bays, and the west porches as now. The present chancel was added in 1884 and the vestry in 1902 in memory of Queen Victoria.

The chancel has a small apsidal sanctuary, each of the three walls of which is pierced by a round-headed window of two lights with a circular piercing over. Between the windows inside are Corinthian columns forming shafts to the vaulted ceiling ; the entrance to the sanctuary is spanned by a round-headed archway. The chancel arch and each of the two side arches are segmental-headed and have red marble columns with quasi-Ionic capitals carved with winged cherubs' heads. Over the chancel rises an octagonal lantern lighted on its four main sides by circular windows and on the other four by half-round lights, and spanned by a domical roof covered with lead. Both chancel- aisles are lighted by round-headed east and tide windows. The nave has a colonnade on either side of five bays with round plaster pillars having Doric capitals, above which are carved consoles ; the spaces between the columns are spanned by lintels, above which are elliptical-headed recesses forming cross groins with the elliptic barrel-vaulted ceiling of the nave. The aisles are lighted by round-headed win- dows and have flat ceilings. At the west end is a gallery extending right across the building and having an elliptical projecting front in the nave ; it contains the former royal pews with upholstered seats. At the west end is a porch having a vestry to the south of it, and a lobby with the stairs to the gallery on the north side. Outside is a portico about half the height of the building, with four shallow pilasters against the wall, and having four circular columns supporting a stone frieze enriched with triglyphs, and a moulded cornice above which is an open balustrade. The west wall proper, like the rest of the building, is of stock and red brick, and has a pediment head above which is a small clock-turret covered with cement and crowned by a copper dome ; in it hang eight tubular ' bells.' There were formerly three bells by T. Mears, 1838. The parapets of the side walls are plain. The roofs are covered with slates. The furniture generally is modern. The reredos is set with mosaics representing the Agnus Dei. Oak screens divide the chancel from its aisles, and it is fitted with oak seats. The font is of carved stone. To the east of the chancel is the burial vault, built of red brick and stone, of the Duke of Cambridge who died in 1850, and of the Duchess who died in 1889 ; the entrance to it is behind the altar. In the church there are many monuments to more or less celebrated people ; one in the south aisle is to Dorothy, Dowager Lady Capell, Baroness Tewkesbury, and another is to Thomas Gainsborough the painter, who was buried

��n Cat. S.P. Dam. 1690-1, p. 345.

100 Feet of F. Surr. Mich. 6 Jas. I.

WJourn. of Kew Guild (1903), 126.

lm Ibid. ; Add. Chart. 16155.

W7crH. of Kew Guild (1903), 126; Sut. 31-1 Viet. cap. 17 ; 32-3 Viet, cap. 19 ; 37-8 Viet. cap. XI.

��104 Stat. 61-2 Viet. cap. 100, 155; Journ. of Kew Guild (1903), 126.

1M Vetusta Monum, (Soc. of Antiq.), ii.

J0 * East virtu of Kew or Strand Green.

lv > Local Act, 4 Geo. IV, cap. 75.

108 The Times, 21 Dec. 18185 above.

��486

��^ R. Phillips, A Morning Walt from London to Kew, 1817.

110 Frederick Scheer, Kew and in Gar- dens, 29.

111 Ibid.

na Ct. Roll (gen. ser.), portf. 205, no. 5, 118 Lysons, Environs of London, i, 202. < Cal. Pat, 1476-85, p. 408.

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