Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/651

 KINGSTON HUNDRED

��Gildhall, for the terms were synonymous. In the upper rooms, then as now, were kept the records of the borough, for in July 1684 the Court of Assembly ordered that the bailiffs and nine others should meet to sort out their writings and leases." The assizes were held here, and in the 1 7th century the hall was then decorated with hangings brought from Hampton Court." In 1670 'Mr. Marriott' received z for their use." In 1 572 two watchmen were paid 6</. ' for watching under ye court hall at ye syes,' and in 1 670 were in special charge of the hanging. 7 * ' The arm* ' were painted in the Gildhall in 1572, and in 1660 the painted window still in the council-room was presented in honour of the Restoration ; in 1670 John Baylis was paid ' for taking down the glasse in Guildhall att Session times.' " Several important trials took place here, perhaps the most sensational being that before Blackstone in which George Onslow

��KINGSTON- UPON-THAMES

offices, and here the public library was housed until in 1904 it was moved to its present building in the Fair Field, given by Mr. Andrew Carnegie. Clattern House stands at the southern end of the market-place opposite the town hall on the bank of the Hogsmill, Maiden River, or Lurteborne as it seems to have been called in 1439."

Clattern House preserves the name of Clattering Bridge, which though but 8 ft. wide in 1 83 1 n had at least one house on its western side, for which I rent was paid to the corporation in 1620 and 1670. The bridge was widened in about 1882 and the present coping erected." Across the road and next to the bridge is a row of gabled houses with plastered fronts, all more or less restored or altered for modern shops ; near these must have stood ' The Crane,' * the most important inn in Kingston during the i6th and 1 7th centuries. It had belonged to the free

���KINGSTON : HIGH STREET

��brought an action for libel against John Home Tooke the politician and philologist. 7 * The poorness of the accommodation provided caused much grumbling among both judges and counsel, and in 1808 the corporation obtained an Act of Parliament authorizing the sale of the common lands to raise funds for build- ing a new court-house. In 1811 they purchased Clattern House for the judges' lodging and added on its eastern side a court-house which cost them about i 0,000. When Kingston ceased to be an assize town Clattern House was made the municipal

��chapel of St. Mary Magdalene, and was held in 1 546 by John Agmondesham and inherited by his son, but in 1564 it formed part of the endowment of the grammar school." It was much frequented by the Court, and in 1526 was the lodging-place of the Imperial Ambassadors. 83 When they passed through the town the Chamberlain's Accounts show items such as ' Payd at ye Crane for wyen and pypens geven to ye Byshops,' for a gallon of sack for my Lord Mayor at the Crane ;/. and ' to the goodman of the Crane for frewt I2 Ct. of Assembly Bk. 3 July 1684. The 17th-century transcriber who filled I.ansd. MSS. 225, 226, had before him documents which have now disappeared, as have some of those mentioned by the Inspector in 1872 ; Hiit. MSS. Ctm. Ref. iii, App. J3I-3.

��" J Chamberlain's Accts. patiim. T Ibid. 1670.

~ 4 Ibid. 1571, 1670. f'lbid.

'* Diet. Nat. Biog. Ivii, 40. f> Lansd. MS. 226, fol. 27. " 8 Merryweather, op. cit. 14 ; 17 B.M. King's Maps and Plans, xl, 15, z,

491

��" Chamberlain's Accts. 1620, 1670.

80 Merryweather, op. cit. 1 5.

81 Chapman, llandbk. to Kingston, 16.
 * Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), Uxxr, 65 ;

Surr. Arch. Call, viii, 318.

L. and P. Hen. VIU, IT, 2397.

Hia. MSS. Cm. Rif. iii, App. 332.

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