Page:The Victoria History of the County of Surrey Volume 3.djvu/657

Rh in 1846-7. It was here that many members of the Orleans family were married. It was shut up for some years, but was re-opened to the public in 1908.

New Maiden and Coombe, 2 miles east of Kingston, is a newly created Urban District, formed by the great growth of new houses in the neighbourhood during the last forty years. It was constituted an ecclesiastical parish, being separated from the new ecclesiastical parish of St. Peter's, Norbiton, in 1867, and in the same year a Local Board was formed. In 1895, under the Local Government Act of the previous year, it was constituted a civil parish under an Urban District Council. It is divided into three wards, Coombe, New Maiden, Old Maiden (q.v.). The total area is 3,220 acres, and the population in 1901 was 6,233, of whom only 503 were in Old Maiden. There is a railway station on the main London and South Western Railway, the junction also for the Kingston line. The Baptist chapel was opened in 1862; the Congregational chapel in 1880. There is also in the parish a Wesleyan chapel, a Free Church of England chapel, and a Roman Catholic chapel of St. Egbert, opened in 1908. The Lime Grore (Church) School for girls and infants was built in 1870; the Christchurch Elm Road Boys' Schools in 1896, and the County Council (mixed) School was opened in 1908.

Hook (Hoke, xiv cent.) is an ecclesiastical parish, in the part of Kingston old parish which divides Long Ditton into two parts. It was constituted an ecclesiastical parish in 1839, the inhabitants then being mostly cottagers in small houses on the road from Kingston to Letherhead. A considerable number of better houses have now been built. Part of the ecclesiastical parish was made a civil parish in 1895 under the Act of the previous year, but the northern part is in the Urban District of Surbiton.

There is an iron Wesleyan chapel in the parish. The schools (National) were built in 1860.

The ecclesiastical parish of St. Andrew, Ham, wa formed in 1834; it had formerly been a chapelry to Kew.

The earliest mention of organized government in Kingston is in 1086, when the royal manor was under the control of bedels, or elected officers." They are not again mentioned, but the name was preserved until the 15th century in the 'Bedelsford.' In or about 1195 the men of Kingston claimed to have held their town at farm by a charter of King Henry which had been burnt by misfortune, and they gave 100s. for holding their vill until the coming of the king, and offered 30 marks for a charter under which they might pay the same farm a before." This farm appears to have been £ 28 10s., the amount granted here in 1199 and 1 200 to Joscelin de Gant. Accordingly, on paying a further 60 marks in 1200, the men received their first extant charter which confirmed the previous grant, and gave the vill to the freemen of Kingston, at the rent of 12 beyond the farm owed and cus- tomary. They continued to hold the town at this farm until 1208 when King John granted it to them at the fee farm of £ 50 yearly. In 1222 this fee farm had been granted to John de Atia for his maintenance in the royal service, and he drew it until 1226. In 1236 the town was assigned to Queen Eleanor as part of her dower, and in 1281 was said to be of the yearly value of £51 8s. 6d. In 1290 the manor of Kingston was extended at £52 8s. 6d. ln and was still in the hands of the queen-mother. The extra sum above the amount of the fee farm perhaps represents the money service from Postel's land, serjeanties, and purprestures which are expressly mentioned with Kingston in 1299 when the town was assigned in dower to Queen Margaret. In 1300 the custody of Kingston was granted to the local merchant Edward Lovekin that he might reimburse himself from the farm and other issues of that town for £500 lent to the king. The farm was granted to Queen Isabel in 1327. Under Richard II in 1378 began a long series of grants of portions of the fee farm to various officers and persons connected with the royal household. It is possible that the freemen of Kingston at this time had made considerable purprestures, for which they paid addi- tional rent, as in 1381 the farm was said to be £ 54 8s. 10d., and in aid of this the king granted them, in 1392, a shop and 8 acres of land which were escheats to the Crown. Part of the farm was assigned in the middle of the 15th century to the expenses of the royal household, and in 1507 the manor of Kingston was farmed by Thomas Lovell, who committed waste of timber in Walton-on- Thames. On the formation of the honour of Hampton Court in 1540 the fee farm was annexed to it, and part remitted in consideration of the fact that much of the land paying quit-rent towards the farm was now inclosed in the royal parks. The abatement was questioned, but ratified in 1563. The farm of Kingston was assigned as part of the dower of Queen Catherine in 1665-6, but was alienated in 1670, and in 1794 was only about £8.

The greater part of mediaeval Kingston was held in burgage in aid of the fee farm, a quit-rent of 2d. being paid on the acre, and sums varying from 2O/. to a farthing on tenements. Quit-rents were also paid by lands throughout the manor, and were received in the 16th century from the manors of Imworth, Clay Gate, East Molesey, Molesey Matham, Berwell,