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 DIVERS HISTORICAL, ARCHAEOLOGICAL, AND OTHER NOTES, TRADITIONS, ETC. 
 RELATING TO THE CHURCH AND MANOR, AND THE BRENT VALLEY. 
 
 JNO. ALLEN BROWN, F.G.S., F.R.G.S., &c, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " PALEOLITHIC MAN IN N.W. MIDDLESEX," ETC.; 
 INSTITUTOR OF THE EALING FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY, AND FIRST CHAIRMAN OF ITS COMMITTEES. 
 
 WLify JpuII=page arrtr otfjer Illustrations antf ©Itf jfttap. 
 
 " Out of monuments, names, words, proverbs, traditions, private records, and evidences ; 
 fragments of stories, passages of books, and the like, we do save and recover somewhat 
 from the deluge of time." 
 
 (Bacon on the Advancement of Learning.) 
 
 Printed and Published for the Author by 
 
 J. S. VIRTUE & CO., Limited, 
 26, IVY LANE, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. 
 
 [All rights reserved.'] 
 
P45B7 
 
 TO 
 
 MY WIFE 
 
 THIS LITTLE BOOK 
 Is BrtricatrtJ 
 
 TO YOU AS A MEMENTO OF THE HAPPY ASSOCIATIONS 
 
 PERIVALE HAS HAD FOR US, 
 
 AND OF THE PLEASURE WHICH YOU HAVE SAID THESE PAGES 
 
 AFFORDED YOU, 
 
 AS THEY ISSUED FROM MY PEN, 
 
 ACCOMPANIED BY EXPRESSIONS OF APPROVAL 
 
 I MOST VALUE. 
 
 M347031 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 TAGS 
 
 Church, Farmhouses, etc., Peri vale .... Frontispiece 
 
 Perivale Church and Rectory To face 56 
 
 The old Chancel Window, etc., Perivale Church, a.d. 1803 ,, 60 
 
 Perivale Church and part of the Old Manor House about a.d. 1790 64 
 
 Early English Doorway and Stoup in Perivale Church . . 65 
 Stained Glass Window, lately in Perivale Church . . .67 
 
 The Lepers' Window, Perivale Church 71 
 
 The Arms of Millet 73 
 
 A Flood at Perivale » To face 75 
 
 Brasses of Henry Myllet and his Family, a.d. 1500 . „ 78 
 
 Brass of George Millet, a.d. 1600 81 
 
 " The Maiden's Tomb," Perivale Churchyard . . . To face 82 
 
 Portion of Rocque's Map, showing Perivale, 1741 . . ,, 91 
 
 The Old Manor House, Perivale . . . . . ,, 94 
 
 Grange Farm 98 
 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 A certain philosopher, more sensitive than a philosopher should 
 be, was accustomed when he came in contact with phases and 
 experiences of human life which caused him pain, to take refuge in 
 his library — like the wise snail which, when rudely touched, retreats 
 into its shell ; and from his books, his silent friends, he learnt to 
 appreciate the better part of humanity, and became more disposed to 
 regard with indifference, if not with satisfaction, the parts sometimes 
 played by the poor player — 
 
 ' ' That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, 
 And then is heard no more." 
 
 In following his example, after a similar experience, I have enjoyed 
 the same advantages, and at intervals of harder study have found time 
 to write, not unmixed with pleasure withal, this little book, chiefly, 
 though not exclusively, for the information of my friends at Ealing 
 and in the neighbouring towns. 
 
 This account of the church and hamlet of Perivale affords an 
 example of what may be done, though by abler hands than mine, in 
 the case of many old villages, in Middlesex and elsewhere, which have 
 an interesting history buried beneath piles of old books and records. 
 
 If I have rescued Perivale from comparative oblivion, and if this 
 little book should prove interesting to the general reader, my object 
 will have been achieved. 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 I have to acknowledge, and I do so most thankfully, my obligations 
 to the Rector of Perivale, the Rev. Dr. C. J. Hughes, for allowing me 
 to examine the records of his church, and for much information 
 relating thereto. 
 
 I have to thank also Mrs. Farthing for kindly placing in my hands 
 her late husband's MSS. notes and sketches, entitled, " Pictures of 
 Perivale." I have availed myself of this source of valuable informa- 
 tion, and largely quoted from them in some of the last chapters of 
 this book. 
 
 An acknowledgment is due to my friend, Mr. Peter Crooke, of 
 Brentford, for furnishing me with some interesting notes on the birds 
 which frequent the Brent valley ; in connection with which I may also 
 mention the use I have made of the list of birds published in the 
 "Proceedings of the Ealing Natural History and Microscopical Society," 
 compiled by Mr. Anthony Belt, its honorary secretary. And now — 
 
 " Go, little book, from this my solitude : 
 I cast thee on the waters — go thy ways ; 
 And if thou art, as some may deem thee, g*ood, 
 The world shall find thee after many days." 
 
 Jno. Allen Brown. 
 
 7, Kent Gardens, Ealing. 
 1890. 
 
THE 
 
 CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA; 
 
 OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ' ' The stream, slow winding through a level plain 
 Of spacious meads, with cattle sprinkled o'er, 
 Conducts the eye along its sinuous course 
 Delighted." — Cowper. 
 
 The geology of a country determines its physical geography, and its 
 physical geography has often been the most important factor in 
 settling the character and influence, and even the very existence, of 
 a nation ; the possession of a rugged seaboard and of rivers, the 
 environment of mountains, have not only powerfully affected the pro- 
 gress of peoples, but have actually preserved to us the past history 
 of races. 
 
 Would the Greeks have so strongly infused their heroic history into 
 the modern thought of the world if Attica and Sparta had formed 
 part of a great inland plain ? would they have had a heroic history 
 at all, in which Art and Scientific culture are so singularly embedded, 
 for but the physiography of the Peloponessus ? 
 
 ' Sparta boasted that she needed no walls, for the chain of eminences 
 which surrounded her were then impregnable ; the Swiss preserved 
 their independence, and, to a large extent, the peace of their valleys, 
 by the aid of the mountains which environ them ; the Basques, a race 
 more ancient than the Aryan conqueror who drove their ancestors 
 from other parts of Europe many thousand years ago, have preserved 
 their racial characteristics, their language and folk-lore, in the valleys 
 of the Pyrenees, protected and isolated by the rugged mountains 
 which encompass them, while their congeners became absorbed by the 
 
 B 
 
2 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 Kelt, Roman, and Teuton : a survival which, with others of the like 
 kind, is of great interest and importance to the student of Prehistoric 
 Archaeology. 
 
 Let us recognise, too, when we contemplate the supremacy of the 
 mixed Anglo-Saxon and Keltic races, which have been long welded 
 together in Britain, that the energy and enterprise on which we justi- 
 fiably pride ourselves, is in no small degree due to the later geological 
 effects, which have, conjointly with still older changes, produced the 
 present mountains, valleys, and rivers, and let us be grateful for " the 
 last period of partial submergence" in Western Europe, by which we 
 " were encompassed by the inviolable sea." 
 
 The same causes which have operated in producing great results 
 are also potent in producing lesser ones. It is a great leap in thought 
 from a sun to an asteroid, from an elephant to a grasshopper, yet it 
 is to the like interweaving of causes and effects that the existence of 
 both is due. 
 
 We owe the preservation of Peri vale, an old almost forgotten hamlet, 
 to its geographical position. Situated just outside the valley of the 
 Thames proper, it is cut off, and in a measure isolated, by the River 
 Brent and the ridge of low hills which divide it from its ambitious 
 neighbour, Ealing ; and it is largely due to these natural barriers that 
 it still remains a rustic, deeply-secluded hamlet, with a quaint old 
 church, an old rectory, and a few red-tiled farmhouses, toned down 
 into unison with the hedgerows and trees, the survival of a mediaeval 
 village but eleven miles from St. Paul's. 
 
 Districts within the same distance of London have yielded in suc- 
 cession to the great army of the builder ; he has conquered and 
 annexed that which was open country in the boyhood of the man of 
 fifty summers. Where are the country roads he knew, the smiling 
 expanses of green interspersed with trees ? the hedgerows redolent 
 with the perfume of the wild honeysuckle, and decked with prim- 
 roses, violets, and wild roses ? What has become of the brooks, 
 
 . . . . " The complaining brooks, 
 That make the meadows green " ? 
 
 They have been converted into sewers. The beautiful old trees, that took 
 so long to grow their outstretched leafy arms and wide trunks, have 
 been cut down and uprooted to subserve his fell purpose ; all that is 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 3 
 
 rural has disappeared before the ubiquitous builder of the trowel, 
 hammer, and saw, and the great city, or congeries of cities, now 
 stretches itself forth in new local board districts with bewildering 
 lines of houses and rows of " eligible villas," and other examples of 
 "original" suburban architecture. 
 
 In almost every direction in which he may wander in his desire to 
 revisit the scenes of his youthful walks and rambles, he will find all 
 changed ; even the haunts of his early manhood in the neighbourhood 
 of London, in spring and summer, are so altered that he knows them 
 no more ; they bring, like the memory of dear vanished faces, but the 
 saddened thought that " such things were but are not." 
 
 It is the Brent valley which has preserved Perivale to us, and long 
 may it guard the northern environs of Ealing from the ruthless 
 destroyer of the rural aspect of the environs of London. 
 
 The River Brent, like a long, thin, shining snake, flows in many 
 bends and curves through the rich flowery pastures of the wide flat 
 valley. Such a little stream, gliding generally so smoothly among the 
 trees, flowers, and grass, seems at first sight, even with the hills it has 
 helped to form, hardly sufficient to make a barrier between the hamlet 
 and the latest acquisition of the land speculator, Ealing. But those 
 who see the little Brent peacefully meandering through the meadows 
 from Kingsbury to Greenford, would never dream of what it becomes 
 when in a state of flood. A few days' steady rain is often enough to 
 rouse the potential energy of "our river," and to transform it from a 
 rivulet with a murmuring ripple to a wide roaring river, flowing with 
 a torrent sufficient to carry down trees and occasionally sweep away 
 the smaller bridges, besides inundating the fields and rendering them 
 quite impassable for a long distance on each side of the old banks ; 
 then men and horses have been drowned in it, and the waters are 
 expanded for miles along the valley. 
 
 The church and hamlet have a most picturesque old-world appear- 
 ance, whether they be approached from the Greenford Road or as 
 seen across the fields from Ealing. 
 
 Embosomed in trees, the former, with its wooden tower, tiny porch, 
 and red-tiled roof, probably presents much the same rustic mediaeval 
 aspect it has exhibited during the past three hundred years, while a 
 ,J b 2 
 
4 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA. 
 
 roof or gable of one or two of the farm houses and the old rectory 
 may be seen peeping out from the trees and seem quite in harmony 
 with it. 
 
 The whole landscape, with Horsington, or more correctly Horsendon, 
 in the background, and Harrow Hill with its spire still further in the 
 distance, reminds one of some out-of-the-way hamlet in one of the 
 more distant counties, which, for lack of a means of communication, 
 has remained as it was in the old days until it is well-nigh forgotten. 
 
 As the church with " God's acre " attached to it is more nearly 
 approached, it seems the very ideal and embodiment of peace and 
 tranquillity. In summer the sound of the wind among the old yews 
 and other trees in the churchyard and around the church and rectory 
 reaches the ear subdued and softened, as if in unison with the peace 
 of the landscape and the calm rest of those who lie within the 
 church's shade. 
 
 In summer the yellowhammer repeats his plaintive cry, the tits 
 and others of the feathered tribe their tiny notes, the thrushes are in 
 full song, the swallows are flying about the eaves of the roof, and the 
 general chorus of songsters and warblers, accompanied by the mur- 
 murous melody of the river hard by, is borne on the ear mingled with 
 the busy hum of insect life — telling, it is true, of activity, but it is 
 an activity in repose, if the expression be allowed, like the healthful 
 balmy repose of the wearied after labour, in which happy thoughts 
 unwittingly find expression in pleasing dreams, not the " cold abstrac- 
 tion " which is not sleep, though for a short while it is its counterfeit. 
 
 A sense of calm content and reliance on the mysterious future 
 steals over us amid such surroundings as these, like a beam of light 
 from behind the dark curtain, comforting and reassuring, and stirring 
 an inner sense within ourselves — for " all of us have an inner sense of 
 some existence apart from the one that wears away our days." 
 
 Byron says — 
 
 " Between two worlds life hovers like a star 
 Twixt night and morn npon the horizon's verge ; 
 How little do we know, that which we are ! 
 How less what we may be ! the eternal surge 
 Of Time and Tide rolls on, and bears afar 
 Our bubbles." 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 ' ' Norman saw on English oak. 
 On English neck a Norman yoke ; 
 Norman spoon in English dish, 
 And England ruled as Normans wish." — Scott. 
 
 The hamlet of Perivale is mentioned in the Domesday Survey under 
 the name of " Greneforde," and there is sufficient in the old record 
 to distinguish it from the greater Greenford ; it is also called " Grene- 
 forde" in Edward the Confessor's Charter of Confirmation, and from 
 these early times it has been known as Greneforde Parva, to 
 distinguish it from the adjoining parish of " Greneford Magna." 
 
 The names of " Grenefeld," '' Gernford," " Cornhull," or "Corn- 
 hill," have also been applied to it in old records, but in later times it 
 has been known as Peryvale or Pure vale. 
 
 Norden, who wrote in the reign of Elizabeth, calls it " Peryvale," 
 but is of opinion that it is more correctly written " Purevale" on account 
 of the fertility of the valley, for he says the whole district, including 
 " Northold," " Southhold," " Norcote," " Gerneford," &c, " yieldeth 
 not only an abundance but most excellente good wheate." He 
 quaintly says, "It may be noted also how nature hath exalted Harrow 
 on the Hill, which seemeth to make ostentation of its situation in the 
 Purevale, from whence, towards the time of harvest, a man may beholde 
 the fields round about, so sweetely to address themselves to the siccle 
 and sith, with such comfortable aboundaunce of all kinde of graine that 
 the husbandman who waiteth for the fruits of his labours cannot but 
 clap his hands for joy to see this vale so to Laugh and Sing." * 
 
 Newcourt says,f " I am apt to believe that this parish has not gone 
 
 * " Speculum Britannise " (John Norden), a historical, &c, description of Middlesex and 
 other counties, illustrated with maps and the arms of persons. This work, which is of small 
 extent, contains much curious matter. It was written in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and 
 reprinted in 1637, and again in 1723. 
 
 t " Repertorium Ecclesiasticum Parochiale Londinense," Richard Newcourt, 2 vols., 
 fol., 1708. 
 
6 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 by the name of Peri vale for many ages past, for the first time I find 
 it so written in the London Registry, is December, 1540." 
 
 Drayton in his " Polyolbion " (see p. 107), calls it Peryvale, and 
 Lysons considers that this name has arisen from the gradual corrup- 
 tion of Parva.* 
 
 It is worthy of observation that a road called Perryfield Lane is 
 shown in Rocque's Map (1741) : it led in a direct line to Perivale from 
 " Castle Bear Hill," through " Castle Bear Common," on part of which 
 Kent Gardens now stands, and was a continuation of the old road from 
 Ealing's or Eling's Haven. It is very difficult to believe that the 
 name arose from either the corruption of " Pure " or " Parva." 
 
 The parish is also distinguished in old records, which will be 
 referred to later, as Cornhull or Cornhill ; this was probably the name 
 applied to a part of the parish, as will be noticed subsequently. 
 
 Greenford Parva, or Perivale, is in the Hundred of Elthorne ; it is 
 bounded by Greenford (Magna), Ealing and Harrow, and is now inter- 
 sected by the Grand Junction Canal. The hamlet is about a mile and 
 a half from the Uxbridge Road and barely eight miles from the 
 Marble Arch. 
 
 It is probable that the stone which now marks the boundary be- 
 tween Perivale and Ealing near the churchyard of the former, was not 
 always necessary to define the limits of the parishes in that direction 
 and that the river itself here formed the boundary. Subsequently, 
 as shown by Rocque's Survey in 1741-5, the bend of the river was to 
 the south more than 500 feet away. The boundaries of most 
 of the parishes near London are so old that the curve of the stream 
 may have been again in the same direction as at present, but rather 
 further to the north, when the limits were fixed. Camden says Eng- 
 land was first divided into parishes by Honorius, Archbishop of 
 Canterbury in the year 636. 
 
 According to the Domesday Survey, "f which was made about twenty 
 
 * "The Environs of London," Rev. Daniel Lysons, 1796 ; supplement 1811. Parishes 
 not described in the Environs, 1800. 
 
 t Plantagenet Harrison says that the Norman Conqueror, "knowing that there were 
 many lands in the country subject to special tax, which constituted an important part of the 
 revenue of the Anglo-Saxon king, and in order that he might not be defrauded by the 
 collectors of this tax, caused a survey to be made of these lands, then known as ' the 
 Lands of the King's Geld,' by commission appointed to each county, and the result was 
 the Domesday Book, which is simply a schedule of those lands of ' the King's Geld,' and 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 7 
 
 years after the Battle of Hastings, Ernulf held of Geoffrey de Maune- 
 ville or Mandeville, and sometimes written Magnaville, three hides of 
 land, " which land is one carucate and half in Greneforde " Parva ; 
 " there is one plough there and another half a plough might be made " 
 — meaning that land for one plough only was under cultivation, but 
 there was sufficient arable land for half as much again or the half of 
 what a plough could do. 
 
 At this time, also, two villeins held half a hide of the said 
 Geoffrey de Mandeville, and there were also two cottars and a slave, 
 as well as wood or pannage for forty hogs — pannage being money 
 paid to the King's " Agisters " for the mast of the King's forests, 
 i.e., acorns and beech mast eaten by the swine, or profit arising to 
 the landowner from a grant of liberty to pasture hogs ; the time of 
 pannage began on Holyrood day, and ended forty days after Michael- 
 mas. * We have here an indication that oaks and beeches were then 
 fairly abundant in the woods about Greenford Parva. 
 
 The land is described in the record as having been worth twenty 
 shillings, though it was then only considered of the value of ten 
 shillings. In the time of Edward the Confessor its value was forty 
 shillings. 
 
 This estate had been held by two Sokemen ; one of them being a 
 canon of St. Paul's,! who had two hides, and who had the power of 
 parting with them at his pleasure ; the other was a vassal of Ansgar, 
 
 does not mention any of the freeholders in their own right." — (Facsimile of the original 
 Domesday Book and Translation, 1876.) 
 
 * Nelson's "Laws of England." 
 
 t Several canons of St. Paul's held land in like manner in Middlesex at this time. Among 
 others, Gueri had two hides at Twyf ord. ' • From their foundation the members of the 
 Chapter of St. Paul's were secular priests, and constantly bore the name of canons, or im- 
 properly, prebendaries, from the prebends or portions attached to each stall." As Dean 
 Milman says, St. Paul's was never a monastery like that of St. Peter's (Westminster Abbey) 
 although it was surrounded with great monastic establishments. " To the Dean and Canons 
 belonged in theory and in form the election of the Bishop. As the Pope or the King were 
 in the ascendant, came the irresistible nomination which it would have been perilous for the 
 Chapter to refuse — impossible to elude." — (Milman, " Annals of St. Paul's Cathedral.") 
 The site of St. Paul's appears to have been occupied by the Romans as the great Praetorian 
 camp, and a small temple to Diana once existed at or near it as shown by the small altar 
 with a figure of Diana in bas relief, with bow and quiver and hound at her feet, discovered 
 in Foster Lane. It is now preserved in Goldsmith's Hall. Probably " a Saxon fortress 
 afterwards occupied the site of the Roman camp and a rude Saxon temple may have 
 frowned down from the height above the Thames." . . "Ethelbert himself , King of 
 Kent, with the sanction of Sebert, King of the East Angles, founded and endowed a 
 magnificent cathedral, dedicated to St. Paul." — Circa, a.d. 597. 
 
8 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 the Master of the Horse to the Saxon King, Edward, who could not 
 alienate it without the licence of his liege lord. 
 
 It is also stated in Domesday that iElveve, who is described as the 
 wife of Wateman of London, held half a hide of the King, being a 
 portion of the lands set apart by him to be given in alms (see list of 
 the principal landowners in Middlesex after the Conquest). This land 
 is described as for half a plough, " but it is not there now."* This 
 land, which had belonged to Leuric, a vassal of Earl Lewin, who had 
 power to sell it to whomsoever he pleased, was then of the value of 
 ten shillings, but had been worth twenty shillings in the reign of the 
 Confessor. 
 
 (Earl Lewin was a powerful Saxon lord in the reign of Edward the 
 Confessor ; he held at that time among his possessions the manor of 
 Harrow.) 
 
 At this time Ansgot held at Greenford Parva, of Geoffrey de Man- 
 deville, half a hide, which is further described as " two oxgangs," or 
 land for two oxen ; it is said to have been worth three shillings, 
 which was its value in King Edward's time. This land had been in 
 the tenure of Azor, a vassal of Ansgar, the Master of the Horse before 
 mentioned, and the former could not sell it without his consent. 
 Azor appears to have held as much as eight and a half hides of land 
 at Bedfont Manor, the Manor of Stan well, &c, and though a vassal 
 himself, had others under him at West Bedfont, Hatton, Enfield, 
 &c, who could not dispose of their holdings without his leave, 
 and among them were Sokemen. Azor is described in another place 
 as house servant to King Edward the Confessor. 
 
 iElveve appears in the record as holding other land in Middlesex 
 direct from the Norman king, as above mentioned. 
 
 Ansgar, the Haller, or Master of the Horse of the Saxon Edward, 
 must have espoused the cause of Harold, and suffered accordingly 
 after his defeat. He was a Saxon thane, or noble, whose name 
 frequently occurs in Domesday. Besides his possessions at Greenford 
 
 * The principal landowners in Middlesex at the making- of the Domesday Survey were 
 the King, the Bishop and Canons of London, the Abbeys of Westminster and Holy Trinity 
 at Caen, the Nunnery of Berking, Earls Roger and Morton, Geof rey de Mannerville (Geoffrey 
 de Mandeville), Ernulf de Hesding, "Walter Fitz Other, Walter de St. Walery, Richard 
 Fitz Gilbert. Robert Gernon, Robert Fasiton, Robert Fitz Roselin, Robert Blund, Roger 
 de Rames, William Fitz Ansculf, Edmund de Salisbury, Aubrey de Vere, Ranulf Fitz 
 Ilger, Derman, Countess Judith, and the Bang's Almoner. 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. g 
 
 Parva, lie held land at Ichenham, and the Manors of Northolt, Enfield, 
 &c., all of which appear to have fallen into the hands of the Norman 
 noble, Geoffrey de Mandeville. 
 
 The domains of the Saxon thanes who opposed the Conqueror 
 rapidly changed hands after the battle of Hastings, and a little 
 later there were many of whom it might be said in the words of an 
 old ballad — 
 
 " His sire was a Saxon and lord of the vale ; 
 But the Normans came down with their proud chivalry, 
 And they robbed him and slew him, and burnt his roof tree." 
 
 It has been said that the Conqueror " only confiscated the great 
 fiefs of the most rebellious of the Saxon nobility, and did not touch 
 the land belonging to the tenants of the soil." Much of the land in 
 Middlesex must have belonged to Harold's adherents however, looking 
 at the changes which occurred in this county after the Conquest, as 
 shown in Domesday. On the other hand, Scott has presented us 
 probably with a true picture of the thanes who retained their posses- 
 sions in Cedric of Rotherwood and Athelstane of Coningsburgh. 
 The Saxon account of the compilation of Domesday Book is written 
 in " The Saxon Chronicle," a work compiled by a series of authors 
 from the registers made in the monasteries, and recording events from 
 the date of Alfred to Henry II. The disgust of the Saxon monks 
 at the new order of things is very discernible in it. The "Chronicle" 
 is written in Anglo Saxon, and the reference to Domesday has been 
 thus translated : — 
 
 " Then in the winter was the King in Gloucester with his council, 
 and held there his court for five days, and afterwards the Archbishop 
 and Clergy had a synod three days. Then was Mauricius chosen Bishop 
 of London, William of Norfolk, and Robert of Chester ; these were 
 all the King's clerks. After this had the King a large meeting, and 
 very deep speech held he with his witan (council) about this land, 
 how it was occupied, and by what sort of men. Then he sent his men 
 over all England, commissioning them to find out 'how many hundreds 
 of hides were in the shires, what land the King himself had, and what 
 stock upon the land, or what dues he ought to have by the year from 
 the shires ' ; also he commissioned them to record in writing ' how 
 much land his Archbishops had, and his diocesan Bishops, and his 
 
io THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 Abbots, and his Earls,' and though I may be prolix and tedious (says 
 the Monk who writes) what or how much each man had, who was 
 an occupier of land in England either in land or in stock, and how 
 much money it was Avorth ; so very narrowly, indeed, did he com- 
 mission them to trace it out, that there was not one single hide nor 
 a yard of land (a quarter of an acre), nay, moreover (it is shameful 
 to tell, though he thought it no shame to do it, says the Saxon 
 writer), not even an ox, nor a cow, nor a swine, was there left that 
 was not set down in his writ. And all the recorded particulars were 
 afterwards brought to him. Afterwards he moved about and came 
 by Lammas to Sarum, where he was met by his councillors, and all 
 the landsmen that were of any account over all England became this 
 man's vassals, as they were, and they all bowed before him and became 
 his men, and swore him oaths of allegiance that they would against 
 all other men be faithful to him." * Thus was the feudal system 
 formally established. 
 
 Geoffrey de Mandeville is one of the great historical figures at this 
 period, and with him as Lord of the Manor of Greenford Parva the 
 destinies of our little hamlet are associated. 
 
 This powerful Norman baron, sometimes styled the Sire de Magna- 
 ville, accompanied the Conqueror to England and rendered him great 
 aid at the famous battle which decided the fate of the Saxon supremacy. 
 He was one of the chief grantees after the Conquest, and the king 
 rewarded him with a large number of knights' fees,t castles, and 
 manors ; it is said he held land in ten different counties. He held 
 many manors in Middlesex ; among them were those of Ebury, which 
 constitutes now a large part of the west of London, besides such 
 manors as Northolt, Greenford Parva, Edmonton, Stanwell, Enfield, 
 &c, and lands at Islington (written Isendon and Isledon, &c), Ichen- 
 
 * See the translation of " The Saxon Chronicle," hy the Rev. J. Ingram, 1823. 
 
 t Much of the land of the country was divided into portions called knights' fees under 
 the feudal system, the portion being considered sufficient to maintain an armed knight when 
 engaged in war. The feudal Barons, who were directly amenable to the King, held, as in this 
 case, a large number of knights' fees, and thus could bring into the field, at his pleasure, the 
 armed knights over whom they were chief tenants or liege lords, while the knights could 
 gather together to their aid the retainers or vassals who held land under them. A knight's 
 fee, or feodum militare, was twelve plough-lands, or carucata terra, each of which was as 
 much as one plough coidd plough in a year. The value of a knight's fee is stated, in the 
 first year of Edward II., to be £20 per annum. — (Blackstone) . 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. n 
 
 ham, &c., in fact, most of the land in the hundreds of Elthorne and 
 Speithorne. 
 
 It is interesting to note that the Manor of Greenford Magna, con- 
 taining twelve hides, had before this time, i.e., in the reign of King 
 Ethelred, probably the second, surnamed the Unready (a.d. 979), been 
 given by that king to Westminster Abbey. Domesday says it is held 
 by the Abbot of St. Peter for eleven and a half hides.* But there is 
 evidence in the vicinity of Greenford Parva of the Saxon occupation of 
 the country at an earlier period, when the Saxons of this part of Mid- 
 dlesex then formed a part of East Seaxe, and were always more or less 
 at war with their powerful southern neighbours, the tribes of West 
 Seaxe, until they were crushed under Egbert, who, under the title of 
 Bretwalda, became supreme ruler ( a.d. 827). A few years ago when 
 some labourers were digging gravel at the neighbouring district of 
 Hanwell, they discovered the remains of skeletons, evidently those of 
 three or more warriors, as their iron spears were found with them ; 
 they had been buried " with their martial cloaks around them," i.e., 
 with coarsely-woven hemp garments, fastened over the breast with 
 round bronze fibulse or brooches. These fibuke were of the saucer 
 pattern 'peculiar to the West Saxons.f They were thickly plated with 
 gold, carved into very pretty characteristic designs. The richness of 
 these ornaments indicates that the wearers had been persons of some 
 note, probably leaders of a number of West Saxons who fell in some 
 battle or skirmish while invading the country of East Seaxe, which 
 then included not only Middlesex but part of Hertfordshire, as well as 
 Essex. Before leaving the historical references to the Saxons, as 
 associated with Greenford Parva, it would be well to digress slightly 
 in order to explain the nature and origin of the ancient measures of 
 land which have been mentioned, and the curious tenures with which 
 the terms are connected. 
 
 First as to hide. This is the oldest term applied to the measure- 
 ment of land in England, if we except the Roman " ager " (field) from 
 which is probably derived our word "acre," but which does not appear 
 to have denoted any particular dimensions. At a later period, i.e., in 
 
 * Dart' 8 "History of "Westminster Abbey," vol. i., p. 12. 
 
 t The interesting relics are now in the collection of Mr. Peter Crooke, of Brentford. 
 
i2 THE CHRONICLES OF GREEN* ORD PARVA ; 
 
 Edward I.'s reign, the word acre began to be used to describe an ob- 
 long piece of ground, forty perches long, with a width of four perches. 
 
 Hide is derived from the Anglo-Saxon " higid," otherwise "hi wise," 
 and became abbreviated into " hid." It still survives as the name of 
 villages, as "The Hyde," North Hyde, &c, in Middlesex. The word 
 is used in the laws of Ina, one of the early kings of Wessex (about a.d. 
 620). According to the "Venerable Bede," a hide represented the 
 amount of land which would support a family or household, and Alfred is 
 said to have adopted "Hydeland" as associated with the Latin "familia " 
 (a whole company of slaves in one house, &c), but the connection is not 
 very apparent, though there may be something in the definition he 
 appears to have attached to it, i.e., as a measure of the quantity of 
 land which one plough, which was used in common by a group of 
 tenants, could accomplish in a year. 
 
 Then there is the oft-told tale, about the town or towns, for it has 
 been applied to several places, having been granted as much land only 
 as could be enclosed in a bull's hide ; the hide being extended into a 
 considerable area by the crafty hero of the story cutting it into long 
 thin strips and using them as cords. The Tyrian Queen Dido is 
 credited with having resorted to this very questionable artifice to obtain 
 land for the founding of Carthage. There seems, however, little doubt 
 that a hide in Saxon times meant as much land as could be ploughed 
 by a large team of oxen with one plough in a year, and would there- 
 fore support a family or group of families. It varied from 100 (though 
 some say from CO) to 120 acres; it probably included meadow and 
 pasture for the teams and houses for the men. Kelham, in his Domes- 
 day Book, says, " The hide was the measure of land in Edward the 
 Confessor's reign, and the carucate that to which it was reduced by 
 the Conqueror's new standard.* Twelve carucates then made one 
 hide, but as a carucate indicated as much land as could be ploughed 
 with a single team in a year, it necessarily varied according to the 
 Dature of the soil, and the custom of husbandry in the particular 
 locality. 
 
 * Bovate, virgate, borders, are also terms used in Domesday, and as they occur either in 
 the body or notes to this book, it may be useful to the reader to here explain their meaning. 
 Bovate, as the word implies, described the amount of land one ox could till in a year. 
 Virgate was a small parcel of land from eight to sixteen acres. Borders were " boors " who 
 held a small house, but bigger than a cottage, with a little land for husbandry. 
 
OR, PERI VALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 13 
 
 The designation Socman or Sokeman is equally ancient. It apper- 
 tained to persons who held land in the Soc, or by Socage,* i.e., by a 
 tenure granted for a certain and determinate service as distinguished 
 from knight service, where the rendering was precarious and uncertain, 
 and also as opposed to villeinage, where the service was of the very 
 meanest kind ; in fact, a villein was but a serf attached to the soil and 
 sold with it. There were, however, two kinds of socage, distinguished 
 as Free and Villein. Free socage was consequent on fealty and the 
 payment of a small sum yearly. In villein socage, though the service 
 was certain and defined, it was of a baser nature. From these tenures 
 originated our copyhold tenure, and, as Hallam says, " The free socage 
 tenants were the root of a noble plant, our English yeomanry, whose 
 independence stamped with peculiar features our constitution and our 
 national character." t These tenures are generally considered to be 
 relics of Saxon liberty retained by such persons as had neither for- 
 feited their estate to the Crown nor been obliged to exchange their 
 tenure for the more honourable but more burthensome one of knight 
 service. 
 
 Amidst the confusion which must have arisen at the time of the 
 Conquest, when the Saxon landowners were in great part, though 
 not in all cases, deprived of their possessions, it is not surprising that 
 the value of the soil should have decreased. As already stated, land 
 in Greenford Parva which was only considered to be worth ten shillings 
 when granted to Geoffrey de Mandeville, had been of the value of 
 twenty shillings, and in the peaceful days of the Confessor of double 
 the latter value. In fact, there had been so great a falling off of the 
 land under tillage since the days of the Saxon Edward, that some 
 lands were unoccupied arid had become desolate at the time of taking 
 the Survey (about 1086). 
 
 There can hardly be a doubt that in the fields now called " The 
 Common," on the northern boundary of Perivale, we have the last 
 traces of the Common or Folkland of the Saxon period and afterwards. 
 
 * This tenure is alluded to in Magna Carta (1215). "Si aliquis teneat de nobis per 
 feodifirman vel per sokagium vel per burgagium et de alio terrain teneat per servicium 
 militare," &c. 
 
 f " Middle Ages." This historian says also : " I presume the soc men were ceorls more 
 fortunate than the rest, who by purchase had acquired freehold, or by prescription or the 
 indulgence of their lords had obtained such a property in the outland allotted to them, that 
 they could not be removed, and in many instances might dispose of it at pleasure." 
 
1 4 THE CHRONICLES OF GREEN FORD PARVA. 
 
 Such land was the property of the village or community, whereon the 
 poorer folk could graze their cattle, or if tilled it was cultivated in 
 strips for their common wants. Common or people's land also existed 
 at that time in Greenford Magna, and in all the neighbouring villages. 
 The equivalent of our rent was often paid in kind, or in feorm, as 
 well as in services rendered ; sometimes in Schar or Scat Pennies — the 
 farmer or "feormer" supplying "feorm" to those above him, and the 
 scat penny was paid by small tenants in lieu of the right of their 
 immediate superiors to have the cattle driven at night into their 
 enclosures or pens for the sake of the manure, and is said to have 
 varied from one penny to fourpence an acre. 
 
 It should be mentioned that during the Saxon occupation of the 
 country, and for a very considerable period after the Norman inva- 
 sion, a great weald or forest extended across Middlesex north of London. 
 To the ordinary reader this is now hard to realize, but we have it, 
 among others, on the authority of the monkish chronicler William 
 Stephanides, or Fitzstephen, who wrote in the time of Henry II. In 
 speaking of the City of London, much of which was then meadow- 
 land, he says : — " Close by lies an immense forest, in which are 
 densely-wooded thickets, with coverts of game, stags, fallow deer, 
 boars, and wild bulls." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 " The bay-trees in our country are all withered, 
 And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven : 
 The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth, 
 And lean look'd prophets whisper fearful change ; 
 Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap." — Richard II. 
 
 To return to the history of Greenford Parva, otherwise Cornhull 
 or Cornhill, and to Geoffrey de Mandeville, the first Lord of the 
 Manor. 
 
 This " famous souldier " was one of the great potentates of the 
 day : some of his possessions have already been noticed ; to add to 
 his honours and titles the Conqueror appointed him Constable of the 
 Tower of London, and he held the shrievalties of London, Middlesex, 
 and Hertford. He founded a Benedictine monastery at Hurley, in 
 Berkshire, as a cell of Westminster Abbey, and desired to be laid in 
 the Abbey, giving (as Dean Stanley tells us) " in return for his burial 
 the Manor of Eye, then a waste morass, which gave its name to the 
 Eye Brook, and under the names of Hyde, Eyebury (Ebury), and 
 Neate contained Hyde Park, Belgravia, and Chelsea." Geoffrey de 
 Magna ville (Mandeville) signed as a witness in conjunction with 
 Archbishop Lanfranc and other prelates and nobles, the memorable 
 charter of William the Conqueror, confirming the grant of Stortford 
 Castle, lands, &c, to the church "St. Paule," and to Mauricus, then 
 Bishop of London, and his successors, which ends with the following 
 pious words, Anglicised : — " For I would that the church in all things 
 be as free as I would my soul to be in the day of judgment " (Stow). 
 
 William de Mandeville, who succeeded to the estates and titles of 
 his father, Geoffrey, appears also to have inherited the Manor of 
 Greenford Parva : " he married Margaret de Rie, heiress of the great 
 Eudo Dapifer, and their son Geoffrey was in her right Hereditary 
 Steward of Normandy." This second Geoffrey was Lord of the Manor 
 
1 6 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA; 
 
 of Greenford Parva in the reign of Stephen. Although, as will be 
 seen, he became an outlaw, and it is probable his lands were for a 
 while confiscated to the Crown, it would appear that this little manor, 
 with his other great possessions, were restored to his family after his 
 death, and remained in the hands of his descendants. This is shown 
 by the fact that the Manor of Greenford Parva came into the posses- 
 sion of the De Bohuns, who in default of male issue succeeded to the 
 estates of the De Mandevilles. 
 
 The remarkable career of the second Geoffrey de Mandeville is so 
 singularly eventful, and moreover it so far illustrates the condition of 
 society in England at that time, that it should be given here ; in 
 fact, a history of Greenford Parva would hardly be complete without 
 a full reference to it. Geoffrey de Mandeville the Second was at first 
 a strong adherent of the King (Stephen), who created him Earl of 
 Essex, and committed the custody of the Tower of London to him, 
 which he kept for the King after the submission of the citizens of 
 London to the Empress Maude. He even made a raid on the 
 Empress's Bishop of London, Robert de Sigillo, and seized him at his 
 palace at Fulham.'* The Bishop was carried off to the Tower, and 
 was only able to obtain his release on payment of a heavy fine. 
 
 Geoffrey II. afterwards seceded from the party of the King for 
 that of the Empress, and was besieged in the Tower, but without 
 success, by the citizens of London, who were true to Stephen. It is 
 said "he was bribed to desert his service by two other more ample 
 charters from the Empress Maude, of which the second dated from 
 Westminster, and reconferring the Earldom, is (says Dugdale) ' the 
 most antient creation charter which hath ever been known.' " Both 
 are remarkable for the privileges and concessions they contain. She 
 granted him all the land, forts, and castles that his father and 
 grandfather held ; " the Tower of London, with the little castle 
 under it, to strengthen and fortify at his pleasure ; " t also the 
 hereditary shrievalties of London, Middlesex, and Hertfordshire, 
 with the trial of all causes in those counties ; all the lands granted 
 to him by Stephen, with twenty additional knights' fees ; the 
 whole of Eudo Dapifer's Norman estates, with his office of Steward ; 
 
 * " Annals of St. Paul's Cathedral." Dean Milman. 
 t Matthew Paris. " His. Aug]." 
 
OR, PERI VALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 17 
 
 and covenanted that "neither the Earl of Anjou (her husband), nor 
 herself, nor her children would ever make peace with the burgesses 
 of London, but with the consent of the said Geoffry, because they 
 were his mortal enemies." She constituted him Earl of Essex, with 
 the third penny of the pleas of the shrievalty, " as an Earl ought to 
 enjoy in his earldom ;" gave him the hereditary shrievalty of the 
 county, and made him and his heirs Chief Justices of Essex for ever. 
 His adherence had been valued at no contemptible price ; but, great 
 as were the powers and dignities conferred upon him, he did not long 
 enjoy them. No sooner was Stephen firmly established on the throne 
 than he had his recreant liegeman seized at the Court of St. Alban's. 
 The Earl, a violent and headstrong man, did not submit without a 
 sharp struggle : " they had a bloody fight, in which the Earl of 
 Arundel (though a stout soldier) being thrown into the Water with 
 his Horse, escaped drowning very narrowly." He was securely 
 lodged in prison, and only set free after surrendering the Tower of 
 London, with his own castles of Walden and Pleshy (in Essex). Thus 
 bereft of his strongholds, and maddened by rage and disappoint- 
 ment, he betook himself to the savage life of an outlaw. 
 
 " He was to weete a stoute and sturdie thief e, 
 Wont to robbe churches of their ornaments." 
 
 " He collected a band of determined followers, and foraged the 
 country in every direction for spoil, first invading the King's own 
 demesne lands and wasting them miserably." 
 
 Likewise, having married his sister Beatrix to Hugh Talbot, of 
 Normandy, he caused her to be divorced and wedded to William de 
 Say, " a stoute and warlike man." " With his aid he went on in 
 plunder and rapine everywhere without mercy ; making use of divers 
 cunning spies, whom he sent from door to door as beggars, to dis- 
 cover where any rich men dwelt, to the end he might surprise them 
 in their beds, and then keep them in hold till they had, with large 
 sums of money, purchased their liberty." 
 
 " Being highly transported with wrath, he at length grew so savage 
 that by the help of William de Say and one Daniel a counterfeit 
 monk, he got by Water to Ramsey (in 1143). and entering the 
 Abbey very early in the morning, surprised the monks (then asleep 
 
1 8 THE CHRONICLES OF. GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 after their nocturnal offices), and expelling them thence made a Fort 
 of the Church." 
 
 He took away their plate, copes, and other ornaments, "selling 
 them for money to reward his soldiers." 
 
 For this last outrage he was publicly excommunicated in 1144, 
 and not long after, while besieging the Castle of Burwell, he put off 
 his helmet (it being summer) on account of the heat, and going bare- 
 headed, with a shield and lance, he was shot in the head by one of 
 the meanest soldiers, and thus mortally wounded.* 
 
 " Whereupon, lying at the point of death and ready to give up his 
 last gasp," he showed " great contrition for his sins, and making what 
 satisfaction he could, there came at last some of the Knights Templars 
 to him," who put " on him the habit of their Order, signed with a Red 
 Cross." " Afterwards, when he was full dead, they carried his Dead 
 Corps into their Orchard at the Old Temple in London ; and coffining 
 it in Lead hanged it on a Crooked Tree ; " " for in reverend Awe of 
 the Church they durst not bury him because he died excommunicated, 
 so fearful in those days was the sentence of excommunication." 
 
 Matthew Paris, t who records the facts relating to the excommunicated 
 Geoffrey de Mandeville, says that " the Earl was the only person who 
 fell, and that a manifest proof of the Divine wrath was displayed by the 
 walls of the church streaming plenteously with blood whilst it was held 
 as a castle." 
 
 " Likewise that after some time, by the industry and expenses of the 
 Prior of Walden, his absolution was obtained from the Pope Alexander 
 the Third, so that his Body was received among Christians, and 
 Divine Offices celebrated for him. But when the Prior endeavoured 
 to take down the Coffin and carry it to Walden, the Templars, being 
 aware of the design, buried it privately in the Porch before the West 
 door of the New Temple." This, as the noble authoress of the 
 " Battle Abbey Roll " says, " is a striking story," all the more striking 
 perhaps because it reminds us that this spoliator and outcast had been 
 in his younger days a benefactor of the Church. The Prior who inter- 
 ceded for his absolution was the Superior of the Abbey that he had 
 
 * "Register Book of "Walden," quoted by Camden and Weever, and the "Battle 
 Abbey Roll," the Duchess of Cleveland. 
 
 t Matt. Paris, "His. Angl." p. 80. See also Henry of Huntingdon, "Script Post. 
 Bedam," Ed. 1596, and Dugdale's " Monasticon Anglicanum." 
 
OR, PERI VALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 19 
 
 founded near his Essex castle, " placing it upon a meeting of four 
 roadways, and in an angle of two waters, that the Monks should of 
 necessity be charitable to poor people and hospitable to passengers." 
 It had been consecrated in 1136, but apparently not over richly en- 
 dowed, for his successor, Geoffrey III., evidently unwilling to increase 
 its income, " advised the Prior to be content with a small Church and 
 little buildings." 
 
 Such is an outline of the remarkable career of Geoffrey de Mande- 
 ville II., the third lord of the manor of Greenford Parva. The 
 eGigy of Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, with his arms upon 
 his shield, may be seen in the Temple Church. 
 
 How the little manor of Greenford Parva fared under these remark- 
 able and untoward circumstances it is impossible to say with certainty ; 
 the probability is that with many of the other possessions of the out- 
 lawed Geoffrey it was confiscated and fell into the hands of King 
 Stephen, but was afterwards returned to his successor Geoffrey de 
 Mandeville, the third of that name, who, the records say, " received 
 back his father's forfeited lands." As the manor is known, too, to 
 have been in the possession of the succeeding De Mandevilles, there 
 can hardly be a doubt that the third Geoffrey became lord of the manor 
 of Greenford Parva. He was the second of the three sons of the out- 
 law, and was again created Earl of Essex by Henry II. — the King who 
 did penance and allowed himself to be scourged by the clergy of 
 Westminster Abbey for his rash words which had brought about the 
 assassination of Thomas a Becket. The father's forfeited lands restored 
 to him were certified to one hundred and three knights' fees. " He 
 was an elegant man of speech, much noted for his abilities in secular 
 affairs," and " was sent with the Justiciary against the Welch in 
 1167"; but falling sick at Chester, " it hnpned that, his servants 
 being all gone to dinner and nobody left with him, he died." " He 
 left no children, having been early divorced from his wife, Eustachia, 
 a kinswoman of the Kinof" ; and his brother Wiliiam, who succeeded 
 him, proved the last of his race. William de Mandeville, the third 
 Earl, is described as " of sharp wit, prudent in council and a stoute 
 soldier, did not much verse himself amongst his own relations, but spent 
 his youthful time for the most part with Philip Earl of Flanders," and 
 Avas much employed in military service. On his return he was ap- 
 
 c2 
 
20 THE CHRONICLES OF GREEN FORD PARVA ; 
 
 pointed with Hugh Pudsey, Bishop of Durham, as Justiciary of Eng- 
 land during the absence of Richard Coeur de Lion in the Holy Land. 
 
 He died in 1190 at Rouen, and it is stated of him that when 
 " drawing near his end he called together his Kindred and Servants, 
 and gave them charge (with his hands lifted on high) to convey his 
 Body to Walden, in England, there to be buried. But Henry de 
 Vere, his Kinsman, standing by, told him That the difficulty of the 
 passage was such, that it could not be done. To whom he replied, 
 'If you cannot, it is because you have no mind to effect what I, a 
 dying man, desire. Then take my Heart and carry it thither.' " Ac- 
 cording to Camden his heart and also that of the second son of the 
 founder of the Abbey, were buried with the body of Beatrix de Say, 
 the founder's sister, in the Chapter House at Walden. 
 
 This curious and interesting history of the De Mandevilles* has 
 been given at much length, not only because they were in succession 
 lords of the manor of Greenford Parva, but because we obtain from it 
 an insight into the conditions of social life which then prevailed, and 
 the manners and influence of the higher Norman barons, over whom the 
 power of the Church appears to have been generally more effective 
 than that of the sovereign. 
 
 It is highly probable, too, that during the period .when one of 
 these great feudal barons possessed the manor of Greenford Parva the 
 little church there w r as built and consecrated. This suggestion is 
 supported by the fact mentioned later, that the edifice is in the Early 
 Pointed or Early English style as shown by the pointed arch still pre- 
 served in the vestry — a style which is generally believed to have 
 originated in Stephen's reign (a.d. 1135), and remained in vogue until 
 it was perfected in that of Henry III. (1216 to 1272 ).t 
 
 In default of male descent the great Mandeville inheritance 
 reverted on the death of William de Mandeville to his father's sister, 
 Beatrix, the wife of the William de Say who had helped the outlawed 
 Earl to surprise Ramsey Abbey, one of whose daughters married 
 Geoffrey Fitz Piers, a "man rich in money and everything else," and 
 he insisted that it belonged to his wife. Although the King had pro- 
 mised the barony to the elder Beatrix, whose right seemed beyond 
 
 * Camden's " Brit." (Gough's), vol. ii., p. 62, &c. 
 
 t "Dictionary of Architecture of the Middle Ages." — John Britton. 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 21 
 
 dispute ; and her son, Geoffrey de Say, had actually obtained an 
 instrument under the King's seal for the whole barony on promising 
 to pay 7,000 marks into the Treasury, it happened that he neglected 
 to pay the money at the time appointed. Fitz Piers seized the oppor- 
 tunity, and offered the sum demanded by the King in his stead, and 
 thus procured the roysl confirmation of his title. He was a man 
 " skillful in Laws." " At the coronation of John he was girt by the 
 King with the sword of the Earl of Essex. His father had been 
 appointed by Cueur de Lion Justiciary of England in 1197, and " ruled 
 the reins of government (says Matthew Paris) so that upon his death 
 the Realm was like a Ship in a Tempest without a Pilot." 
 
 " His children by Beatrix de Say all took the name of Mandeville, 
 which ended with them, two of whom became in succession Earls of 
 Essex and men of mark amongst the Barons who wrested Magna 
 Charta from King John." "In the 17th of King John, the barons 
 of the realm being in arms against the King, entered the city (London) 
 and spoiled the Jews' houses ; which being done, Robert Fitzwater and 
 Geoffrey de Magnaville (Mandeville), Earl of Essex, and the Earl of 
 Gloucester, chief leaders of the army, applied all diligence to repair the 
 gates and walls of this city with stones of the Jews' broken houses." 
 This passage, quoted by Stow from Roger Wendover and Matthew Paris, 
 throws light upon the state of the country in the concluding year of 
 King John's reign, in which a lord of the manor of Greenford Parva 
 figures conspicuously, though not altogether to advantage.*"" 
 
 Both Earls of Essex descended from Beatrix de Say died without 
 issue, and the earldom and probably most of the estate, but at any rate 
 the manor of Greenford Parva, devolved on the daughter Maud, wife 
 of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford,! in whose family it appears 
 to have remained for a considerable time. 
 
 We come now to the reign of Edward II., when the powerful head 
 of the De Bohuns had succeeded as heirs to the possessions of the De 
 Mandevilles, and in them as superior lords of the Fee were included, 
 
 * In 1214, Matthew Paris says, King John wrote to Geoffrey de Mandeville to deliver 
 the Tower of London, with the prisoners, armour, &c., to William, Archdeacon of 
 Huntingdon. 
 
 t For much of the information regarding the De Mandevilles and the De Bohuns, the 
 author is largely indebted to the Duchess of Cleveland's elaborate work, the " Battle Abbey 
 Roll," recently published. 
 
22 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; . 
 
 as shown by existing records, lands in Greenford Parva as well as in 
 greater Greenford. 
 
 Lysons says that estates called the Manor of Stickleton Greenford 
 in Greater Greenford and in this parish, were given by Nicholas de 
 Farnham to the Priory of Ankerwyke, previous to Henry III.'s charter 
 of confirmation to that monastery.* He says, " Some of these estates, 
 but what part cannot be easily ascertained, lay in the parish of Great 
 Greenford, were afterwards granted to the Priory of Ankerwyke, and 
 formed the Manor of Stickleton, which was held under the Bohuns, 
 heirs of the Mandevilles, as superior lords of the Fee. The manor of 
 Greenford Parva or Cornhull, was held in like manner by the Beau- 
 monts."f The estates of the Priory here alluded to were probably 
 situated at Greenford, near Staines, and Greenford Common, between 
 Ashford and Lalam, Middlesex, in the vicinity of which this ancient 
 Priory existed. The learned author of the " Environs " has probably 
 overlooked the fact that there was another Greenford in Middlesex. 
 
 There would appear to be no doubt that the manor of Greenford 
 Parva, alias Cornhull, was at this period possessed by the De Bohun 
 who succeeded to the other estates of the De Mandevilles, and probably 
 the De Beaumonts or Bellomonts who afterwards acquired the manor 
 in their own right, at this time held it under De Bohun as liege lord. 
 
 Thus the lands and honours of the De Mandevilles passed to 
 Humphrey de Bohun, son of Henry de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, and 
 as among his estates he held the manor of Greenford Parva, some notes 
 relating to him and his descendants are of interest, 
 
 Humphrey de Bohun was descended from " de Bohun le Viel On- 
 frei," known as " Humphry with the Beard," who, according to Wace, 
 fought among the foremost at Hastings, but, unlike De Mandeville, 
 was but scantily rewarded for his prowess by the Conqueror, as he 
 received only the Norfolk manor of Talesford. As the authoress of 
 
 Th® gift, as recited in Dugdale's " Monasticon," is very curious. "De dono magistri 
 Nicholai de Farnham unum mesuagium oeties viginti acres terras, unam acram prati et 
 dimidiam, vigniti solidos redditus et servitium sextee partis feodi unus nnlitis cum pertin- 
 entiis Grenefeud (carta Regis Henry III. donationes quamplurimas recitans et confirmans) . 
 In the " Valor Ecclesiasticus," temp. Henry VIII., the lands of the Priory are described 
 as in Hunsloo, Greneford, Stanwell, Staines, &c. The lands of this religious establishment 
 were granted by Henry VIII. to Bisham Abbey, and on the suppression of the monasteries 
 to Lord Windsor. Dugdale, '* Monasticon," vol iii., p. 27. 
 t Escheat, 16 Edward III , No. 35. 
 
OR, PE RIVAL E, PAST AND PRESENT. 23 
 
 the " Battle Roll " says, " It was the extraordinary succession of great 
 alliances made by his descendants that gave the name its lustre and 
 wealth of accumulated dignities." 
 
 Henry de Bohun. the father of Humphrey, was created an Earl by 
 " King John's charter of 1199, and as Earl of Hereford was one of the 
 twenty-five great Barons appointed at Runnimede to be the guardians 
 of Magna Charta," and " the next ensueing year the barons (according 
 to Dugdale) raising fresh troubles, was, by the procurement of the 
 King, excommunicated by the Pope "; "he was one of the leaders of 
 the rebellion against Henry III., and fell into the King's hands at 
 Lincoln." He died in 1220, on his voyage to the Holy Land, having, 
 as we have mentioned, married Maud, only daughter of Geoffrey Fitz 
 Piers, Earl of Essex, with whom came not only the manifold posses- 
 sions of the Mandevilles but the famous badge of the " White Swan," 
 betokening her descent from the mystic Knight of the Swan, and ever 
 after borne by her posterity. 
 
 The legend of the White Swan is such a picturesque piece of 
 mediaeval romance that the reader will peruse it with interest. This 
 version is from " Curious Myths of the Middle Ages." " Wlien Otho, 
 Emperor of Germany, held court at Neumagen to decide between 
 Clarissa, Duchess of Bouillon, and the Count of Frankfort, who claimed 
 her duchy, the Count was to appear in person in the lists, whilst the 
 Duchess was to provide some doughty warrior who would do battle for 
 her." But the poor lady, " as all abashed " looked round in vain for 
 a champion, no one present would meddle in her quarrel ; " whereupon 
 she committed her (self) to God, praying him humbly to succour her." 
 The council broke up, and lords and ladies were scattered along the 
 banks of the Meuse, when lo ! a stately swan with a silver chain round 
 its neck came sailing down the river, drawing a small skiff in which lay 
 a knight in resplendent armour, resting on an argent shield blazoned 
 with a double cross of gold. He leaped ashore, offered his sword to 
 the forlorn princess, carried her colours in the lists, and triumphantly 
 overthrew her adversary. 
 
 She rewarded him with the hand of her fair daughter, and thus 
 Helias, the Knight of the Swan, became Duke of Bouillon, and in due 
 time the father of a little girl, who received at the font the name of 
 Ydain, married Eustace Count of Boulogne, and was the mother 
 
24 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA. 
 
 of Godfrey de Bouillon, King of Jerusalem, and of his brothers Bald- 
 win and Eustace. 
 
 Before his marriage, Helias had solemnly warned his bride that if 
 she ever inquired who he was, he would have to leave her for ever. 
 " One night the wife forgot the injunction of her husband, and began 
 to ask him his name and kindred. Then he rebuked her sorrowfully, 
 and leaving his bed bade her farewell. Instantly the swan reappeared 
 on the river, drawing the little shallop after it, and uttering loud cries 
 to call its brother. So Helias stepped into the boat and the swan 
 swam with it from the sight of the sorrowing lady." * 
 
 * See "The Battle Abbey Roll." The Duchess of Cleveland says that the "White 
 Swan ' ' was a favourite emblem in the days of chivalry. When the eldest son of Edward I. 
 and a whole bevy of young nobles were knighted with great ceremony in Westminster 
 Abbey, two swans, covered with gold net- work and trappings, were brought to the altar, 
 and the King, fixing his eyes upon them, solemnly swore ' ' by the God of Heaven and the 
 Swans " that he would revenge himself on the Scots. Then turning to his sons and barons, 
 he abjured them, should he die before he had fulfilled his vow, to carry his dead bones 
 before them to Scotland, and never let them rest in the grave till his enemies were humbled 
 in the dust. At the Canterbury Tournament, in 1349, Edward III. bore a white swan 
 embroidered on his surcoat, and displayed on his shield with the legend — 
 
 ' ' Hay, hay, the Whyte Swan, 
 By Gode's soul I am thy man." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 " Then mounte ! then mounte, brave gallants all, 
 And don your helmes amaine ; 
 Death's couriers, Fame and Honour, call 
 Us to the field againe." — Motherwell. 
 
 It is probable that the manor of Greenford Parva remained in the 
 possession of Humphrey de Bohun, the son of Henry, who became Earl 
 of Essex, and of his descendants, until the reign of Edward II. (a.d. 
 1307-27), when the manor of Greenford Parva, then called also 
 Cornhull, or Cornhill, with the advowson to the rectory, appears to 
 have fallen into the hands of the King, who granted it to Walter de 
 Langton, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry.* 
 
 This Walter de Langton was appointed by the King, Edward I., 
 Lord High Treasurer of England in 1295, and elected Bishop of 
 Lichfield and Coventry in 1295-6. He was a great favourite of 
 Edward L, for whose cause he suffered excommunication, and whose 
 corpse he had the honour of bringing from the borders of Scotland to 
 Westminster. Immediately, however, on his arrival in London, he was 
 arrested and imprisoned in the Tower, and though the clergy repeatedly 
 petitioned Edward II. to grant his release, yet he was shifted from 
 the Tower to Wallingford, then to York, and detained for two years 
 before he obtained his freedom ; "he then retired to his see at Lich- 
 field, which was but mean when he came but he left it magnificent." 
 He continued in it twenty-five years, until he died in 1321. He built 
 not only a new palace at Litchfield but repaired his castle at Eccles- 
 hall and his palace by the Strand in London, besides his manor house 
 at Shutborough in Staffordshire, t 
 
 In lowering the ground around the church, which had become con- 
 siderably raised since it was built, a silver penny of Edward I. was 
 
 * Bishop Langton had a charter of Free Warren in Greenford in the preceding reign 
 (3o Edward I., Cart. Rot. No. 48). 
 t *' Beauties of England and Wales, 1818." 
 
26 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 found, in excellent preservation, with other coins ; the original pave- 
 ment was discovered two feet below the surface. 
 
 Walter de Langton subsequently surrendered the manor and advow- 
 son of Greenford Parva to the King (Edward II.) in exchange for the 
 church of Cestreton and Worsfold, in Warwickshire.* 
 
 In the grant by the King to Bishop Langton we find the first 
 mention of the advowson attached to the manor, though, for the 
 reasons previously cited, it is highly probable that the church had 
 been built some time before the date of that grant. 
 
 It would appear that either the manor of Greenford Parva changed 
 its lord rather frequently at this time, or else that there is some 
 confusion in the dates mentioned in the records, as the grant of 
 Edward II. to the Bishop bears date Anno Reg. 7, whereas, as cited 
 by Lysons (from the "Nomina Villearum," No. 2195, Harl. MSS.), 
 Petrus le Botteler is said to have been lord of the manor of Greenford 
 Parva in the first year of Edward II. t 
 
 Although, as already mentioned, the advowson and manor of Green- 
 ford Parva were held by Walter de Langton very early in the reign of 
 Edward II., who ascended the throne in 1307, which shows that the 
 little church was then existing, there is every probability that it had 
 been erected at a much earlier date. The Normans introduced a higher 
 civilisation into Britain ; their love of war and chivalry was associated 
 with art, learning, and a rude form of piety. Edward the Confessor 
 was religious if not very monkish, and the people were no doubt, to 
 some extent, prepared for the very many churches which the Norman 
 nobles and bishops erected as soon as they took possession of their 
 manors. The church at Perivale may not improbably have been 
 
 * See Pat. II., Edward II., Pt. 2, m. 14. 
 
 t In 1339 a Peter (or Petrus) le Botiller got himself into trouble in regard to two 
 manors which he administered as bailiff. ' ' The Abbot of Westminster brought his writ of debt 
 against John Atte Watere, and demanded against him twenty-five pounds, and said that Peter 
 le Botiller was his bailiff in respect of two manors from such a time to such a time, having 
 the care and administration of all the goods that were in the said manors, and he said that 
 certain auditors were assigned to the bailiff, before which the bailiff rendered his account, 
 and that all things had been reckoned which should be reckoned, and all things allowed 
 which should be allowed. The said Peter remained in arrear £25 when the said Peter 
 was, on testimony of the auditors, sent to the gaol at Westminster, which was the nearest 
 gaol — the said John Atte Watere was keeper — there to remain until he made satisfaction to 
 the said Abbot for same debt. The said John receiving the said Peter in custody. The 
 said John Atte Watere afterwards let him go at large, wherefore the Abbot brings this 
 action against him." (" Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain, &c..in the Middle 
 Ages— Year Book, 13 and 14 Edward III."). 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 27 
 
 erected in the time of Stephen or his successor — an opinion which 
 appears to be confirmed by the style of architecture of the building, 
 alluded to later. 
 
 Walter de Langton seems to have surrendered the manor and 
 benefice to the King in the same year as he received it, as in the 
 seventh year of Edward II. Sir Henry de Beaumont, or Bellomont, 
 " obtained a grant in fee of the manors of Cornhull, Harrevve, and 
 Little Grenestede, with the advowson of the church of Grenefourd, in 
 the county of Middlesex" (a.d. 1314).* He was called also Lord 
 Henry de Beaumont. 
 
 Although Dugdale mentions that "he was described as consanguineus 
 Regis," he says his descent is involved in doubt, some tracing it from 
 Lewes, son of Charles, Earl of Anjou, a younger son of Lewes VIII., 
 king of France ; others " from Lewes de Brenne, second son of John 
 de Brenne, the last king of Jerusalem. "t However this may be, he 
 seems to have been another very " stoute souldier," and to have been 
 of great service to the king in the early part of his reign, and he was 
 enriched with many manors in Lincolnshire, as well as in Liecester- 
 shire, Northumberland, &c, besides the little Middlesex manor of 
 Greenford Parva. The story of his life as given by Dugdale reads 
 almost like a romance.? 
 
 Being soon appointed Constable of Roxburgh Castle in Scotland, he 
 was sent by Edward II. with Humphrey de Bohun and Robert de 
 Clifford to "guard the marches." Upon the death of the Bishop of 
 Lincoln the custody of the Castle of Somerton in that county was 
 bestowed upon him for life, he being at the same time Constable of 
 the Castle of Dumfries. " In the same year he had a grant of the 
 Isle of Man to hold for life by the services which the Lords thereof 
 had usually performed to the Kings of Scotland." 
 
 * Cart., 7 Edward II., No. 30. 
 
 t It is probable tbat the De Beaumonts here mentioned are of the same family as old 
 Roger de Beaumont, "whose young son Robert was sent by him to win his spurs at Senlac," 
 and who, " though a novice in arms," greatly distinguished himself in the battle, and was 
 one of the first to break through the English stockade. He became a great noble, and 
 was rewarded by many manor-. He was enormously powerful, and it is said of him " that 
 if he was displeased with any man he forced him to submissive humiliation ; if pleased, he 
 advanced him as he chose, by which means he got an incredible proportion of money and 
 jewels," says Henry of Huntingdon. Being urged by his confessor to make restitution of 
 whatsoever he had got by force or fraud from any man, he answered, " If I do so, what shall 
 I leave my sons." (For more detail see " The Battle Abbey Roll," the Duchess of Cleveland.) 
 
 % Dugdale' s " Baronetage." 
 
28 THE CHRONICLES OF GREEN FORD PARVA ; 
 
 " About this time he took to wife Alice, one of the cosins, and heires 
 to John, Earl of Boghan, Constable of Scotland (whose title he after- 
 wards assumed), and in the sixth year of Edward's reign " doing his 
 homage had livery of the lands of her inheritance." A little later and 
 he is again employed in Scotland where war was raging, and he was 
 "at that fatal Battel of Bannocksbourne, where the English army 
 suffered great loss." 
 
 In the 10th Edward II., says Dugdale, he was the King's lieutenant 
 for the north country between the rivers " Tine and Tese," at which 
 time a remarkable mishap occurred to him. He was then " accom- 
 panying two Cardinals sent from Home ; partly with the purpose to 
 reconcile the King to the Earl of Lancaster, and partly to inthronize 
 Lewes de Beaumont, his brother, in the Bishoprick of Durham ; he 
 was set upon near Derlington by divers stoute robbers, whereof Gilbert 
 de Middleton was the chief (in revenge of his kinsman Edmund de 
 Swinburne, whom the King had caused to be arrested for his clamor 
 against the Marches), and despoiled of all his treasure (as were also 
 those Cardinals and the Bishop), and not only so, but carried to the 
 Castle of Mitford (as his brother the Bishop was to Morpeth), there 
 to be secured until they had ransomed themselves." 
 
 In the fourteenth year of Edward II. he procured a licence to make 
 a Castle of his manor house of Whytwyck (Leicestershire). The next 
 year we find " this Henry," as Dugdale calls him, joined in commission 
 " with Andrew de Harcla for restraining the incursions of the Scots, 
 for which people he had so little kindness that (though he was a Baron 
 of the realm and sworn both of the great and privy council as the 
 record expresseth) being required to yield his advice concerning a 
 truce with them ; he unreverently answered ' that he would give none 
 therein ; ' whereat the King being much moved and commanding him 
 to depart the council, he went out and said ' he had rather be gone than 
 stay,' which expression gave such ' distast ' that by the consent of 
 the lords there he was committed to prison." " Whereupon Henry de 
 Perci and Ralph de Nevill became his sureties, body for body, that he 
 would appear upon summons." " But this heat lasted not long," for 
 two years later "he was constituted one of the ambasadors to treat of 
 peace with Charles, King of France." 
 
 We come now to his action at that critical time when the barons, 
 
OR, PER I VALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 29 
 
 dissatisfied with the weak fickle King who, after the execution of 
 Gaveston by the Earl of Lancaster (who afterwards met with the same 
 fate at the hands of the King), had chosen Hugh le Spenser as his 
 favourite, and he and his father were accused of usurping the royal 
 authority. " The defection of the nobles in adhering to the Prince 
 and Queen Isabell against the King increasing, as a partaker with 
 them, Henry de Beaumont was laid hold on and sent prisoner, first to 
 Warwick Castle and afterwards to that of Wallingford." Whereupon 
 the scene shortly after changing, one of the articles against Hugh le 
 Spenser in the Parliament " was his causing this Henry de Beaumont " 
 (our lord of the manor) to be imprisoned. 
 
 " Being therefore obsequious to the Queen and Prince," he followed 
 them to the continent. " And after her return," with Roger Mortimer, 
 " when the King being deserted endeavoured to reach Ireland " had got 
 away " betimes in the morning," " but was driven back by contrary 
 winds and brought to this Henry ; he delivered him as prisoner to the 
 Queen, who soon after sent him to Berkley Castle." The horrible fate 
 of the King and the execution of the Le Spencers is well-known history. 
 
 As remuneration for these services, he obtained a grant of the 
 Manor of Loughborough, part of the possessions of Hugh le Spencer. 
 Afterwards under Edward III., as chief of the English lords who had 
 been disinherited of their lands in Scotland, he led an expedition made 
 by ship to that country (the king having forbidden them entering that 
 realm by land) and gained a victory over the Scots near Gledismore. 
 The authority of the King was not to be thus dealt with ; he caused 
 all the castles, manors, and lands belonging to " this Henry " de Beau- 
 mont to be seized on. " Nevertheless, soon afterwards upon further 
 examination of what was laid to his charge" in the Parliament then 
 sitting at Westminster, an Act was passed by which they were again 
 restored to him. 
 
 Later he is found engaged again in the Scotch war, and besides other 
 grants he is acquitted of debts due by him to the Exchequer, and espe- 
 cially 400 marks lent to him at York towards the payment of his ransom 
 when he was imprisoned in Scotland. Afterwards he obtained one 
 hundred and forty pounds nine shillings, " for wages of himself and his 
 men-at-arms, and a precept to the Sheriff of Yorkshire to permit his wife 
 and children to reside in the Tower of York," during his absence in 
 
3 o THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PAR FA ; 
 
 Flanders. He died in the fourteenth year of Edward Ill's reign (1341), 
 possessed of " the Castle and Manor of Folkyngham, and many other 
 manors, sixty-three knights' fees, &c., leaving a son John, twenty-two 
 years old." Why he should have been so anxious, having his own castle 
 and manor houses, to place his wife and children in the Tower of York, 
 we have no record. It was no doubt this Henry de Beaumont, lord of 
 the manor of Greenford Parva, who presented John de Gravale in 1336. 
 The patron at that time is not mentioned by Newcourt, but Dugdale 
 helps to supply the blank, according to whom he had a younger son, 
 Thomas,'"" and Stow says there was formerly a monument in Our Lady's 
 Chapel in the old church at Greyfriars, Farringdon Within, to the 
 memory of Thomas Beaumont, son and heir of Henry, Lord Beaumont 
 (a.d. 1417).f It would appear that the manor of Greenford with the 
 advowson were inherited by his son John, as his grandson is found to 
 be in possession of land, &c, , there. 
 
 Of this John de Beaumont we have little information, but in the 
 fifteenth year of the reign of Edward III. " he was reteined to serve 
 the King at sea with 61 men at armes, whereof one (was) Baneret, 
 24 knights, 40 men at arms, and 40 archers for 40 days ;" in which 
 year he was also in the war with Scotland, when he died, leaving 
 Henry, his son; two years of age. The following curious passage 
 occurs in Dugdale : — " Whereupon, in order to his funeral, the King 
 sent his precept to William Shirebourne, a burgess of York, to make 
 payment of two hundred pounds of those moneys which he did then 
 owe for 130 sacks and twenty clays of wooll by him received out of 
 the North and East Riding of that county, unto Sir William de 
 Burton, Knight, to the use of Aliamore, the widow of the defunct, 
 towards the charge of that great solemnity." 
 
 He was succeeded in his honours and property, at any rate as to 
 land, &c, in Greenford Parva, by his son, Henry de Beaumont the 
 second, and according to Newcourt, Lord Arundel acted as his guar- 
 dian (in minori sestate existent), who presented to the benefice Ric 
 Hauberks (no date given), and Will. Alborowes in 1363. About this 
 time Radulphus de Baldock, or Baudake, and Simon de Sudbury 
 were in succession Bishops of London. The latter as Chancellor 
 incurred the odium of an insurgent rabble, who beheaded him on 
 
 * Dugdale's " Baronetage." f Stow (Thorns, 1876) p. 210. 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 31 
 
 Tower Hill : the execution or murder of a Bishop in this manner is 
 significant of the times The germs of the Reformation had already 
 been sown, and " it is said that in the midst of a vast multitude of 
 pilgrims wending their way, in profound devotion, to the shrine of 
 St. Thomas of Canterbury, Bishop Sudbury reproved them for their 
 superstitious folly, and said that their hopes of a promised plenary 
 indulgence were vain and idle." Dugdale says the second Henry de 
 Beaumont, becoming of " full age," in the thirty-fourth year of King 
 Edward the Third's reign, "did his homage and had livery of his 
 lands," and obtained " a precept to the Lord Treasurer and Baron of 
 the Exchequer for the acquiting him of 100 pounds due for the ferm 
 of his lands whilst he was in his minority, towards the charges he had 
 been at in attending the King in his last expedition beyond the sea." 
 He died in 1370, leaving John de Beaumont, his son and heir, a 
 minor, the wardship of whom was committed to Lord Latimer, " who 
 had custody of his lands during his minority" (Dugdale). In the 
 tenth year of Richard II. he made proof of his age, and " doing 
 homage he had livery of his lands," amongst which we know was the 
 property in Greenford Parva. Like his ancestors he seems to have 
 been of a warlike, adventurous disposition. We find him " accom- 
 panying John of Gaunt into Spain, but afterwards expelled the Court 
 as an evil councellor to the King ; but this discontent somewhat 
 abating, he obtained licence to pass into Calais, there to exercise 
 himself with feats of arms with the French ; four knights of that 
 country having challenged as many English to just (joust) with them 
 there : at which time he tilted with the Lord Chamberlain to the 
 King of France, and in the 12 year of Richard II.'s reign he was 
 made Admiral of the King's Fleet to the northwards, also one of the 
 Wardens of the Marches unto Scotland, whereupon he entered into 
 that country 40 miles — spoyled the Market of Fowyke and brought 
 many prisoners back." In fact, he appears to have been so valiant 
 that it was necessary to curb him, as in the thirteenth year of the 
 King's reign "he received special prohibition that he should not 
 exercise any feats of arms with the French without the licence of 
 Henry de Perci, Earl of Northumberland." 
 
 After having been made Constable of Dover Castle and Warden of 
 the Cinque Ports, he subsequently became one of the " King's Com- 
 
32 THE CHRONICLES OF GREEN FORD PARVA ; 
 
 missioners to contract marriage for him with the Lady Isabel, eldest 
 daughter of the King of France." He died in 1397, having presented 
 to the benefice at Greenford Parva, first Edmundus, and subsequently 
 John Mussendon in 1384, who resigned in 1388. Besides his Manor 
 of Greenford Parva, he possessed also that of Edmonton, Middlesex, 
 and many others in Lincolnshire. This John de Beaumont is 
 described as being "seized of 100 acres of land; the Church of 
 Greenford Parva, taxed at 100 shillings; a ruinous messuage, 15 
 acres of meadow land held under the priory of St. Helen's; the 
 reversion to a carucate of land ; 5 acres of meadow ; 6 of pasture, 
 and 25s. rents held for life by Lawrence de Avres under the Earl of 
 Hereford " (De Bohun).* 
 
 The above reference to the Priory of St. Helen's may suggest to the 
 reader that the Church of Greenford Parva may have originated from 
 a monastery which once existed there, but there is no evidence what- 
 ever upon which such a supposition can be based. The church and 
 benefice are always alluded to as " an advowson" in the gift of the 
 Lord of the Manor. 
 
 It is pleasant to turn for a moment to the reign of Edward III., 
 during which lived Chaucer, " the father of English poetry," and 
 John Wickliffe, the pioneer of the Reformation. The former has left 
 us a pleasing picture in the " Canterbury Tales" of a good "Parsone" 
 in his day, which may have been applicable to the worthiest of the 
 rectors of Greenford Parva at that time — 
 
 ' ' A gode man was there of religion, 
 And he was a poor parsone of a toun, 
 But riche he was of holy thought and werke, 
 He was also a lernid man — a clerke 
 That Cristis' Gospel trowely wolde preche ; 
 His Parischens devoutly wolde he teche, 
 Benygne he was and wondyr dely-gent, 
 And in adversitie full patient. 
 
 He waytede after no pomp ne reverence 
 Ne makyd hym no spisede (spiced) concience, 
 But Crysty's lore and his Apostels twelve 
 He taught, but ferst he folwede it hymselve. 
 
 We had at least five rectors at Greenford Parva during the time 
 Wickliffe lived (1324 to 1384) : did either of them have the courage 
 
 * See Esch. No. 35. Henry de Bohun died seized of the Fee of Southall in 1372. (Esch. 
 46, Edward III., No. 10.) 
 
OR, PERI VALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 33 
 
 he had to challenge some of the doctrines and practices of the Romish 
 Church ? For such a role mental capacity and vigour, as well as great 
 courage, were absolutely necessary, and neither of the Rectors of 
 Perivale have left enough of their imprint " on the sands of time" to 
 say. It is sufficient here to record that the little church, the name 
 of whose patron saint the same cause has obliterated, was then existing 
 and apparently flourishing, judging by the regularity with which the 
 rectors were appointed, and had been established many years 
 previously. 
 
 There is an interesting note that the rectory was rated in 1327 at 
 rx marks.* The reign of Edward III. is much associated with the 
 the battles of Crecy and Poictiers and other like contests, which have 
 redounded to the military glory of this country, and these successful 
 battles have been attributed so much to the skill of the English 
 archers, conjoined to the strategy and courage of the Black Prince, 
 that in this retrospect in the history of an old country village, it is 
 well to remember how important an ingredient in the e very-day life 
 of the countryside at this time must have been the English bowman. 
 Archery was constantly practised, and the use of the longbow, and, 
 to a more limited extent, that of the crossbow, as a means of training 
 for warfare, was greatly encouraged by the sovereign. " The warrior 
 King Edward III. in 1365 enjoined on the sheriffs of London the 
 general proclamation of his will that every citizen of robust strength, 
 laying aside all idle and profitless games, should in his leisure hours 
 and on all holidays learn and practise the art of shooting with bows 
 and arrows." t Afterwards, in the reign of Richard II., an Act was 
 passed commanding all servants to exercise themselves at all times, 
 and on all holidays, with the same weapons. 
 
 Even in Henry VI. 's reign, so important was skill in archery con- 
 sidered, that Sir John Fortescue, an eminent lawyer at that time, 
 declared " that the mighte of the realme of Englande standyth upon 
 archers." 
 
 The butts or practising-ground was not far away from Greenford 
 Parva. At Brentford Butts there were, no doubt, frequent contests 
 between the skilled archers of the day. The butts in various places, 
 
 * Harl. MSB., No. 60. 
 
 t Rot. Claus., 39 Edward III. For a full article on this subject see Pinks' " History of 
 Clerkenwell." 
 
34 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA. 
 
 such as those at Newington, Brentford, &c., still retain their names, 
 and recall the keen interest which was then taken in such exercises, 
 though their glories have passed away, and the ground over which sped 
 many an arrow in peaceful rivalry is now covered with "genteel villas." 
 
 Over the fields and woods about Greenford Parva was also shot 
 many an arrow and bolt which, no doubt, furnished the bowman with 
 a substantial result of his skill ; and though the laws enacted both 
 by the Saxon and Norman enabled the thanes and Norman nobles 
 to keep a tight hold of their game, still as the country about Green- 
 ford Parva then abounded in woodland, and was but sparsely popu- 
 lated in the old days, we may be sure that many a bird, as well as 
 larger game, has fallen to the grey goose shaft of the bowman, 
 unknown to the Lord of the Manor or his vassals, in the woods and 
 meadows where the rifleman now practises at the Butts in the Brent 
 Valley. 
 
 The names of the neighbouring villages still testify to the woods 
 which once flourished in this part of Middlesex. We have Southall 
 (a corruption of South holt) and Northolt, the holt being Anglo- 
 Saxon for wood ; as well as Harrow Weald, the last syllable of which 
 is the Anglo-Saxon for a wooded region, and is cognate with the 
 German " wald." Houndslow, in old records spelt Huneslawe, Hun- 
 deslawe, and Hunsloo, is another name which indicates the existence 
 in Saxon times of large forests north of the Thames. It is highly 
 probable that a forest ranger dwelt there whose duty it was to put in 
 force the oppressive Norman laws made for the preservation of the 
 game in the King's forests, whereby it was enacted that all dogs used 
 for collecting herds of oxen, swine, &c, should be laived — i.e, dis- 
 abled from hunting deer by cutting off the balls and claws of the 
 forefeet. Periodically an inquisition was held for this purpose, and 
 " he whose dogge is not lawed and so founde shall be amerced, and 
 shall pay for the same three shillings for mercy." The Saxon laws 
 were less severe. In the opening chapter of " Ivanhoe," Gurth, the 
 swineherd, says to Wamba, " A devil draw the teeth of him and the 
 mother of mischief confound the ranger of the forest that cuts the 
 foreclaws of our dogs and makes them unfit for their trade." 
 
 Acton was no doubt Oak-town, and derived from the Anglo-Saxon 
 ac, an oak, and ton, an enclosure or settlement. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " Its lords have been great in the olden day, 
 But the pride of their strength has been taken away ; 
 They moulder unknown in their native land, 
 And their home has long past to a stranger hand." — Ernest Jones. 
 
 Resuming the history of the Manor and Rectorate of Greenford Parva, 
 otherwise Perivale : hitherto, and dating from the Norman Conquest, 
 the entire control of the parish would appear to have been in the 
 hands of the feudal barons — great lords of the soil, who sometimes 
 occupied high positions about the person of the sovereign in whose 
 reign they lived — attending the king in his wars or employed by him 
 in other ways, but occasionally engaged in rebellion against him. 
 Whether Greenford Parva served the purpose of a knight's fee or fees 
 there is no actual evidence, but the probability is that the land there- 
 abouts was, for two or three hundred years after the defeat of Harold, 
 divided into portions and held by knights and retainers on condition 
 of their accompanying their feudal chief in whatever military 
 service he was engaged in. In many old manor houses and castles in 
 England, the breast-plates and other parts of the simple armour of 
 the men-at-arms is still preserved. There is a tradition that the 
 manor place of Perivale formerly contained two such sets of warlike 
 equipment. 
 
 To the feudal lords seem to have succeeded, as owners of the manor, 
 some important persons, but of another kind altogether. 
 
 Sir John de Beaumont or Bellomont alienated the manor and bene- 
 fice to Thomas Charlton in 1387.* A curious confirmation of the 
 conveyance of the property of the former in Parva Greenford, Harrow 
 and Ealing to the respective purchasers or grantees (among whom is 
 Charlton) is contained in the Close Roll referred to. The deed runs 
 (translated) as follows : — " I, William Wyslepp of Northall in Middle- 
 sex have released and quit claimed for ever to Thomas Charlton, John 
 
 * Cl. R., 10 Richard II.. M. 21, d. 
 D 2 
 
3 6 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 Hervy, John Newman (vicar of the church, Hillyndon), John At 
 Boure, John Baddcok, and John Lass (chaplains), all his right and 
 claim to the manor of Parva Grenford, otherwise called Cornhull, and 
 the advowson of the same vill with the appurtenances and also all 
 lands and tenements called Esthalle with the appurtenances and in 
 all lands and tenements which the aforesaid Thomas Charlton, John 
 Hervy, John Newman, &c, &c, hold in the Vills of Harwe, Yillynge 
 and Parva Greneford which the said Thomas (Charlton) acquired from 
 John Bell-Monte (Beaumont), Lord of Folkyngham. Dated 4 Feb- 
 ruary 10th year Richard II. — acknowledged in the court of Chancery 
 7 February of the same year." 
 
 Thomas Charlton owned the manor and benefice for many years, 
 and presented John Chinchgate to the living in 1388, on the resig- 
 nation of Mussendon ; afterwards the former also resigned, and Richard 
 Lambard was appointed, 1395. On the death of the latter, John 
 Segrave was presented, and Pet. Ward and W. Hind succeeded him on 
 his decease, but the record does not state whether this last change was 
 the resul t of death or the resignation of the previous rector. 
 
 About this time (1367 — 1399) the clergy generally were so fond 
 of hunting and hawking — sports which, with the tournament, were the 
 favourite amusements of the nobility and gentrj', and in which ladies 
 played a prominent part — that an enactment came into operation that 
 every parson who had not a benefice of the yearly value of ten pounds 
 was forbidden to keep a dog for hunting. There is a tradition still 
 in the hamlet, that one of the rectors in the early part of this century 
 had the same partiality for the hunting field. 
 
 Religious persecution began to show itself also about this period — 
 the leaven of the Reformation was commencing to operate in the 
 minds of men ; to the clergy generally, particularly to those who were 
 most conscientious and earnest, the signs of the times were fraught 
 with anxiety. They were momentous to the rectors of Greenford 
 Parva as to others. The Lollards were persecuted, and many of them 
 were executed. In 1401 Henry IV. enacted that persons accused of 
 heretical opinions could be tried by the Bishop and burned by the 
 Sheriff ; yet Lollardism increased in proportion as it was persecuted. 
 John Sawtre, a London clergyman, was the first who died for his 
 religious opinions ; he was burned in Smithfield in 1401. 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 37 
 
 In 1435 the manor and advowson, described as late the property 
 of Sir Thomas Charlton, seem to have been held by Thomas Hall or 
 Halle, but he conveyed them the same year to William Eastfield, 
 citizen and alderman of London* when Henry VI. was reigning : he 
 presented Hugo Nobull to the rectory in 1435, and afterwards William 
 Come, without any cause being assigned as far as Newcourt's record is 
 concerned. 
 
 William Eastfield here mentioned was, no doubt, the worthy citizen 
 mentioned by Stow as one of the sheriffs in 1422, a year in which the 
 old chronicler says " the West Gate of London was begun to be built 
 by Sir Richard Whittington's executors." William Eastfield became 
 Lord Mayor of London in 1429 (the title of Lord Mayor was adopted 
 in 1381) and was created a Knight of the Bath. As Sir William 
 Eastfield, mercer, he became again Mayor in 1437. He was, to use 
 Stow's words, " a great benefactor of conduits," and followed close on 
 the steps of Sir Richard Whittington, " the thrice Lord Mayor of 
 London," in his efforts with others to get a supply of " sweet water " 
 for London. Thus, a.d. 1423, Sir Richard Whittington built a 
 reservoir at Billingsgate for the use of the market people,t and in the 
 same year, that worthy knight made " a Boss of clear water in the walls 
 of St. Giles' Churchyard, called Cripplegate Conduit" In 1438 Sir 
 William Eastfield brought water here from "HighBerie." In the 
 same year Sir William Eastfield, then Mayor, built the Fleet Street 
 Conduit, opposite Shoe Lane. This conduit was supplied from Pad- 
 dington, and Stow says that this had a fair tower of stone, and was 
 garnished with images of St. Christopher, &c, " with sweet sounding 
 bells before them, whereupon by an engine placed in the tower, they 
 divers hours of the day chimed such a hymn as was appointed." 
 
 " Aldermanbury Conduit, opposite the south side of St. Mary's 
 Church," subsequently destroyed by the Great Fire, and afterwards 
 rebuilt, was erected under the will of Sir William Eastfield, the worthy 
 
 * Close R., 13 Henry VI., m. 14. An abstract from this roll is interesting : — "Dec. 4. 
 Thomas Hale of Yillynge (Ealing), Middlesex, husbandman (probably his name is only 
 used as a form of law), conveys to William Eastfield, Henry Frowyk (citizens and aldermen 
 of London), John Carpenter, Robert Burton, Alexander Aune, John Wylton, Thomas 
 Dale (clerk), John Leget (clerk), Roger Byrkes, property in Greenford and Yillynge, 
 which were of Thomas Charlton (Knight), Henry Erowyk, William Brag, Thomas Warner, 
 and others." 
 
 t "History of Clerkenwell," by W. J. Pinks, with additions by E. J. Wood, 1881. 
 
3 8 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 Lord of the Manor of Greenford Parva, the successor of the fortunate 
 apprentice, Sir Richard Whittington, who, whether he owed his great 
 fortune to his " cat," in the form of our domestic pussy, or to a ship 
 of that name, laden with a particularly suitable cargo for the port to 
 which it was destined, must have been a man of great enterprise and 
 energy ; and whether he ever rested on Highgate Hill on leaving the 
 city as a boy in despair at his prospects, to be recalled by the distant 
 sound of Bow bells to fame and fortune, and ultimately to marriage 
 with his rich master's daughter (as the story is told), or not, it is 
 evident he was a citizen of whom even this generation may feel 
 proud ; and that our Lord of the Manor and owner of the advowson 
 of Perivale was a man imbued with the same spirit of doing good to 
 the people who lived with him and after him. 
 
 Stow, who wrote in Elizabeth's reign, says he had a dwelling-house 
 at Aldermanbury in the City : — " In this Aldermanburie Street be 
 divers fair houses on both sides, meet for merchants or men of 
 worship, and in the midst thereof is a fair conduit, made at the 
 charges of William Eastfield, some time Mayor, who took order as well 
 as water to be conveyed from Teyborne and for the building of this 
 conduit not far distant from his dwelling-house, as also for a standard 
 of sweet water to be erected in Fleet Street, all of which was done 
 by his executors." * 
 
 Sir William Eastfield died in 1438, and was buried in St. Mary's, 
 Aldermanbury, " under a fair monument," " having been a great 
 benefactor to that church ; he also built its steeple, changed their 
 bells into five tuneable bells, and gave one hundred pounds to other 
 works of the church." 
 
 From William Eastfield the manor and advowson passed (they 
 appear always to have been held together) to John Middleton and 
 others in 1453. It may be that they presented John Ely in 1453 
 as trustees, but in 1464 Jac. Gyfiford appears to have been appointed 
 by the Bishop of London seemingly in default of the owner of the 
 advowson exercising his right. Stow says, a J. Middleton was 
 Sheriff in 1450. The next owner of the manor and benefice was 
 John Bohun, Armiger (a title now very nearly extinct, which was 
 then equivalent to Esquire in the days of chivalry). He presented 
 
 * "Stow's Survey," W. J. Thorns, 1876. 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 39 
 
 Robert Hooper in 1472 and Henry Bartelot in 1473, both of whom 
 resigned. 
 
 It helps the reader to realize the condition of the country during 
 which these changes were taking place if it is remembered that 
 during thirty years included in these dates (1455 to 1485) occurred 
 the Wars of the Roses, in which twelve pitched battles were fought 
 and eighty princes of the blood slain, not to mention the large portion 
 of the old nobility who were destroyed. Though severe battles were 
 fought at St. Alban's and Barnet, not so very distant from Greenford 
 Parva, it does not appear that its fortunes were directly affected by 
 the struggle. 
 
 Henry Collet, who succeeded John Bohun as lord of the manor, 
 and who presented John Taylor to the benefice in 1490, was in all 
 probability the Henry Collet, mercer, who was twice Lord Mayor of 
 London and knighted, as mentioned by Stow, and the father of Dr. 
 John Collet, D.D., Dean of St. Paul's, the founder of St. Paul's School 
 in 1512.* 
 
 It is said " that he chose John Percival (Merchant Taylor), his 
 carver, as Sheriff by drinking to him in a cup of wine, according to 
 custom," when he became Lord Mayor in 1495. " Percival forthwith 
 sat down at the mayor's table " and his Sheriff, so chosen, became 
 mayor in 1498.t Henry Collet was a benefactor to the Church of St. 
 Anthony in Budge Row, where, according to Stow, there were formerly 
 representations of him, his wife, her sons and her daughters, in a 
 painted glass window on the north side of the church. 
 
 The worthy mercer resided for many years at Stebunhith 
 (Stepney), then quite in the country, and a place where the Alder- 
 men, Sheriffs, and citizens of London used to go maying in the 
 Bishop of London's woods there. % Henry Collet had twenty-two 
 children, of whom Dean Collet was the sole survivor. The premature 
 death of so large a family — in many cases caused by the great scourge 
 of this period, the sweating sickness — must have had a deeply 
 saddening effect on him, as well as on the character of his son, who, 
 after several attacks of the malady, fell a victim to it at the age of 
 fifty-three. 
 
 * "Stow's Survey," Thorn's ed. Newcourt spells it Collet. Lysons appears to have 
 copied the name incorrectly as Colet. 
 
 t " Old and New London," Thornbury (Cassell's). X Stow. 
 
4 o THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 Henry Collet was buried at Stebunhith, of which parish his son 
 held the living until he was made Dean of St. Paul's, and it was not 
 long after that the revenue therefrom became augmented by his 
 succession to the great wealth of his father, which, Dean Milman says, 
 he entirely devoted to public advantage and charity. 
 
 Henry Collet presented John Taylor to the living in 1490, on the 
 resignation of Henry Bartelot, after the latter had held the rectorate 
 for seventeen years. 
 
 The son of the Lord of the Manor of Greenford Parva, the founder of 
 St. Paul's School, was the friend of Erasmus, and a man of great 
 learning and high character, and a reformer when it was dangerous to 
 show sympathy for reform. Stow tells us he committed the oversight 
 of the school " to the mercers in London, because himself was son to 
 Henry Collet, mercer, Mayor of London, and endowed the mercers with 
 lands to the yearly value of £120 or better," which has now happily 
 grown into a large revenue. Being asked why he had left his 
 foundation in trust to laymen, as tenants of his father, rather than to 
 an ecclesiastical foundation, he replied, " that there was no absolute 
 certainty in human affairs, but for his part he found less corruption 
 in such a body of citizens, than in any other order or degree of 
 mankind." 
 
 Latimer tells us the Dean narrowly escaped burning for his 
 opposition to image worship. Foxe says, in his " Acts and Monuments," 
 " that William Tyndale in his book, answering Master Moore, added 
 moreover that the Bishop of London would have made the said 
 Collet, Dean of St. Paul's, a heretic for translating the ' Pater Noster 
 into English, had not the Bishop of Canterbury holpen the Dean." 
 It is not easy to realize now that a man should run the risk of an 
 ecclesiastical prosecution and the probability of being burnt for 
 translating " the Lord's Prayer " into English. The Dean must, 
 however, have been in considerable danger when preaching a sermon 
 before the king (Henry VIII.) in 1521, on the victory of Christ, which 
 it was considered might have the effect of turning the hearts of the 
 soldiers and they might be withdrawn from his wars then in hand. 
 " The king took him aside and talked with him in secret confidence, 
 walking in his garden." The Bishops then about the person of the 
 king fully expected (some would have rejoiced) that he would be sent 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 41 
 
 to the Tower. Foxe says the king, however, dismissed Collet in these 
 words : " Let every man have his doctor as him liketh ; this shall be 
 my doctor."* 
 
 The eighth Henry had faults enough : it is well to record his 
 protection of Dr. Collet, the son of the Lord of the Manor of Perivale, 
 at this crisis, as on the other side of the account, although it was not 
 conveyed in the best king's English. 
 
 Henry VIII.'s assumption of the supreme authority of the 
 English Church, and his severance from the Pope, whose champion 
 he had previously been, is the most memorable event in the reform 
 movement. With no real love for Lutheranism, he commenced by 
 persecuting the reformers ; he ended by supporting them w r ith the 
 full power of the State. The circulation of the Scriptures which he 
 permitted produced a great sensation, and was the cause of great 
 bitterness and strife. People frequented the churches to hear the 
 Bible read and explained, but it was also the subject of angry dis- 
 cussion. It caused unseemly wrangles in ale-houses and common 
 tap-rooms ; around the church porches, and even within the sacred 
 edifices, it is said, noisy crowds gathered, and contended for their 
 several opinions. 
 
 It may be supposed that the little church at Perivale escaped 
 these scandals from its position, being comparatively distant from 
 London, but this is hardly likely to have been the case. It was in 
 the country districts especially that the religious disputes were most 
 rife, and as Perivale was a more important village at that time than 
 it has been during the past hundred years, it probably suffered from 
 the effects of such strifes, and the loss of its oldest records and many 
 of its ancient monuments was the result. The following is among 
 the contents of a Book of Articles devised by the king, to establish 
 Christian quietness and amity among the people,t dated 1538 : — "That 
 ye provide — one book of the whole Bible of the largest volume in 
 English, and the same set up in some convenient place within the 
 said church, that ye have the cure of, where your parishoners may 
 most commodiously resort to the same and read it. The charges of 
 which book shall be rateably borne between you, the parson and 
 parishoners aforesaid, that is to say, the one half by you, the other 
 
 * Foxe's " Acts and Monuments." t Ibid. 
 
42 THE CHRONICLES OF GREEN FORD PARVA; 
 
 half by them." The articles contain directions that " the Lord's 
 Prayer is to be learned in English — Sermons to be read quarterly — 
 Priests not to haunt ale-houses — Pilgrimages forbidden — Pra} r ers to 
 be in the mother tongue — Images abolished." These extracts enable 
 us to realise the state of religious thought and practice at this 
 time. 
 
 The manor and benefice, according to Lysons, next became vested 
 in Sir Robert Southwell ; * but Newcourt says the proprietor at that 
 time was Ric. Southwell, and that he presented Jac. Aynsworth 
 to the rectory in 1494, who subsequently resigned like his prede- 
 cessor, and the same lord of the manor appointed William Maneyard 
 in 1503. 
 
 The frequent resignation of the rectors about this time is a notice- 
 able fact. Lysons says, Sir Robert Southwell died seized of the 
 manor and advowson of Greenford Parva in 1516, and on referring 
 to the authority for this statement, he appears to be right, though 
 the proprietor could hardly have been the Master of the Rolls and 
 Privy Councillor of that name in the reign of Henry VIII. The 
 latter had a brother, Sir Richard Southwell, also a man of consider- 
 able importance, and the brothers were much at Court and in favour 
 with the King. They are both mentioned, as hereafter quoted, in 
 Machyn's remarkable book, recording the burning of persons for their 
 religious opinions, the funeral ceremonies of persons of distinction, 
 and other curious information set forth with much zeal and detail, 
 and in words very remarkably spelt.t In the interleaved and 
 embellished copy of Lysons' " Environs," now in the Guildhall 
 Library, which is said to have been thus further illustrated by Mr. 
 Douce, the author and antiquary (to whom it is believed formerly 
 to have belonged), there is an engraved portrait of Sir Robert South- 
 well, the Master of the Rolls, and presumably a son of the Sir Robert 
 Southwell, owner of the manor, &c, of Greenford Parva. The late 
 owner appears to have adopted this suggestion by inserting the portrait 
 where the name is mentioned, and he is probably correct. 
 
 * Cole's "Escheats." Harl. MSS., 756. This deed refers to Robert Southwell and his 
 connection with Greenford Parva. It also mentions his wife Elizabeth and his sister 
 Francis (sixth year of Henry VIII.) . 
 
 t "The Diary of Henry Machyn, Citizen and Merchant Taylor of London, a.d. 1650 to 
 1663." (Camden Soc. Pub.) 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 43 
 
 Machyn refers to the death of Sir Robert Southwell thus : — " 1559 
 the VIII day of November was buried in Kent Ser Robartt Sowth- 
 well Knight, sum time Master of the Rolls with a harold of armes, a 
 target, a elmett and viij dosen skochyons of armes." 
 
 Whatever Sir Robert Southwell, the brother, may have been after- 
 wards, it is evident that, in 1555, he was a supporter of the Roman 
 Catholic Queen. In this year it was expected by a large number of 
 people that Mary would in a few months give birth to a child, as 
 Foxe says : — " Of this child there was great talk in every man's mouth, 
 especially among such as seemed in England to carry Spanish hearts 
 in English bodies. In number of whom is not here to be forgotten, 
 nor defrauded of his condyn commendation for his wortlry affection 
 towards his prince and her issue. One Sir Richard Southwell, who 
 being the same time in the parliament, when the Lords were occupied 
 with other affairs and matters of importance, suddenly started up 
 from fulness of joy burst out in these words, ' Tush, my masters,' 
 quoth he, ' what talk ye of these matters. I would have you take 
 some order for our young master that is now coming into the world 
 apace lest he find us unprovided," &c. 
 
 Speaking of Sir Richard Southwell, presumably a son of the lord 
 of the manor, Machyn informs us that, " Master Sowthwell and divers 
 mo(re) received the Kyng and Quen on the 26 April 1555 at Gren- 
 wyche," how he attended as a " Mornar" with other notables at the 
 obsequies of the King of Denmark ; how he went to Lady W.'s 
 funeral, " where her husband and she had a harold and mony mornars 
 as Ser Recherd Sowthwell and dyvers odurs and at to that of Ser 
 Thomas Pope at darken well " with the Clarence and York " harolds " 
 and then to a " grett " dinner afterwards. 
 
 It is significant of the times to find on the same page that he 
 " whent" (on the 1st of July in that year) " to Smythfield to borne 
 (burn) Master Bradford a grett (great) precher in Kyng Edward's 
 dayes, and a talow chandlers prentes (apprentice) dwelling by Nugatt 
 by viij of the cloke in the mornyng with a grett compane of 
 pepull." 
 
 Newcourt's record shows that from 1521 to 1559,* Humphrey 
 Brown and Sir Humphrey Brown and his wife presented to the rec- 
 
 * " Newcourt Repertorium." See copy of his record, later. 
 
44 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 tory, as owners of the manor and advowson : Thomas Marshall in 
 1521, Thomas Veysey in 1523, John Rysdale in 1540, and Patricius 
 Calyn in 1559, during which period Wareham, Tunstall, and Bonner 
 were in succession Bishops of London. With the return of the latter 
 to his see and the ascent of the throne by the cruel, bigoted Mary, 
 came the dreadful persecutions of the reformers. Heresy was to be 
 exterminated with the horrors of the stake. 
 
 The historian tells us that these persecutions and burnings began 
 in the early part of 1555, the first victims being Rogers, Prebendary 
 of St. Paul's ; Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester ; Saunders, Rector of 
 Allhallows, and Taylor, Rector of Hadleigh, in Suffolk ; and that 
 they lasted for more than three years, when the Queen died. Such 
 atrocities were committed not far from the rectory of Greenford 
 Parva, in 1558, as in that year six persons were burnt at Brentford 
 for advocating the new opinions. They were not connected in any 
 way with Brentford ; these poor martyrs who, it is said, went "joy- 
 fully to the stake whereunto they were bound," were " of that company 
 that were apprehended in a close by Islington," and it is probable, 
 as suggested by Foxe, that they were sent to the county town to 
 strike terror into the neighbourhood. 
 
 Would that John Rysdale, who, according to Newcourt's record, 
 enjoyed the benefice for nineteen years, until he resigned in 1559, 
 had left us a journal or some record of the state of religious feeling 
 at Greenford Parva and the neighbouring towns, and of how he felt 
 when such terrible events were taking place. Rysdale resigned the 
 year following Elizabeth's accession, and the new parson under the 
 Protestant Queen was Patricius Calyn, who was rector for fourteen 
 years until he died. 
 
 Sir Humfrey Browne, Lord of the Manor, &c, of Greenford Parva, 
 and described as of Rooding Abbots, in Essex, was a judge of the 
 Court of Common Pleas in the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., 
 Mary, and Elizabeth, and altogether a very distinguished man ; he 
 was knighted between 1533 and 1537.* His daughter and coheiress, 
 
 * Son of Thomas Browne, of Longhouse, in Abbotts Rooding, Essex, &c. Arms, Gules 
 a chevron between 3 lions gambs, erased and erect, within a bordure argent ; over a chief 
 of the 2nd thereon an eagle displayed sable armed and ducally crowned or. Crest, a lion's 
 gamb erased and erect argent holding a wing, sable. See "Walter C. Metcalf's " Book of the 
 Knights Banneret, Knights of the Bath, &c." (London, 1885), and Foss's " Tabulse 
 Curiales" (London, 1865), &c. 
 
OR, PERI VALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 45 
 
 Christiana, married Sir John Tufton, Baronet, of Rainham, Kent, and 
 Hothfield. His brother, Sir Wyston Browne, was dubbed knight at 
 Bruges in 1511-12. 
 
 Machyn (op. cit.) records his death in 1562, and gives the follow- 
 ing curious account of his funeral : — ■ 
 
 "The XV day of Desember 1562 was cared (carried) by the 
 Clarkes of London from Seypulkurs unto Sant Martens orgaynes 
 (Orgars) in Kanwykstrett (Candlewick Street, now Cannon Street) to 
 be bered be (by) on(e) of ys wyffes the lord justes Browne Knyght 
 with ij haroldes of armes, master Clarenshux and master Somersett ; 
 furst whent a-for xxiiij pore men in mantyll fryse gownes, and after 
 a xx clarkes carehyng ther surples on ther armes, and next the 
 standard borne by a mornar, and then cam the ij chaplens and dyvers 
 mornars and then cam a harold beyryng the helme and crest, and 
 next cam master Clarenshux beyrying the cott of armes, and then 
 cam the pennone of armes, and then cam the corse with a palle of 
 blake velvett with armes on yt, and then the cheyff mornars and my 
 lord Mordantt with odur, and then cam the juges and sergant(s) of 
 the coyffe, and next all the ynes of the court- in a-ray, a gret nombur 
 and thruge (through) Chepesyd (Cheapside) ; and master Renakur 
 mad the sermon, and after home to a grett dener." 
 
 Stow records that he bequeathed " divers houses " to the parish 
 of St. Martins Orgars, but mentions no other memorial of him. This 
 must have been another critical time in the history of the little 
 church of Greenford Parva, as of other churches in this country. The 
 short reign of Edward VI. is remarkable for the vigorous strides 
 made by the Reformation. Even before the appearance of the 
 Commissioners in 1547, charged with the edict of the Council which 
 commanded the destruction of images, pictures of the saints, forbade 
 processions and the continuance of all customs and practices deemed 
 to be superstitious, the people had in many places taken the matter 
 into their own hands and despoiled the churches of all objects which 
 were considered objectionable.* Images and even stained glass were 
 
 * Froude says, in the autumn and winter of 1552 no less than four commissions were 
 appointed with this one object, all of which were to go over the oft-trodden ground, and 
 glean the last spoils which could be gathered from the churches. In the business of plunder 
 the rapacity of the Crown officials had been far distanced by private peculation. The halls 
 of country-houses were hung with altar-cloths ; the knights and squires drank their claret 
 out of chalices, and watered their horses in marble coffins. Pious clergy, gentlemen or 
 
46 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 removed, and in many cases the walls were whitewashed in order to 
 hide the painted illustrations of the lives and legends of saints. The 
 " Grey Friars Chronicle" says, briefly but bitterly : — " And so alle 
 imagys pullyd down throw all Ynglande at that tyme and alle 
 Churches new whytelimed, with the commandements wrytten on the 
 walls." * 
 
 Heylyn says : — " Many private men's parlours were hung with altar 
 cloths, their tables and beds covered with copes, instead of carpets 
 and overlids ; and many carousing cups made of the sacred 
 chalices, as once Belshazzar celebrated his drunken feast in the 
 sanctified vessels of the Temple. It was a sorry house, and not 
 worth naming, which had not somewhat of this furniture in it, though 
 it was only a fair large cushion made of a cope or altar cloth, to adorn 
 their windows or to make their chairs appear to have somewhat in 
 them of a chair of state." 
 
 Tombs were stripped of their monumental brasses. Nor was this 
 all, for those sources of revenue to the priests, both secular and 
 monastic, the obits and chantries, were abolished, and property left to 
 purchase the prayers of the priests for the repose of the souls of the 
 dead was diverted to the Royal Treasury. 
 
 It had been enacted, as already mentioned, that a large Bible in 
 English should be placed in every church ; it was generally secured 
 by a chain to the lectern, and with it was often placed a copy of 
 "Erasmus' Paraphrase of the Gospel." The first Book of Common 
 Prayer was published in 1549. It is certain that although these 
 changes were generally favourably received in the towns, they were 
 stoutly objected to in many country places. Insurrections broke 
 out, led by men who demanded the restoration of the old faith and 
 the destruction of Protestantism, even by fire and sword. Bishops 
 Bonner and Gardiner were imprisoned for resisting the commis- 
 sioners, and although they were soon liberated, they still opposed 
 the Reformation and were deprived of their sees. They were restored 
 to them, we know, in the succeeding reign of Mary. With the full 
 
 churchwardens had in many places secreted plate, images, or candlesticks, which force 
 might bring to light. Bells, rich in silver, still hung silent in remote church towers, or 
 were buried in the vaults, &c. 
 
 * See Dean Milman's "Annals of St. Paul's Cathedral," page 73, quoted by Wharton, 
 from William Chartham, a monk of Canterbury. 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 47 
 
 force of their minds they henceforth endeavoured to exterminate 
 Protestantism, punishing heresy by the stake, as the history of this 
 country records. 
 
 The little church at Greenford Parva and its rectors had to pass 
 through the trying ordeal of these times. 
 
 In 1573 Henry Millet is found to be in possession of the right 
 of presentation to the benefice, and Lord of the Manor of Greenford 
 Parva, which about this time began to be known as Perivale. It is 
 probably his father's or grandfather's tomb which is still preserved — 
 with the brasses representing his wives, Alice and J oan, and fifteen 
 children, referred to later — among the monuments in the church, and 
 with the year of his death, 1500, and the one now reproduced from 
 Mr. Farthing's MSS. (see Plates) is probably the brass effigy of his 
 son and successor, George Millet, who, as owner of the manor and 
 advowson, presented to the living in 1587. Lysons says there was 
 a brass on the floor of the chancel to the memory of George Millet, 
 with the date 1600, and no doubt the drawing made by Mr. Farthing 
 is of the one referred to by him. 
 
 There is an interesting monument in the chancel recording the 
 death of his wife, afterwards Mrs. Shelbury, and describing her late 
 husband as " Lord of this Towne," &c, which will be noticed among 
 the other memorials in the church. 
 
 It is evident that Perivale or Greenford Parva was a more impor- 
 tant place at that time than it has ever been since. The Millets 
 appear to have held much land in this neighbourhood about this 
 time. Among the records of Greenford Magna is one which states 
 that William Millet, of that parish, left, in 1663, £5 per annum to 
 buy gowns of frieze for two poor men and two poor women (his 
 monument is on the floor of the church of Greater Greenford). * A 
 John Millet held the Manor of Hayes, Middlesex, and died in pos- 
 session of it in 1628, and another member of the family, William 
 Millet, gave in 1631, a close of land for the good of the poor of 
 Norwood, Norcott, Heston, and Southall (Lysons). 
 
 Nicholas Osmund, who was appointed rector by George Millet in 
 1587, and enjoyed the living until he died in 1621, i.e., during the 
 
 * Robert Millet, yeoman, and Margaret Thornton, spinster, of Greenforde, Middlesex, 
 daughter of Jerome Thornton, late of the same, yeoman, deceased, were married by licence 
 in 1585(6). — (Colonel Chester's " Marriage Licences.") 
 
48 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 later part of Elizabeth's reign, and in that of James I., must have 
 witnessed the agitation of the people, who were divided, on the acces- 
 sion of James L, into the three great parties — the Eoman Catholics, 
 Episcopalians, and Puritans — each of which was striving for ascen- 
 dency and cherishing hopes of favour from the King. 
 
 The people got hold of a saying of the then reigning Pope — " The 
 preaching of the Gospel is the destruction of the Church " * — and no 
 doubt repeated it in a sense not intended by the Pontiff. How inter- 
 esting would be Nicholas Osmond's sermons during the thirty-four 
 years of his ministry, if he held decided opinions ! Probably, however, 
 like his King's, they were expressed in the words, " No bishop, no 
 king." 
 
 From the Millets, the manor and advowson descended by female 
 heirs to the families of Lane and Harrison, and perhaps Thomas 
 Hobman and E. Maplesdon, mentioned in the following record as 
 presenting to the living, belonged to these families. 
 
 The period when Thomas Hobman, citizen of London, presented 
 Francis Hobman and Edward Kead, and John Lane made Henry 
 Wyatt rectors of Perivale — i.e., between 1621 and 1661 — must have 
 been another very trying period for the little church of Perivale and 
 its rectors. The obscurity of the hamlet could hardly have saved the 
 latter from the observation of the " Committee of Tryers," who were 
 appointed in 1653 to examine the qualification, character, and fitness 
 of ministers. 
 
 The committee is thus satirized in " Hudibras " : — 
 
 "Whose business is, by cunning sleight, 
 To cast a figure for men's light, 
 To find in lines of beard and face 
 The physiognomy of Grace ; 
 And by the sound and twang of nose, 
 If all be sound -within disclose ; 
 Free from a crack or flaw of sinning, 
 As men try pipkins by the ringing." 
 
 It is said " these tryers pretended to great skill in this respect ; 
 and if they disliked the beard and face of a man, they would for that 
 reason alone refuse to admit him, when presented to a living, unless 
 he had some friend to support him." This is, no doubt, an exag- 
 gerated statement, though the committee exercised very fully the power 
 
 * "Calendar of State Papers," 1613. 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 49 
 
 they had of ejecting from the church livings such of the clergy as they 
 deemed unfit, by reason of their conduct, practice, or preaching, and 
 those who held Episcopalian opinions were of course most frequently 
 the sufferers. Among the most ardent of the " Tryers " was the 
 famous Philip Nye, a strong adherent of Cromwell, although a 
 powerful advocate for Independency in Church government as op- 
 posed to Presbyterianism. He was very zealous for the " cause," the 
 acceptance of the Solemn League and Covenant, and sat as a member 
 of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster. He was appointed to 
 officiate, and when the resolution for taking the Covenant passed that 
 body, he read the document from the pulpit with a very audible voice, 
 article by article, each person standing with his right hand up to 
 affirm the solemn declaration. 
 
 For his services generally he was appointed Rector of Acton, and 
 drew up, in conjunction with others, the preface to " the Directory " 
 which was ordered to be substituted for the Book of Common Prayer 
 in 1654, and he was nominated one of the assistants to the Commis- 
 sion for ejecting " insufficient ministers and schoolmasters." He is 
 alluded to in " Hudibras " in the following sarcastic lines : — 
 
 " With greater art and cunning rear'd 
 Than Philip Nye's thanksgiving beard." 
 
 From these observations we are able to understand the character of 
 the sturdy, " independent " rector of Acton, and appreciate the effect 
 of the close proximity of Nye's watchful eye and " thanksgiving 
 beard" on the rector or rectors of Perivale at that time. Francis 
 Hobman and Edward Reed either had to conform to the times or 
 resign. It is noticeable that there is a break in Newcourt's record 
 at this period. The reason for Reed's vacating the living is not 
 stated, nor are the dates between which Hobman held it mentioned : 
 in fact, there appears to have been a lapse in the appointment of 
 the rectors of Perivale, and the church may have been closed, as there 
 is no entry in the list of rectors until the Restoration, when Henry 
 Wyatt is collated in 1661 by the new Lord of the Manor, John Lane, 
 who had married the eldest daughter of George Millet, " sometime 
 patron of the church." 
 
 These facts seem to point at any rate to some confusion in regard 
 to the church at Perivale between 1621 and 1661. 
 
5 o THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 The Parliamentary soldiers were located on several occasions not 
 many miles away, when the battles were fought at Brentford ; and 
 Cromwell's army was entrenched at one time on Hillingdon Hill. 
 The earthworks they erected may still be seen. 
 
 The learned author of " Greater London " (Edward Walford) says 
 that " on a survey taken about the time of the Restoration, Ealing is 
 described as ' ruinated and lying open since the plundering thereof in 
 the last troubles,' but the precise date and extent of this ruination is 
 not stated." 
 
 This is, however, certain, whatever occurred to the Rectors of Peri- 
 vale : there were theological troubles in the adjoining parish of Ealing. 
 Robert Cooper, an Episcopalian, was Vicar of Ealing in the reign of 
 Charles I. and during the Civil War ; but he was ejected by the 
 Puritans when they obtained the upper hand, and Daniel Cawarthen 
 appointed in his place. The latter dying in 1652, was succeeded by 
 Gilbert, a Scotch divine, who was compelled to leave at the Restora- 
 tion, when Robert Cooper was reinstated. Gilbert went to America 
 and died at Charleston, Massachusetts ; and on his tomb were inscribed 
 these words : — " He was sometime pastor of the Church of Christ at 
 Ealing, Old England, and was the proto-martyr, i.e., the first of the 
 ministers that suffered deprivation in the cause of Nonconformity in 
 England."* 
 
 In 1662 the Act of Uniformity was passed, and when the Feast of 
 St. Bartholomew came round, the last day fixed for clergjonen to take 
 the oath, it is a great historical fact that more than 2,000 resigned 
 their benefices rather than do so. 
 
 There appears to have been no difficulty in the mind of Henry 
 Wyatt in regard to the Act, as he was for twenty-two years Rector of 
 Perivale, as recorded on his tomb, which may now be seen in the 
 churchyard. Two years later, and the " Conventicle Acts " made it 
 punishable for persons to be present at any religious meeting other 
 than the Church of England, as poor Richard Baxter, the eminent 
 Nonconformist, then living at Acton, found to his cost in 1 669, when he 
 was sent to gaol, his offence being that of preaching in his own house 
 at Acton, in the intervals between Divine service on Sundays. Baxter 
 relates that in 1665, when he was preaching in a private house, a 
 
 * Lysous. 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 5* 
 
 bullet was fired in at the window, and that the same year a lady 
 came in a coach to hear him, of whom he says, " her heart was full of 
 malice, and she resolved, if possible, to do me a mischief." It is 
 evident that bigotry and intolerance were in the ascendant, and that 
 the clergy who subscribed to the Acts of Uniformity, as it seems likely 
 the Rector of Perivale did, could make the lives of those of their 
 parishioners who openly showed a disposition towards Nonconformity, 
 to say the least, very uncomfortable. 
 
 In 1665 Simon Coston, of Great Greenford, gave the cover to the 
 font. A tradition connected with him is referred to later. 
 
 Newcourt mentions the tenths or first-fruits* chargeable on the 
 Rectory of Perivale as follows (onera hujus ecclesice) : — 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 Primitiae 6 13 4 
 
 Decimae 13 4 
 
 Proc. Episc 000 
 
 Proc. Archid 6 10 
 
 Synodalia . . . . . . . . .035 
 
 The following table contains the names of the rectors from a.d. 1336 
 to 1700, with the names of the Lords of the Manor who presented (or 
 patrons), with other information given by Newcourt, who wrote in 
 1707. It is of greater interest quoted almost verbatim from the 
 " Repertorium." 
 
 Bishops of London 
 (Norn. Reg. Libb.). 
 Baudake, alias 
 Radulphus de 100 
 Baldock 
 
 Rectors. 
 
 Patrons. 
 
 J Joh. de Gravale, 5 Non. Mar. 1336 j The patron not named. 
 
 Simon de Sudbury 
 
 / Ric. Hauberks 
 25 ' 
 
 Com. Arundel, ratione cus- 
 todies, Hen. Beaumont, 
 Mil. in minori aestate 
 existent. 
 
 Robert de Bray- 
 broke 
 
 Roger de Walden 
 
 I Will. Alborowes, pr. 5 Kal. Maii 1363 
 ' per mort. Hauberks 
 
 /Edmundus 
 28 Joh. Mussendon, 29 Aug. 1384, per ) Joh. de Bellomont (Beau- 
 
 mort. Edmundus ) mont), Miles. 
 
 65 Joh. Chinchgate, pr. 6 Mar. 1388, j ^ . charleton . 
 
 per resig. Mussendon ) 
 
 139 J Ric. Lambard, pr. 16 Feb. 1395, per) 1 
 
 resig. Chinchgate \ 
 
 159 Joh. Segrave, pr. Maii 1398, per ) 
 
 mort. Lambard j 
 
 Pet Ward, cap. 7 Aug. 1405, per i 
 
 mort. Segrave ) 
 
 \ Will Hind 
 
 Tho. Charleton et alii. 
 
 * "First-fruits" was an annual charge on the revenues of rectories and some other 
 benefices. The payment ceased to be obligatory on the abolition of church rates. 
 
 E 2 
 
142 [ Hen. Bartelot, pr. 29 Nov. 1473, per ) I 
 
 Richard Hill 
 
 (sic.) 
 
 52 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 Bishop of London r> » ^ , 
 
 ;Xom. Reg. Libb.). Rectors. Patrons. 
 
 37 t HugoNobull, 20 Jul. 1435, permort. ) \ -„,..,, „ ,„ ,, re 
 Robt. Fitzhugh Hind Will Eastfield Gives et 
 
 ( Will. Come ) ^Hermanns Lond. 
 
 29 / Joh. Ely. 29 Nov. 1453, per resig. Come Job. Middleton et alii. 
 88 Jac. G-yfford, pr. 25 Apr. 1464 Episc. Lond. per Laps. 
 
 Tbos. Kemp 137 j Hob. Hooper, pr. 14 Nov. 1472, per } \ 
 
 resig Gyfford h h Arm 
 
 Nov. 1473, per t 
 resig. Hooper 
 Job. Taylor, cap. 7 Ap. 1490, per resig. i „ ~ ,, , 
 
 Bartel!t! Henr y CoUet - 
 Jac. Aynsworth, pr. 27 Jun. 1494, ) y 
 
 Will. Maneyard, cip* lTSb^JoX Ric " S° uthwelL 
 per resig. Aynswortb ( J 
 R.C.Wareham 2 " j ' Tho. Marshall, cap. 19 J^ b -^per j , 
 
 a / rro. it- „, A J i -no ! > Humfr. Brown, Gent. 
 
 Cutbbert TunstaU 4 Tho - Ye ^^ ^ 23 °? fc - ]f 3 '£% \ 
 \ resig. Marshall ) / 
 
 132 / Job. Rysdale, 2 Dec. 1540, permort. ) \ 
 Edmund Bonner ! Veysey } I Humfr. Brown, Mil. et 
 
 483 j Patricius Calyn, 17 Nov. 1559, per \ I Eliz. ejus uxor. 
 
 v resig. Rysdale j ) 
 
 172 / Joh. Pyerson, cl. 8 Oct. 1573, permort. ) Henry Millet. 
 Edmund Gnndall ^ L^ ^^ d „ Aug ™g { ^ 
 
 \ mort. Pierson j 
 
 Bpuup „., \ Fra - H °bman, A.M., 4 April 1621 j | Tho Hobman, Gives 
 R. C. Abbot, Pars 2o4 J per mort. Osmond j > Lond 
 
 ( Edw. Read ; 
 
 T u , i Hen. Wyatt, A.M., 27 Jun. 1661, per ) T , „ r „„ a a™ 
 
 J. Henchman | mort . ^. Eectoris (Wyatt died in 1638) | John Lane ' Am - 
 
 Henry Compton { Ric ' Ward > AM > ^^t^Storis J K Ma P lesden > Gent ' 
 
 Ric. Ward is the present Rector (1700). 
 Note. — Beard was Rector in 1705. For those presented subsequently, see Chap. VII. 
 
 Little is known of the history of any of these old rectors ; but 
 Newcourt says that a Pet. Ward was Vicar of Broxbourne, Herts, 
 between 1400 and 1436, and John Ely, Vicar of St. Mary Aldermary, 
 London, 29th November, 1404, and Thomas Marshall became Vicar of 
 St. Bride's, London, 30th January, 1554. 
 
 Mary Harrison, widow, seems to have presented to the living in 
 1720, and the Rev. Philip Fletcher and his wife in 1752, and John 
 Schrieber in 1783, as the following entry appears in the "Liber 
 Regis" of 1786,* giving " the value of all ecclesiastical Benefices which 
 are now charged with the payment of First Fruits and Tenths, or 
 were lately so charged " : " Perrivale, alias Little Greenford, R. Prox. 
 
 * "Liber Regis," 1786. By John Bacon. Receiver of First-fruits. 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 53 
 
 Archidiac. 6s. 10d., Synods 3s. 5d., clear annual value 50 pounds. 
 Patrons — Mary Harrison, widow, 1720 ; Philip Fletcher, clerk, and 
 his wife, 1752; John Schrieber, Esquire, 1783." The manor and 
 advowson were sold in 1767 to Richard Lateward, to whose memory 
 there is a cenotaph in the church recording his death in 1777, and 
 his wife Ann in 1779; and one to Temperance, wife of John Lateward, 
 patron of the church, 1790. Richard Lateward bequeathed the pro- 
 perty to John Schrieber above mentioned, who exercised his right of 
 presentation in 1783, and, having afterwards assumed the name of 
 Lateward, was the proprietor and Lord of the Manor in 1795.* 
 
 Richard, son of John (Schrieber) Lateward, succeeded as Lord of 
 the Manor and owner of the rectorate, who presented his brother, 
 the Rev. James Frederick Lateward. Madame Delpierre, the present 
 Lady of the Manor, is the only child of the said Richard. 
 
 In the advertisement previous to the sale to Richard Lateward, 
 the property sold is described as a manorial estate, consisting of 
 farms valued at £485 per annum, being the whole parish except 
 a farm of £40 per annum. As hereafter mentioned, a farm, called 
 Manor Farm, is still not included in the manorial estate, the latter 
 being now the property of Lady Delpierre, the descendant and heiress 
 of Richard Lateward, as already mentioned. Prabably this farm may 
 be identified with the house called Besse Place, which, with certain 
 lands belonging thereto, formed part of the possessions of Henry 
 Morgan, in the reign of James I. The said Henry Morgan was, in 161 3, 
 attainted for high treason, and Besse Place, with its appurtenances, 
 were granted to John Levingston, subject to a fee farm rent of forty 
 shillings.! This grant was for sixty years, and is further described ia 
 
 * John (Schrieber) Lateward had three sons — Richard, his heir, Major John Lateward, 
 who died unmarried about fourteen years ago, and the Rev. J. F. Lateward, already men- 
 tioned. Madame Delpierre was thrice married, i.e., to Sir Thomas Croft, by whom she had 
 one daughter, now Mrs. Murray ; secondly, to Colonel Lester (no issue), and thirdly, to 
 M. Delpierre, by whom she had also a daughter, now Madame de Cormont. Mrs. Richard 
 Lateward, who survived her husband, married Colonel Marsack, of Caversham Park, near 
 Reading. The Rev. J. F. Lateward left three sons and three daughters surviving him, i.e., 
 Thomas Lateward (who married, in 1849, Miss C. J. Daniel, and had issue, the Rev. Henry 
 Edward Lateward, and one daughter, now Mrs. Edward Lock wood, of Kingham, Oxford), 
 the Rev. Henry Douglass Lateward, and Major E. Wildman Lateward. The Latewards 
 also held at this time a part of the demesne lands of the Manor of Greenford Magna, 
 amounting to 447 acres. This property was leased in 1640 to Sir Charles Gerrart, Bart. 
 The lease passed afterwards, in succession, to Rupert Browne and John Bridger. The 
 latter disposed of it to a Mr. Way, who conveyed it to Richard Lateward. John Lateward 
 was the lessee in 1795. t Fee Farm Roll in the Augmentation Office. 
 
54 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 another Roll,* as a messuage called Besse Place, and lands belonging 
 to the same in Perryvales, otherwise Parva Grenforde, also lands in 
 Harrowe, late the property of Henry Morgan. In November, 1618, 
 there is a re-grant of " Besse Place, with other lands and tenements 
 in Perrival, alias Parva Grenford, alias Cornhill, and in Harrowe to 
 John Levingston," described as " Groom of the Bedchamber," with 
 discharge of all arrears of rent due on the former.t 
 
 It is highly probable that John Levingston, Groom of the Bed- 
 chamber to James I., ultimately obtained a grant of the property in 
 perpetuity, and it may have been sold in the Commonwealth, as it 
 does not appear to be noticed among the " Particulars of Fee 
 Farm Rents " sold in the reign of Charles II. Whatever act of 
 treason Henry Morgan was guilty of, and whatever his fate, which 
 the writer has been unable to ascertain, it is evident the Groom of 
 the Bedchamber took advantage of circumstances and of his position 
 about the person of " Learned Jamie," whose pedantry and favouritism 
 is well known, to get hold of Morgan's property ; perhaps he paid the 
 king for it, who, often sadly wanting money, sold baronetcies for 
 £1,000 each. 
 
 As to Henry Morgan's attainder, the simplest conjecture is that he 
 was a " Papist," who might have been mixed up with Robert 
 Catesby, Digby and Fawkes in their plot, though it was all exploded 
 years before — that plot which the Irishman graphically referred to in 
 the verse — 
 
 " This is the day, that was the night, 
 That papists did conspire, 
 To blow up King and Parliament, 
 With G-. U. N. pow-dire." 
 
 The church at Perivale has suffered more than many others from 
 the destruction of its records. The register of baptisms does not 
 extend further back than 1707, and that of burials commences in 
 1720. Mr. Beard, who was rector in 1705, stated J in answer to 
 questions relating to the church, that it had all the tithes and two 
 acres of glebe, but was dissatisfied with having had the rating raised 
 from £36, the highest amount it had ever paid, up to £50. He also 
 mentioned a Polyglot Bible and a Castell's lexicon, as then belonging 
 
 • Pat. Roll 9, James I., part 24, No. 14. t " Calendar of State Papers." 
 
 % "Notitia Parochialis," Lambeth MSS., fol. 546. 
 
OR, PERI VALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 55 
 
 to the church, to which they had been presented by an unknown 
 donor. 
 
 Another benefactor mentioned is Robert Cromwell, whose tomb may 
 now be seen in the churchyard, and is referred to later. He died 
 in 1722, and bequeathed £6 annually (see abstract from his will, page 
 114) for an afternoon sermon to be preached on the first Sunday 
 in every month, but the Rev. James Mardman, who was rector about 
 Lysons' time (1789), said that sum had been several years in arrear, 
 and the pious wishes of the donor have been ever since disregarded. 
 Robert Cromwell, as the present rector, the Rev. Dr. Charles Hughes, 
 informed the writer, also left £5 to be distributed annually in pro- 
 viding poor widows with scarlet cloaks — but this bequest has not 
 been carried out either during his time or for years before he became 
 rector. This seems in our days to be a very remarkable bequest, 
 but in the later part of the last century the scarlet cloak was con- 
 sidered a fitting, as it was a favorite part of the dress of the peasant 
 women. 
 
 John Gurnell, to whose memory there is a cenotaph in the church, 
 recording his death in 1748, left £5 per annum to repair his 
 tomb and the parsonage — John Gurnell, who is described on the 
 inscription as " An Honest Worthy Man," was married to Ann, 
 daughter of the John Harrison already mentioned, and appears to have 
 been contemporary with the John Gurnell who employed the known 
 architect Dance to build him a good house on " the Green," Ealing, 
 which has since been taken down.* 
 
 * A Jonathan Gurnell, sen., probably a near relative of John Gurnell, left by will, in 
 1753, £700 3 per cent, annuities, two -sevenths of the interest thereon being for the use of 
 the Ealing boys' school, and the remainder to be laid out in coal or firing for poor people 
 of the upper side of the parish of Ealing. 
 
 In 1752 Jonathan Gurnell, jun., left by will £500 in Government security in trust for the 
 benefit of the same school, as well as £1,000, the interest of which was to be devoted to the 
 use of the poor of Ealing. 
 
 In 1756, Mrs. Sarah Gurnell gave £100 to the boys' school, Ealing. — (Falconer's 
 " Ealing.") 
 
 A Jonathan Gurnell appears to have been the proprietor of Pits-hanger, near Perivale, 
 about 1740. — (Lysons.) 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 ' • The place, how well I knew it ! I had passed 
 Many a Sabbath morning in its midst, 
 And loved the sweet voice of its only bell 
 Better than noisy clang and constant change 
 Of twenty cathedral chimes." 
 
 E. J. Skinner ("The Lily of the Lyn"). 
 
 The church is now situated close to the bridge over the Brent, but 
 little more than a hundred years ago the little river flowed more than 
 five hundred feet away from it in a southerly direction, In Roque's 
 Survey Map, published 1741-5, the old course of the Brent is shown 
 bending to the south, instead of to the north. The former channel 
 is still noticeable by the pollard -trees which grew on the old banks, 
 as well as by an arm of the river, which extends for a very short 
 distance in the same direction, a little south of the rifle range. The 
 church was then approached in two ways ; the one, from Apperton 
 to Greenford, as at present ; and the other, by a bridge near the 
 " Forty Oaks," from which a road led to it across the field. 
 
 The church is the most important relic which remains of the ancient 
 hamlet of Greenford Parva, since called Perivale ; it is so old that its 
 proper name has passed into oblivion. It is called St. James in the 
 last ordnance survey map, published a few years ago, but this name 
 has been applied to it without any authority whatever. It is not 
 known under that designation by the rector or any one else in the 
 parish. The remains of the old stained glass in the chancel, according 
 to Lysons, represented St. Matthew and St. John, and not St. James. 
 He does not mention the apostle or saint to whom it was dedicated, 
 and he is hardly likely to have overlooked it. Newcourt, who wrote 
 in 1708, does not give it, nor does it appear in the ecclesiastical or 
 church records (" Liber Regis," &c.) that the writer is aware of. 
 
 It rarely occurs that the patron saint of a church is forgotten, even 
 though it may date back to early Roman Catholic times, but the 
 
THE CHRONICLES OF GREEN FORD PARVA. 57 
 
 fact may be here chronicled, as showing the unique character of this 
 secluded hamlet — a hamlet which must have been of greater import- 
 ance in ancient times than it is at present, or the church would not 
 be there at all. 
 
 The small portions of the oldest part of the structure now visible, 
 as well as what is known of the Manor, with which the living has 
 always been associated, lead to the suggestion that it was dedicated 
 about the end of the twelfth century, or early in the thirteenth. It is 
 therefore of high antiquarian interest. It is, perhaps, the smallest 
 church in Middlesex, except the church or chapel attached to the 
 house called Twyford Abbey, near Ealing, which appears to have been 
 extra-parochial, and probably was originally intended for the service 
 of two or three Benedictine monks and the very few people who lived 
 on* the land of the demesne. 
 
 The church at Perivale has a short nave and narrow chancel, with 
 red-tiled roof, porch, and very primil ive-looking square wooden tower 
 surmounted by a low roof-like pyramidal spire. If it is not the 
 smallest church in the county, it is certainly one of the most 
 picturesque. 
 
 The church was restored in 1875, under the superintendence of 
 Mr. R. Willey, architect, Ealing, and very little of the oldest portion 
 
 * Twyford — anciently, Tveverde — had formerly an old manor house -which -was moated. 
 The "Abbey," which is now a small mansion, is commonly said to occupy the site of an 
 ancient abbey, but there is no record of any such religious establishment having existed there. 
 Still, as the Manor was held under the Canons of St. Paul's, and there was from very early 
 times a chapel which in 12.51 had two altars outside the choir, it is possible there may 
 have been a cell or house for the priest who served at the altar. There was a stipulation 
 when Twyford Abbey was let recently, that the owner is bound to supply a clergyman of 
 the Church of England for at least six Sundays in the year. Twyford is the smallest 
 parish near London. In 1 861 it contained two houses and eighteen inhabitants ; in 187 1 the 
 houses had increased to eight and it had forty-seven inhabitants. — (" Handbook to the 
 Environs of London," James Thorne.) It is said that there is mention of a resident priest at 
 Twyford in the early part of the fifteenth century among the records of St. Paul's. The 
 following notice of Twyford occurs in Domesday Book: — "In Tveverde (in Ossulton 
 Hundred) Durand a canon of St. Pauls holds of the King two hides of land — the land is 
 1 carucahe and half — there are three villans with half a hide and half a virgate — Pasture 
 for the cattle of the town— wood (or pannage) for 100 swine. The land was considered 
 worth thirty shillings and is now worth the same. In the time of Edward it was of the 
 value of twenty shillings. In the same town G-ueri a Canon of St. Pauls holds two hides 
 of land, the land is 1 carucahe and half. — In demesne there is a plough [enough land for a 
 plough] and another half could be made [half as much more could be so cultivated] . There 
 are 2 villans with 1 virgate and 1 border with 6 acres and 3 cottagers. Wood (or pannage) 
 for 50 swine. This land has been valued at and is now worth thirty shillings, in the 
 time of King Edward it was worth twenty shillings. This Manor lay and lies in the 
 Church of S;. Pauls in the Demesne of the Canons." 
 
5 8 THE CHRONICLES OF GREEN FORD PARVA ; 
 
 is now visible. Lysons says it is built of flint and stones. Much of 
 the old structure is now hidden beneath stucco and mortar. Portions 
 of the original building, however, may still be seen. 
 
 The Earlj- Pointed arch doorway in the vestry, formerly the entrance 
 to the church ; the recess for the holy-water vessel or stoup, which is 
 still preserved, though covered with the wainscot ; the leper's win- 
 dow, to be referred to later, alike point to the probability of the 
 church having been erected about the date assigned, if there was not 
 an older edifice on this site. The documentary evidence, as we have 
 seen, confirms this opinion. The earliest transfer of the advowson 
 which has yet been discovered, is from Edward II. to Walter de 
 Langton, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, in the seventh year of his 
 reign, i.e., 1312, but it is not probable that it was built by that king. 
 It is far more likely that it was reared by the De Bohuns, whose con- 
 nection with the Manor has already been shown, and ultimately for- 
 feited to the king before that time. One of their predecessors, the 
 de Mandevilles, may even have been its founder, for the Norman lords 
 soon after the Conquest were very liberal in their gifts to the Church 
 and in the erection of churches on their manors. 
 
 In digging round the foundations some years since a silver penny 
 of Edward I. was found, which would carry the evidence into the 
 thirteenth century. 
 
 Many churches in England originated in monastic institutions, but 
 there is no likelihood of this being the case at Peri vale. From the 
 first the living is alluded to as an advowson, which confirms the pro- 
 bability of its having been erected by a lord of the manor. Was it 
 built in fulfilment of some vow in time of special danger ? or in atone- 
 ment for some crime committed by one of the old Norman lords ? 
 Either suggestion may offer an explanation for the foundation of a 
 church with a leper's window so near London. 
 
 The church appears to have been restored or altered in the fifteenth 
 century, as shown by the ornamentation of some of the old windows 
 on the north side, which is of that period. 
 
 A remarkable fact connected with the church of Greenford Parva, 
 and which is not generally known, is that the chancel is not in a 
 right line with the nave; the former is not due east and west like 
 the latter. The deviation from the straight line between the two is 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 59 
 
 small, and it was only discovered when the inner roof of the chancel 
 was renewed in 1875. It was sufficient, however, to cause some 
 difficulty to the contractor. It is generally believed that this irregu- 
 larity is not the result of accident, as it occurs in some other churches ; 
 and it seems improbable that it can have arisen from inaccuracy in 
 making the foundation. Among other churches where the same 
 deviation has been noticed is the church at Farnham Royal, 
 Bucks. 
 
 That some churches are not truly oriented is very well known, 
 the reason of which has been conjectured in the following extract 
 from Hone's " Table Book" (vol. i., p. 393) : — " Captain Silas Taylor 
 says that in days of yore when a church was to be built, they watched 
 and prayed on the vigil of the dedication, and took that point of the 
 horizon where the sun arose for the east, which makes that variation, 
 so that few stand true, except those built between the two equinoxes. 
 I have experimented some churches, and have found the line to point 
 to that part of the horizon where the sun rises on the day of that 
 saint to whom the church was dedicated," &c. Others have believed 
 that the deviation indicated the side to which the face of the dying 
 Jesus turned at the Crucifixion. 
 
 If the first suggestion is right, and there is an association between 
 the saint's day, the festival of the apostle, &c, and the line on which 
 the chancel of Perivale Church is built, and if we knew fully the 
 symbolism attached to it, we might obtain a clue to the unknown 
 patron saint or apostle to whom the little church at Greenford Parva 
 was dedicated. 
 
 When we consider the changes in the religion and manners of the 
 people which this church has survived, and that its registers before 
 1707 have entirely disappeared, we may be not much surprised that 
 even its name should have been forgotten. It is highly probable 
 that it may have fallen into neglect and disuse more than once in the 
 course of its history ; and it is, perhaps, remarkable that any part of 
 the old structure is still left. 
 
 Two periods of English history at least, as we have seen in course 
 of this chronicle, were adverse to the preservation of church relics, 
 records, and even the churches themselves. The one in the middle 
 of the sixteenth century, when the reformed religion was gaining the 
 
60 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 ascendency and the older faith losing ground, the struggle between 
 religious parties was bitter and prolonged, and when the Bible was 
 first read and explained in the churches, historians tell us that not 
 only was the Book wrangled over in alehouses and other places of 
 common resort, but noisy, turbulent people gathered round the 
 church porches, and scandalous brawls were frequently the conse- 
 quence. The wholesale seizure and frequent destruction of Church 
 property at this time has been already alluded to. 
 
 Then taking the second critical period of Church history, when the 
 profligacy or indifference of a large section of the Anglican clergy, and 
 other causes, brought the reformed ritual and the Church itself into 
 discredit ; and by the aid of other circumstances, such as the ignor- 
 ance and the loose manners of the time, rendered the Reformed 
 Church the victim of puritanical fanaticism, and the subject of violent 
 action and reaction of the contending parties. 
 
 Truly in all this there is sufficient almost to account for the church 
 of an isolated hamlet like Greenford Parva, or Perivale, having lost 
 its oldest records, and even the name of its patron saint, though no 
 doubt there were intervals in which earnest men, whether as lords of 
 the manor or as rectors, sustained and repaired the building, and did 
 what they could to preserve whatever belonged to it. 
 
 It is almost needless to say that under the fostering care of the 
 present Rector, the Rev. Dr. C. Hughes, the church has for nearly 
 thirty years been kept in excellent order and repair. 
 
 The square wooden tower contains two bells, whose monotonous 
 tones remind us of the days before the Reformation. If one of 
 them is the bell drawn by Mr. Farthing, which is probably the case, 
 it bears the following legend : W.E. FECIT. 1699, and is two feet 
 in diameter at the mouth. On the south side of the tower is a sun- 
 dial, reminding us of Charles Lamb's curious paradox : — " What a 
 dead thing is a clock, with its ponderous embowelments of lead and 
 brass, its pert or solemn dullness of communication, compared with 
 the simple, altar-like structure and silent heart-language of the old 
 dial." 
 
 The Rev. W. Lisle Bowles, the sonnet- writer whom even Byron, 
 in the acrimonious pages of his " English Bards, &c," described as 
 "harmonious Bowles," has written the following on a sun-dial, which 
 
THE OLD CHANCEL WINDOW, ETC., PEKIVALE CHURCH, A.D. 1803. 
 
 [To face p. 60. 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 61 
 
 may well have had much the same surroundings as the one affixed 
 to the church with an unknown patron saint at Perivale : — 
 
 " So passes silent o'er the dead thy shade, 
 Brief time and hour by hour, and day by day 
 The pleasing pictures of the present fade, 
 And like a summer's vapour steal away. 
 And have not they who here forgotten lie 
 (Say hoary chronicler of ages past) 
 Once marked thy shadow with delighted eye ? 
 Nor thought it fled — how certain and how fast." 
 
 According to tradition the present tower has been erected about 
 one hundred and fifty years ; but upon examining the timber at 
 the western entrance of the church, and in the loft above, the rough 
 heavy beams of an older structure are seen, against which the wood 
 of the present tower appears to be fixed. An older belfry tower, 
 with a porch or vestibule, perhaps in part used as a sacristy, will 
 account for the position of the stoup as alluded to below. 
 
 The roof is covered externally with red tiles ; in the interior it is 
 what is called waggon-shaped, the beams being of chestnut rudely 
 fashioned by the adze. In altering and restoring the nave some 
 years since the workmen were obliged to cut some of the old timber 
 of the roof, when the wood was found to be of great hardness, 
 although not oak, as previously supposed ; it appeared to have 
 become indurated by age. The timber door which now leads into 
 the vestry is old ; but the best-preserved relic of the original Norman 
 church is the arched doorway now in the vestry, and the leper's 
 window, which have before been alluded to. The former is in the 
 Early English or early Pointed style, which was introduced in the 
 reign of Stephen, a.d. 1135, and lasted until that of Henry III., 
 1216 to 1272, a period of about one hundred and forty years, when 
 it was supplanted in increased grace and elegance by the true 
 " Pointed style," or, as it has been called, " pure Gothic." 
 
 The breadth of the Pointed arch, in proportion to its height, indi- 
 cates, it has been suggested, an early departure from the circular 
 arch of the Anglo-Norman, while its simplicity also points to the 
 probability that the church of which it forms a part was erected in 
 the later part of the twelfth century or the beginning of the thir- 
 teenth, a supposition which, as already mentioned, seems to be 
 confirmed by the history of the manor and advowson. This arched 
 
62 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA. 
 
 doorway formerly formed the entrance to the church. The entrance 
 on the south is comparatively recent. 
 
 In the little vestry, and on the right of the old arch entering the 
 church from it, is the recess in the wall, in which was placed the 
 stone vessel or stoup which contained the holy water. It is now 
 hidden by the wainscot, as, no doubt, are some other portions of the 
 old structure (see p. 65). 
 
 There must have been originally a sacristy or vestibule to the 
 church before the Reformation, where the more modern tower is now 
 situated, or, as seems more probable, a more ancient belfry turret 
 preceded the erection of the present one. If so, there would have 
 been an outer door to the church, and the arched doorway in ques- 
 tion would have formed the inner one, after passing the vestibule, 
 perhaps with a sacristy attached. 
 
 It always has been and is usual to place holy water in the sacristy 
 or robing-room for the use of the priests, and perhaps the stoup or 
 " benitier " may have been so placed in the wall as to have served 
 both the people on entering or leaving the church itself as well as 
 the priests in the sacristy ; but it could not have been placed outside 
 the church, which would be the case if there were no tower or vestibule. 
 
 In the old church at Lustleigh, Devon, the stoup is placed exactly 
 in the same position as in Perivale Church, and the vestibule or 
 sacristy is still preserved there. Above the arching timbers at the 
 west end of the church is a carved wooden screen on the wall, 
 divided into panels ; on the centre one is a carved crucifix, with a 
 painting on each side representing apostles, while half-figures of 
 saints are depicted upon the four smaller divisions beneath. The 
 font is octagonal and of uncertain age ; but the wooden cover is a 
 very interesting relic. It is handsomely designed, and carved with 
 bold scrolls and other ornaments ; around the lower part is the 
 following legend in curiously cut letters in relief : — 
 
 "This was the Gift of Simon Coston, Gent, March 26, 1665." * 
 
 * There is a monument to the memory of 'Bridget, wife of Simon Coston, in the church 
 of Greenford Magna, with date 1637. "She is represented kneeling at a fald-stool and 
 her husband is in the dress and attitude of a mourner." A Latin inscription is beneath ; 
 the arms are exhibited. " Arg. a Saltier vert on a chief Gules a lion passant Arg. for 
 Coston — impaling Gules on a chevron Arg. 3 etoiles Sab. a canton Ermine for Carr." — 
 (LysoriH.) 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 63 
 
 It will be observed from the extracts from the vestry minute-book, 
 quoted at p. 129, that this font and cover must have been removed 
 and completely lost sight of in 1836 ; most probably they had been 
 put aside as useless with other lumber under the wooden tower. 
 There was a receptacle there for rubbish before that part of the 
 building was cleared out and the place converted into a vestry-room. 
 
 It is curious, and it shows how the church had been neglected, to 
 find the then rector pleading to the vestry of Perivale for a new font 
 and cover, and his motion negatived, " because there are no christen- 
 ings for parishioners of Perivale, nor likely to be any." 
 
 The chancel, which is very highly decorated, is separated from the 
 nave by an ornamental screen, but the latter, like many of the decora- 
 tions, is modern ; it is designed in the style of the seventeenth 
 century. All the stained glass is also modern, except a few remnants 
 of the old glass, principally the heads of the Apostles, which have 
 been carefully worked into the windows of the chancel. Lysons says 
 there were in his time remains of the old painted glass in the win- 
 dows, and among the figures those of St. Matthew and St. John. 
 Although the windows of the chancel had evidently suffered injury 
 when Lysons wrote in 1800 to 1810, a carefully executed drawing 
 in watercolours, showing the various tints of the curious old stained 
 glass, and bearing the date 1803, has been preserved (see Plate). 
 The drawing has been inserted, with several views of Perivale Church 
 also in colours, and inscribed with the date 1794, in a copy of 
 Lysons' " Environs," which is said to have formerly belonged to Mr. 
 Douce, and which can now be seen in the Guildhall Library, London. 
 The arms of some of the lords of the manor, and others whose monu- 
 ments and memorials are in the church, which will be referred to 
 later, are beautifully emblazoned in this copy, and there is also inter- 
 leaved in it an engraved portrait of Sir Eobert Southwell, Master of 
 the Bolls in the reign of Henry YIIL, who was probably a son of 
 the Lord of the Manor, and presented to the living in 1494 and 
 1503. 
 
 The drawings of the church in 1794 do not show many alterations 
 in the exterior except the chancel window and that end of the build- 
 ing. It is interesting to find that parts of the old manor house and 
 rectory may be seen in one of them, but this bears no date, though 
 
64 
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD RARVA ; 
 
GR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 65 
 
 J- r1fc^f2*«&-_ j 
 
 EAELY ENGLISH DOOEWAY AND STOUP IN PEEIVALE CHUECH. 
 
 V 
 
66 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA; 
 
 it must be older than when Lysons wrote, as he says it was then 
 pulled down (see Plate). The old chancel window was a broad 
 pointed arch with trefoil tracery on the outside, without long lights 
 and mullions beneath it. The most interesting relic of mediaeval 
 antiquity is the stained glass of this window, as shown in the 
 coloured drawing ; it represents St. John holding the book upon 
 which rests the Lamb — the Agnus Dei — carrying the cross ; St. John 
 also bears a long Calvary cross, and a small shield with a cross hangs 
 from it. By his side and forming with him the two principal figures, 
 is St. Matthew, supporting the book with the left hand and writing 
 in it with the other ; at his feet is an ox's head, which is generally 
 considered by mediaeval writers to represent St. Luke. Durandus 
 says* : " He is compared to the ox as being an animal fitted for sacri- 
 fice," and because of the two horns, as containing the two testa- 
 ments ; and the four hoofs as having the sentences of the four 
 Evangelists. Of this symbol the same writer says : " By this also 
 Christ is figured, who was the sacrifice for us ; and therefore the ox 
 is painted on the left side," &c, as in this window. There is a disc 
 between the figures of the Evangelists containing the sacred mono- 
 gram, and above them is a small winged lion, which the same writer 
 says is the symbol of St. Mark. There are also two discs and an 
 ornamental ribbon or scroll on their extreme right and left, the 
 former having in them representations of the human face on the one 
 hand and the old English rose ornament in the others. The acces- 
 sories to the two central figures are probabty taken either from the 
 Apocalypse or from Ezekiel. Beneath the window in the drawing 
 are the usual tablets inscribed with the Commandments, the wall 
 upon which they are placed being painted green. The communion- 
 table below them is of the simplest form and uncovered ; the three 
 boards of which the top is composed are apparently very roughly 
 put together. In the present stained- glass window of the chancel are 
 representations of Christ in the centre, with St. Matthew and St. 
 John on either side. Formerly there was painted glass in the win- 
 dows of the nave, which, it is said, depicted St. Mary and St. Joseph, 
 &c, but as already mentioned, their place has been filled with modern 
 subjects. 
 
 * See Durandns, "De Evangelistis," and '•Rationale." 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 67 
 
 Mr. Farthing says in his MSS., written in 1845 — 1850, that there 
 were then fragments of old stained glass in the side windows, " which 
 still remain to attest " the " former glory " of the church ; one figure 
 was drawn by him and is now reproduced. It represents a female 
 with book, and may be intended either for St. Mary or some Roman 
 Catholic saint ; it is evident 
 it had then been injured and 
 imperfectly repaired. 
 
 The oak reredos is well 
 carved ; the carving, except 
 the mediaeval group, was gra- 
 tuitously executed by Mrs. 
 Marianne Powles, assisted by 
 Miss Minnie Hughes, one of 
 the rector's daughters, from 
 the designs of Mr. G. A. 
 Rogers, of Maddox Street, 
 London. The side panels are 
 of floreated design, with 
 fruits ; and both the design 
 and execution show consider- 
 able skill. The group of 
 figures carved in oak, fixed 
 to the centre panel, is old ; 
 it is said to have originally 
 belonged to a pre- Reforma- 
 tion church in Essex, and was 
 probably carved four hundred 
 years ago. It represents "The 
 Entombment." There are 
 seven figures in it besides that 
 of Christ. It bears the impress 
 of age, and is very well executed. The costumes pf the mourners 
 around the central figure appear to be those of the fifteenth 
 or sixteenth century. The mediaeval group and the whole cost of 
 the reredos and re-table were presented to the church by Harry 
 Adrian, " in loving memory of his mother, Sarah Dudley Adrian, who 
 
 f2 
 
 STAINED GLASS WINDOW, LATELY IN PEEIVALE 
 CHURCH. 
 
68 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 died October 16, 1887," as recorded on a small plate of brass. The 
 carved group is surmounted by an ornate brass cross, and on the altar 
 is a row of high wax tapers. 
 
 There is a beautiful tesselated pavement in the chancel, also pre- 
 sented, and dedicated to the memory of Cyril Arthur Reginald Willey. 
 The interior of the nave is elaborately embellished with consolatory 
 and admonitory texts from the scriptures, and with pictures between 
 the stained glass windows. Both the paintings on the walls and the 
 windows are memorials to members of the congregation who have in 
 recent years passed into the silent land. 
 
 Near the end of the northern side of the nave is a picture of 
 " Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane," to the memory of Commander 
 Ducat, R.N. Others represent " The Ascension," and " Christ removed 
 from the Cross," the latter recording the death of Mrs. Hughes, the 
 rector's mother, in 1881. One of the handsome stained glass win- 
 dows on this side with Virgin and Child, is to the memory of Henry 
 Condell and his wife ; the former was first and second mayor and 
 first member of the Legislative Council of Melbourne. Another, 
 depicting the Good Shepherd, and Christ at the door, is dedicated to 
 the memory of John Farthing, who had been a strong supporter of 
 the church. The third is of ornamental design only. 
 
 Here, also, is the most striking monument in the church. It is in 
 marble, and by Westmacott, an angel bearing the mortal to the 
 throne of God. It bears the following inscription : — 
 
 "To the cherished memory of Ellen Frances Nicholas, daughter of the Rev. George 
 Nicholas, of Ealing, Middlesex, and Elizabeth, his wife. Lovely, accomplished, most 
 affectionate, and affectionately beloved ; after a severe struggle of twelve weeks with a 
 painful illness, she was released from suffering on the 22 October, 1818, in the 21st year of 
 her age, leaving to her sorrowing relatives no consolation but the hope of meeting with her 
 in a better world, never to part again." 
 
 The figures of the dying girl and the angel are very artistically 
 grouped and skilfully executed. 
 
 On the north side of the nave is a well-executed marble cenotaph, 
 with urn, to the memory of John Gurnell, and inscribed — 
 
 "An honest and a worthy man, who departed this life the 1st of August, 1748, aged 
 36 years. He married Ann, one of the daughters of John Harrison, Esquire. Here lyeth 
 also the body of the said Ann, who departed this life 8th April, 1750, aged 38 years." 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 69 
 
 In the richly coloured glass windows on the south side are memo- 
 rials to the Rev. Frederick Hughes, 1867, and A. A. and H. W. 
 Hughes, 1871. Here, also, is one of the most touching monuments 
 in the church ; it is in marble, and above it is a weeping child or 
 angel. It is inscribed to the memory of — 
 
 " Lane Harrison, Esquire ; a young gentleman whose many good qualities of heart and 
 mind rendered him an honour to his family and the delight of his friends, and promised to 
 make him an ornament to his country, hut, seized by the smallpox, he died on the 15 
 August, 1740, in the 26th year of his age — loved, honoured, and mourned by all who 
 knew him. In pious gratitude to his memory, this monument is erected by his sisters, 
 Mary, the wife of John Clerke, Esq., Susanna, Ann, and Sarah." 
 
 He was the son of the lord of the manor whose name has been men- 
 tioned. The sculptor of this beautiful memorial was Thomas Day. 
 
 On this side there are also several pictures depicting episodes in 
 the Gospel narrative, among which is one of the " Virgin and Child," 
 which is dedicated to the memory of the present rector's late 
 daughter Florence, the wife of Captain Alfred Blaine, of South Africa ; 
 she died under particularly sad circumstances, and was greatly 
 esteemed and loved by those who knew her. 
 
 On the west wall is a curious little tablet to> Elizabeth Bolas, 1793, 
 and a plain Gothic niche surmounted by columns, and enclosing a 
 brass scroll to the memory of Charlotte Farthing, who died in Novem- 
 ber, 1847. It is inscribed as erected — " By a sister and brother 
 — the last of their race." In connection with this there is on the 
 floor of the church a stone to the memory of Agnes, wife of John 
 Farthing, of this parish, 1845. The monuments in the chancel will 
 be noticed later. 
 
 The frescoes are singularly in unison with the general effect of the 
 interior of the church ; at first sight they recall the pictorial episodes 
 in the lives of the Romish saints, and still more so " the Stations of 
 the Cross," the last sad scenes in the life of the Master. Both the 
 former and the latter are characteristic of Roman Catholic churches. 
 
 The visitor may still see the window near which it is said " the 
 chaunting monk of old used to sit " ; it is on the south side of the 
 chancel. He is more likely to have been a secular priest in pre- 
 Reformation times, when the hamlet was of more importance than it 
 is at present, as we have no evidence that a monastic institution 
 existed here at any time. 
 
70 THE CHRONICLES OF GREEN FORD PARVA ; 
 
 In the dim religious light which pervades the interior he may, in 
 fact, almost believe that he has entered a church of the older faith 
 and fancy that the stillness and hush of the nave will presently be 
 broken by the monotonous tones of the priest repeating the Latin 
 Mass. His muttered "Pater nosters" and the solemn " Ora pro 
 nobis" of the choir had the same accompaniment outside the church 
 as the simpler ritual of the newer faith, the introduction of which 
 this old church has seen, i.e., the subdued rippling of the river, the 
 wind sighing among the old yews in the churchyard, the sound of 
 the trembling leaves and the sweet warbling of the birds, for, as 
 Thomson wrote — 
 
 ' ' To Him they sing when spring renews the plain ; 
 To Him they cry in winter's pinching rain ; 
 Nor is their music or their plaint in vain." 
 
 Sometimes in the past the birds have ventured inside the building, 
 for the Poet of Perivale whose MSS. will be referred to later, has 
 recorded that when he first entered the church in 1845 — " It was 
 summer-time and the silence of the interior was undisturbed save 
 by the singing of a redbreast which, perched on the head of a 
 marble cherub in the chancel, poured forth with all the earnestness 
 of a genuine worshipper its tribute of grateful praise and adoration to 
 that Almighty and Beneficent Being who watches over the lives and 
 provides for the necessities of all his creatures." 
 
 But there is a survival in the church at Perivale which certainly 
 carries us back to the days before the Reformation. It is the low 
 window in the chancel on the south side. This is believed to have 
 been a lepers' window. It is an aperture now covered with modern 
 stained glass, with slanting sides, and is at a lower level than the 
 other windows. It is, in fact, so placed that it looks on the spot where 
 the altar stood before the chancel was recently altered. These unfor- 
 tunate creatures, forbidden to enter the churches, were thus able to 
 obtain a view from the outside of the priest officiating at the altar, 
 and could so join in that supreme act of worship to the Roman 
 Catholic — the Elevation of the Host. 
 
 This window has been called a hagioscope, and in its literal sense 
 the word is not misapplied. A hagioscope is, however, usually 
 understood to be an oblique opening in the wall for the purpose of 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 V 
 
 enabling persons in the transept or aisles to witness the Elevation of 
 the Host at the high altar. There is simply a nave or chancel in this 
 small church. The lepers' window at Perivale is perhaps one of the 
 best pieces of thir- 
 
 teenth-century work in 
 the building. 
 
 Leprosy, which most 
 writers say was intro- 
 duced into England at 
 the time of the Crusade, 
 must have been much 
 more common when 
 this church was built 
 than afterwards, as it 
 is said almost to have 
 disappeared at the end 
 of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury. 
 
 In the year 1200, 
 the second of King 
 John, it was decreed 
 at a provincial synod 
 held by Hubert, Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, 
 " that when so many 
 leprous people were 
 assembled that might 
 be able to build a 
 church with a church- 
 yard for themselves, 
 
 <$£;& Q^&r^rx 
 
 ^^o-A/^ 
 
 THE LEPEES' WINDOW, PEEIVALE CHUECH. 
 
 and to have one es- 
 pecial priest of their own, that they should be permitted to have 
 the same without contradiction, so that they be not injurious to the 
 old churches," and " that they be not compelled to give any tithes 
 of their gardens or increase of cattle." " Edward III., gave command- 
 ment to the mayer and sheriffs of London to make proclamation in 
 every ward of the city and suburbs, that all leprous persons should 
 
72 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 avoid [quit] within fifteen days, and that no man suffer any such 
 leprous person to abide within his house, upon pain to forfeit his said 
 house and to incur the King's further displeasure ; and that they 
 should cause the said lepers to be removed into some out places of 
 the fields from the haunt or company of sound people." Whereupon 
 certain " lazar houses were built without the city some good distance." 
 Some of the places mentioned were at the East-end or north-east 
 of London, but one such house was at " Knightesbridge, west from 
 Charing Cross." There may have been a small settlement of these 
 afflicted people in the vicinity of Greenford Parva. 
 
 Perivale is true to its traditions : the services of its little church at 
 present approach as closely to the older form of the Christian faith as 
 the Rubric permits. Whether those limits are sometimes exceeded in 
 order to revive and perpetuate an ancient symbolism, some parts of 
 which may be traced back to an origin far older than Christianity 
 itself, it is not for the writer of this record to say ; it is better that 
 these mysteries should be dealt with by those more qualified to 
 express an opinion upon them. Some idea of the services, how- 
 ever, may be gathered from the following extracts from a local 
 paper : — 
 
 " On Goo'd Friday, ' the ornaments ' of the church were absent, 
 except the altar cross, and Eucharistic candlesticks and processional 
 cross, which were veiled in black crape, as was also the very hand- 
 some carved-oak illuminated altar. On Easter Day all signs of mourn- 
 ing had been removed, and the altar was most elaborately decorated 
 with flowers and tapers ; the chancel screen was also covered with 
 flowers and an immense floral cross hung over the chancel gate, as 
 also banners. . . . The services were of the full Ritualistic character, 
 the whole of the six points, viz., Eucharistic vestments, incense, wafer 
 bread, mixed chalice, eastward position, and altar lights, being (as 
 for many years they have) observed. The Sanctus bell was also 
 rung at the proper place, and the great bell tolled at the con- 
 secration." * 
 
 The sacramental plate is modern ; the old church plate, which 
 appears to have been of simple design, but very handsome, was disposed 
 of in 1875, and the present chalice and paten were made in lieu of it. 
 
 * Middlesex Coxn/i/ Times. April 12, 1890. 
 
OR, PER/VALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 73 
 
 The former is richly ornamented, with enamelled ornaments in the 
 Renaissance style. The paten is, as usual, simple. Happily the 
 dedication and armorial bearings of the donor have been preserved, 
 as the paten bears the following quaint inscription, with a coat-of-arms 
 in a shield, in the upper part of which is a lion passant above a cross 
 like that of St. Andrew, which are the arms of Millet : — 
 
 The "Willing Donor Sy j N/X/^A '. - ^> doth this gift intayle- 
 
 To the Great God ^ ' \ l//^0\) J; .*=?• an d Little Pery vale. 
 
 Leo Crucis Dux Salutis. a.d. 1625. 
 
 beneath which is the modern inscription : — 
 
 " The accompanying Arms and Inscription 
 was engraved on the old Communion Plate 
 of this Church, which A.M.D G. [Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam} 
 was exchanged for new, a.d. 1875." 
 
 Mr. Farthing says in his MSS. — "that in lowering the ground around 
 the church several coins were dug up, one of which was the silver 
 penny of Edward I. in excellent preservation, and some few coins of 
 Charles I. The ground had been considerably raised since the build- 
 ing of the church, as the original pavement was found full two feet 
 below the surface." 
 
 The attendance at the services at Perivale seems to have been at 
 the lowest ebb in 1844, when about six or seven persons are said to 
 have composed the whole congregation. Afterwards, mainly due to 
 Mr. Farthing's alteration in many things beside the music, in all of 
 which the rector was his coadjutor, there was a great improvement in 
 that respect. The following extracts from the former's notes show 
 that the little church had attracted to its services " all sorts and con- 
 ditions of men." He says : — " In a congregation of less than forty 
 persons he has seen a lieutenant-general, a post captain, an eminent 
 authoress, a barrister, a clever pamphleteer, the widow of a celebrated 
 theatrical manager, herself once a skilful equestrian performer, a 
 
74 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 proctor of the Ecclesiastical Court, a gentleman connected with the 
 Times, a gentleman farmer, a gamekeeper, a policeman, a servant 
 in livery, several ladies and agricultural folk, a convicted burglar who 
 had been transported to Botany Bay and had returned from there a 
 rich man and reformed character, and the family of a man who was 
 executed. It would be difficult to find a parallel for such a small and 
 so varied an assemblage." 
 
 Churchwardens are rarely found now among the parishioners of 
 Peri vale, and they are generally elected from the adjoining parish of 
 Ealing. Some idea of the unique character of a vestry meeting in 
 Greenford Parva is shown in the following extract from the Middle- 
 sex County Times of recent date. It is unnecessary to give the 
 names of the churchwardens : — " Perivale Parish Church. Vestry 
 Meeting. — On Thursday a vestry was held for the election of church- 
 wardens, when A. B. C. and D. F. G. (both of Ealing) were unani- 
 mously elected ! The only person present was the Rev. Dr. Hughes 
 (in the chair), so all the business had to be transacted by himself; 
 the four ratepayers were unable to be present." 
 
 Truly the peace and harmony of the scenery about the church of 
 Greenford Parva is reflected in its vestry, whatever religious discord 
 may have occurred in the parish in the days which ushered in the 
 Reformation, and afterwards when Cromwell spared neither the 
 " churches nor their ornaments." There is nothing to disturb it now ; 
 no polemical strife ; no religious controversies as to High or Low 
 Church doctrine or practice which, in other less favoured parishes, 
 have set the " people's warden " against the " rector's warden," so 
 often ending in unseemly disturbance and bitterness. Here the 
 rector pursues the even tenor of his way, leaves his church open on 
 weekdays, like the churches of the older faith, and it is filled on 
 Sundays with a congregation from Ealing, at least, in spring and 
 summer. But the reader must not imagine this is always the case ; 
 there have been many occasions when it has been impossible to reach 
 Perivale Church except in a punt, with powerful rowers, which are 
 not at hand ; for the innocent-looking Brent rises in times of flood 
 to the dimensions of a wide, roaring river, extending over the fields 
 for miles, and even inundating the Greenford Road, thus cutting off 
 all communication between the church and Ealing, and leaving the 
 
OR, PERI VALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 75 
 
 only approach to it on the north side. When such an incident 
 happens on Sunday, Avhich occasionally occurs, the Rector of Perivale 
 has been placed in the same position as Dean Swift at his church at 
 Laracor, who, Lord Orrery says, once found himself with no congre- 
 gation save Roger Cox, the parish clerk. The Dean, undismayed, 
 commenced the service with much gravity, saying, " Dearly beloved 
 Roger, the Scripture moveth you and I in sundry places," &c. 
 
 An amusing incident is related in reference to the difficulties 
 entailed in former times by the flooding of the Brent. 
 
 In the early part of this century the rector at that period under- 
 took the duty at Twyford Church in addition to that of Perivale, 
 attending the latter in the morning, and the former in the afternoon, 
 on alternate Sundays, when Twyford had his ministrations in the 
 morning and Perivale in the afternoon. One Sunday afternoon the 
 rector started from Twyford to Perivale, accompanied by the parish 
 clerk. It had been raining hard, and the waters were out. Arriving 
 at the " Fox and Goose," Apperton, to partake of some refreshment, 
 they w r aited, hoping to find some means of getting across the flooded 
 valley. At length, the time was getting short, and something must 
 be done ; there were the waters spread out before them, and no ferry 
 or other means of getting across. At length, the clerk, having 
 found a spot where the current did not appear so rapid, suggested 
 to the rector that he should mount on his back while he forded the 
 stream as well as he could. Reluctantly the rector, who was not a 
 light weight, consented to the proposal, and the clerk entered the 
 water. They had proceeded in this manner about midway across, 
 when either the waters were too strong, the clerk too weak, or the 
 ale they had partaken of " stouter " than they had reckoned on ; at 
 any rate, the result was the same, the parson was precipitated into 
 the stream which, after a little floundering, he subsequently traversed 
 by wading, remarking pathetically that he might as well have done 
 so at first. 
 
 The living is a rectorate of the yearly value of £315, and is 
 now, as previously mentioned, in the gift of Madame Delpierre. The 
 parish is said to contain 666 acres, and to have a rateable value of 
 £1,741. 
 
 Perivale affords a remarkable instance of the increased value of 
 
7 6 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PAR FA ; 
 
 agricultural land. The rents arising from the manorial estate in 
 1767 were £485, being the whole parish but a farm valued at £40 
 per annum. In 1836 the gross rental of the parish for assessment 
 w 7 as£755, in 1849, £1,152, and in 1882, £1,741. The Rev. Charles 
 Hughes, LL.D., St. John's College, Cambridge, is the present rector. 
 
 Was the Norman church of Greenford Parva raised on the site of 
 an older temple ? There are numerous examples in England of 
 churches having been built on the ruins of the altars of the Latin 
 divinities, and on those of the successive worshippers of Woden and 
 Freya. The cathedral at Winchester is said to have been reared on 
 both/ each built on the relics of the older faith as they followed in 
 succession. 
 
 The only evidence of a still more ancient cult which, as far as 
 the writer knows, has been met with in the vicinity of Perivale is of 
 remote date, and is presented by the six or seven Roman cineraria, 
 or urns for containing the ashes of the dead, and some other objects 
 discovered recently on " the Mount " overlooking the Brent Valley.* 
 Looking to the probability of Greenford Parva having been peopled 
 by Saxons and having been of more importance in mediaeval times 
 than it is at present, as indicated by the church having been built 
 certainly as early as the thirteenth centur}', and probably earlier, it 
 is not unlikely there may have been an older structure still, erected 
 of more perishable materials, even in the Saxon period. 
 
 The church at Perivale is like the earliest churches in England 
 which, as Britton says, consisted of one pace or room with the eastern 
 part divided off by rails, and often by an arch, forming the bema, or 
 chancel, the latter term being derived from chancelli, the " curiously 
 and artificially-wrought " rails in the form of network, which formed 
 the line of separation. 
 
 The primitive Saxon churches are commonly said to have been 
 small and badly constructed ; " some of them unquestionably were of 
 wood, and were so imperfect, even in the days of Alfred, that the 
 
 * This discovery of a mortuary site of the period of the Roman supremacy is not sur- 
 prising as there is no doubt that the Brent Valley and much of the country of north-west 
 Middlesex became completely subdued and settled at an early period of the Roman occupation. 
 The camp of the Trinobantes was on Kingsbury Hill until it was taken and held for a long 
 time, by the Romans, of whom many relics have been found. Afterwards it became a Saxon 
 town. Subsequently the old church was built on the site and some Koman bricks used in 
 the structure. 
 
OR, PERI VALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 77 
 
 candles used in them were often blown out by the wind." * There 
 can be no doubt, however, that some of the early churches " were 
 both costly and extensive." 
 
 Churches had become numerous in England at the time Domesday 
 Book was completed, a.d. 1086, and there are grounds "for believing 
 that the number existing at or soon after the Conquest amounted 
 to considerably more " than the 1,700 mentioned in that record 
 (Britton). It is very remarkable that among the 1,700 churches so 
 mentioned, "222 were returned for Lincolnshire, 243 from Norfolk, 
 and 364 from Suffolk ; whilst only 1 is noted from Cambridgeshire, 
 and none in Lancashire, Cornwall, or even Middlesex, the seat of the 
 metropolis." f 
 
 The parish churches were mostly built by lords of manors. + 
 
 * Britton's " Dictionary of Architecture and Archaeology of the Middle Ages." "The 
 first stone church is stated by Bede to have been built on the borders of England and 
 Scotland by Bishop Nynias in the sixth century, and he says it was not usual among the 
 Britons. They call the place ' Candida Casa,' ' the White House.' " — (Bede, " Eccles. His.," 
 edition, 17^3, p. 185, quoted by Britton.) 
 
 t Append, to 2nd Report, Com. Pub. Rec, p. 456. 
 
 + "Arch. Antiq." vol. v., p. 125. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " Dust are our frames, and gilded dust our pride — 
 Looks for a moment whole and sound, 
 Like that long-buried body of the king 
 Found lying -with his urns and ornaments, 
 "Which, at the touch of light, an air from heaven, 
 Slipt into ashes and were found no more." — Tennyson. 
 
 Some of the monuments in the church have already been referred to, 
 the most ancient of these being the brasses to the memory of Henry 
 Mylett, his two wives and fifteen children ; it bears the date a.d. 1500. 
 There are in all five small brasses in good preservation. The centre 
 one is the figure of Mylett, with that of his wife, Alice, on one side, 
 and Joan on the other ; beneath which are the presentments, on sepa- 
 rate brasses, of the three sons and six daughters of the former, and 
 the three sons and three daughters of the latter. The engraved detail 
 of all the figures is well preserved, and the costumes of the period 
 (Henry VII.) are so well shown as to render the monument of great 
 interest. A brass plate is inserted between the two groups of figures, 
 which contains the following partly obliterated inscription : — 
 
 " Orate pro ambus Henrici Mylett ac Aliciae et Johannse Uxor sua ; qui quidem Henricus 
 obiit V die Februar. Anno ddmmillia VC. quorum anibus [(?)] p.picietur Deus — ame." 
 
 The brasses are on the floor near the altar railing. 
 
 On the south side of the chancel is a plain but handsome monu- 
 ment, surmounted by armorial bearings, and inscribed as follows : — 
 
 " SaCEUM MeMOBLE CONJUGIS CHAEISSIMJ5. 
 
 ' ' Here lyes interred ye body of Elizabeth Lane, the late wife of John Lane the elder 
 Esquire ; * she was the eldest daughter of G-eorge Millet Esquire, deceased, some- time 
 Patron of this church, and of Joane his wife, who lye interred in this place. She let her 
 last breath at Agmondesham in Buckinghamsheire, where she dwelt with her said Husband, 
 ye 20 April 1655 and of her age 62 and aboute six weekes. 
 
 * Arms : Lane impaling Arg. on a fesse Gul. between three dragons' heads, erased Vert, 
 for Millet. — (Lysons.) 
 
frame' obift ij tafttott flsoo ffiTgliolf pr arofopmt Of?" 
 
 BRASSES OF HENBY MYLLET AND HIS FAMILY, A.D. 1500. 
 
 [To face p. 78. 
 
THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA. 7 g 
 
 ' ' She lived a most religious, godly, virtuous life, 
 She was a most faithful, loving and chaste wife. 
 She was to the poore charitable 
 To her neighbours helpfulle 
 Friendly and courteous to all. 
 Just in all her affayres 
 
 Honestly and commendably prudent and provident, 
 Many daughters have done virtuously 
 But she excelled them all. 
 
 " It pleased God to exercise her with much affliction of Body and then through 
 many tribulations and patient suffering to bring her to his Kingdome. 
 
 ' ' Hanc obiisse putem minime quo tarn bene vixit, 
 Non obiit nee obire potest sed vivit in iEvum 
 Cum Christo Caelis in Terris, ore Bonorum." 
 
 Beneath this is the unpretentious monument to the memory of 
 Richard Lateward,* Lord of the Manor. &c., who died December, 1777, 
 and his wife, Anne, obit February, 1779. 
 
 A similar memorial records the death of Mrs. Temperance, wife of 
 John Lateward, " Patron of this Church," who died in October, 1790 ; 
 with the epitaph — " She lived beloved and died regretted." 
 
 On the same side in the chancel is a slab which records the death, 
 in 1823, of Frederick Gray Kirby Lateward, and of the Rev. John 
 Douglas Lateward, who died in 1846, the sons of the Rev. James 
 Frederick (Rector of Perivale) and Mary Lateward. 
 
 On the south side of the chancel is the oldest memorial in the 
 church, with the exception of the Mylett brasses. It is a handsome 
 marble monument, with a small shield-of-arms at the top and a very 
 curious figure, robed for the grave, in bas-relief, beneath it, and this 
 remarkable inscription : — 
 
 ' ' Here lyeth the body of Joane Shelbury late ye wife of John Shelbury of Peryvale, 
 Gent, who deceased the 21 Novr. 1623 at the age of 57 yeares ; after she had lived with 
 him 23 yeares in faithfull "Wedlock and had borne to him 5 children, viz., 2 sons and 3 
 daughters; having been formerly married to George Millet, Gent., Lord of this Toune and 
 Patron of this Church, by whom she had likewise 5 children, viz., 3 sons and 2 daughters. 
 She was to them both a loyall and Lovinge "Wife. To her Children a kinde and tender mother ; 
 to her Friends true and faithful ; in the Government of her house and Family wise and 
 provident. To the "World just and upright. To God, both in Life and Death, an humble and 
 
 * Arms: Arg. on a fesse, Gul. between three cinque foils Az., a goat between two 
 pheons or, quartering or three martlets, Sab. on a chief Az. a lion passant Arg. on an 
 escutcheon of pretence, or a lion rampant ducally crowned Gules, — (Lysons.) 
 
8o THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 devoute servant, yielding her Soule into his mercif ull Hands most willingly and cheerefully 
 as to her only Redeemer and Saviour. 
 
 * ' She was descended, by her Father, from the antient Family of Pites of Hartinge, in the 
 County of Sussex, and by her mother from the "Wbrshipf ull Family of Saunders of Flanch- 
 ford, in the County of Surrey." 
 
 " Her virtues live and shall doe Still, 
 Though Death on Her hath wrought his will." 
 
 This lady, whose monument presents us with an example of mixed 
 feminine virtue and family pride, had been the wife of George Millet, 
 lord of this " towne," to whose memory, Lysons says, " there was 
 lately a brass plate on the floor of the chancel recording his death in 
 1600." It is evident the brass had been hidden on Lysons' visit, or 
 else it had been since replaced, as Mr. Farthing says, in 1845 : — " The 
 different slabs in the chancel show there were formerly many brasses 
 in the church but only two now remain ; the one consists of a bearded 
 figure in the costume of the period, with hands uplifted in the attitude 
 of prayer," which he has carefully drawn, and is now reproduced (see 
 next page), and the other the group of figures (Henry Mylett and 
 his family). A brass representing a " civilian " is also described by 
 Haines,* as being in this church. 
 
 Near Mrs. Shelbery's monument is the handsome memorial in 
 marble to Thomas Lane, Lord of the Manor and Patron of the Church 
 of Perivale. Three shields containing arms are carved in relief on each 
 side of it, and an oval one at the top.f The inscription runs as 
 follows : — 
 
 " M.S. — "Within this place lye buried the Bodye of Thomas Lane Esquire, late Patron of 
 this Church, an Ancient Bencher of the Inner Temple London and Jane, his second wife, 
 eldest daughter of John Duncombe, of East Cleydon, in ye the County of Bucks Esquire, and 
 Ursula, a younger daughter of ye said John Duncombe, first wife of John Lane of this 
 parish Esquire, and Katherine, daughter of Thomas Gates Esquire, deceased, late one of 
 ye Barones of ye Exchequer, second wife of the said John Lane. Thomas Lane died the 
 31st Deer., 1652, aged 70 years; Jane, the 23 August 1652, aged 42 ; Ursula, the 31st 
 August 1647, aged 31 ; and Katherine, the 28th of August 1652, aged 22." 
 
 * " Manual of Monumental Brasses," Rev. Herbert Haines. 
 
 t Arms : I. — Per. pale Az. and Gules, three saltiers Arg. impaling per. chevron invected 
 Gul., and Arg., 3talliots' heads erased and countercharged for Duncombe; Thos. Lane 
 having married Jane, daughter of Duncombe, of Berks. II. — Lane impaling Duncombe as 
 before. John Lane married Ursula Duncombe, &c. Arms : III. — Lane, impaling per. 
 pale Gul. and Az., three lions rampant Or, for Gates. — (Lysons.) 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 The annexed carmen lugubre is beneath it : — 
 
 " Horrida lethiferse deportant tela sorores 
 Cum nulli parcant sit licet ipse bonus 
 Est nihil in vita firmum, monumenta peri- 
 
 bunt 
 Mors etiam saxis nominibus que venit 
 Forma bonum fallax nocet empta dolore 
 
 voluptas 
 Gloria vana, Decus mobile, vita brevis, 
 Eu ! manet ex toto nihilum de pulvere 
 
 pulvis, 
 Factus, et ex vivo corpore truncus iners 
 Tellus, prima Parens, servat deforme ca- 
 daver ; 
 In que suum recipit, quod deditante suum 
 Ad licet in msesto tumulentur membra 
 
 sepulcro 
 Mens tamen intravit gaudia summa Dei." 
 
 The author of the MSS. already 
 alluded to has rendered the above 
 into English blank verse, as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 " On all sides the Fates cast their envenom' d 
 
 darts, 
 Dealing Death around and sparing none, 
 Not even the Deserving. Life has no cer- 
 tainty — 
 The monumental records of the Past 
 
 crumble away ; 
 The names of the buried Great, and the 
 
 very marble 
 On which they are graven, by their decay 
 Bears witness to the awful and continued 
 
 presence 
 Of Destruction ! the appearance of Good 
 
 itself 
 Is too oft deceitful ; and the pleasures of 
 
 Time 
 Are purchased dearly by an age of misery — 
 Mark, too, the hollowness of Pomp and 
 
 Glory! 
 The vanity of Rank ! the transitoriness of 
 
 existence 
 Behold ! from all these there remains 
 
 to us 
 
 BRASS OF GEORGE MILLET, A.D. 1600. 
 
 Absolutely nothing ! Dust to its kindred 
 
 Dust 
 Doth return. The Body, which but now 
 Bounded with life and animation. 
 
 G 
 
82 THE CHRONICLES OF GREEN FORD PARVA ; 
 
 Is now devoid of Motion — a senseless 
 
 corse ! 
 Earth ! the first Parent of our Race, 
 Once more accepts the guardianship, 
 And to her own cold breast, from whence 
 
 it came, 
 Enfolds the foul and loathsome body ! 
 
 But tho' in the dark and mournful sepulchre 
 The corruptible remains and earthly forms 
 Of the past races of Mankind are collected, 
 Yet hath the Soul taken its own lofty flight 
 And participates in the unutterable joys 
 Of the Eternal ! " 
 
 On the north side of the chancel there is a marble monument with 
 shield- of-arms, with the following inscription : — 
 
 " M.S. — Near this place lies the Body of John Harrison Esquire* who departed this life 
 the viii day of June a.d. 17*22 aged 48 years, leaving behind him 1 son and 7 daughters, 
 a mournful widow, a sorrowful mother, and a good name ; for he was a good husband, a 
 kind father, a dutiful son, a good Christian and an honest gentleman ; zealous for ye 
 interest of ye Church of England and respectful to her orthodox clergy. — To the pious 
 memory of her loving husband this monument is erected by Elizabeth Harrison. 
 
 " Here lyeth also the Body of the above-said Elizabeth Harrison, in whom the register of 
 her husband's virtues was preserved, adorned with such sweetness of disposition and gentle- 
 ness of manners as rendered lovely every action of her life ; and in death did not forsake 
 her. — She departed hence in expectation of a better Life the 29th of October, 1756, aged 70 
 years." 
 
 Beneath this is a small ornamental slab, surmounted by a shield-of- 
 arms, to the memory of Richard Late ward Lateward, eldest son of John 
 Late ward, who was born 28th June, 1782, and departed this life 4th 
 October, 1815. " This monument of affection and regret was erected 
 by his widow." Beneath which is the following verse from the 103rd 
 Psalm : — 
 
 " As for man, his days are as the grass ; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For 
 the wind passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more." 
 
 Lysons says there were in the chancel in his time memorials to John 
 Clerke, Esq., 1792, t and Martha, wife of James Wildman, 1789. 
 
 In the churchyard there is a yew-tree which is probably nearly as 
 old as the church ! Three equally old yews are in the rectory garden ; 
 there is a tradition that they were planted in the reign of one of the 
 Edwards ! It is not improbable that they may date from the time 
 when it was customary to preserve the yew for making bows ; in fact, 
 it is said there was in early times a royal mandate that yew-trees 
 were to be planted in every churchyard, so that every yeoman or 
 
 * Arms : Or on a cross Az. 5 pheons of the field, a chief of the second impaling Sab. a 
 fesse, embattled Erm. between 3 crescents Argent. 
 
 t Arms : Arg. on a bend Gul. between 3 pellets, as many swans proper impaling Sab. 
 2 bars and in chief a talbot passant Arg.. 
 
OR, PERI VALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 83 
 
 village-man* in the neighbourhood thereof might be able to procure, 
 on emergency, the wood of the yew needed for his weapon. The 
 author of " Rookwood " says : — 
 
 " From it were fashioned brave English bows, 
 The boast of our isle and the dread of its foes. 
 For our sturdy sires cut their stoutest staves 
 From the branch that hung' o'er their fathers' graves ; 
 And though it be dreary and dismal to view, 
 Stanch at the heart is the churchyard yew." 
 
 Lysons mentions the following as among the tombs in his day ; and 
 most, if not all of them, may be seen now : — Henry Wyatt, twenty- 
 two years rector, 1683; Elizabeth Greenhill, 1696; George, son of 
 William Greenhill, Esquire, of Abbots Langley, 1706 ; William Brown- 
 bill, thirteen years rector, 1719 ; Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Peter Colle- 
 ton, Bart., " who died at her house at Eling," 1721. This old, curiously- 
 carved monument now presents a very remarkable appearance ; an 
 ash, an elm, and a hawthorn — trees of a considerable size — besides 
 parasitic plants, are growing within the railings which encompass the 
 tomb, disturbing and rending the stonework ; the ash completely 
 envelops a part of the iron railing, bending the metal as it has grown 
 as though it had been a piece of wire ; the tree has also twisted another 
 part of the ironwork in a very curious manner ; the hawthorn seems 
 likely to do the same. The ironwork thus contorted, and the tomb 
 itself, seemingly in process of being destroyed by the trees, present a 
 singularly picturesque appearance. The silent trees have triumphed 
 over man ; and taught him how vain are his efforts to make a monu- 
 ment that shall long endure. (See Plate.) 
 
 The figures, &c, sculptured on the sides of this table tomb are well 
 executed, and the design they embody is remarkable. The stone is 
 now nearly covered with an almost impenetrable mass of vegetation on 
 two sides, but about forty -five years ago the bas-reliefs were visible. 
 On the southern and northern tablets there are angels in each corner 
 lifting the curtain of death, at the base of which are skulls. On the 
 western side is a curious combination of symbolic objects. Resting on, 
 and supported by, some other books with book-markers, is a large one, 
 evidently intended for the Bible, with an inkstand and a large pen in 
 it. Surmounting the centre volume is a pair of large wings, above 
 
 * Yeoman is derived from ga, a village (Gothic, gawi ; German, gau), and " man." 
 
 G 2 
 
84. THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 which is an hour-glass — no doubt, emblematic of the flight of Time — ■ 
 and a crown is placed upon the hour-glass. On the eastern side, as 
 well as upon the large slab or table of the tomb, is the arms of the 
 Colletons, i.e., three stags' heads * with scrolls. 
 
 Even in 1845, says Mr. Farthing in his notes, the funeral of this 
 lady was the subject of remark, and aged persons in the parish said 
 their grandparents spoke of the funeral procession as being more than 
 a mile long, so great was the respect shown for the deceased. The 
 monument was then called the " Maiden's Tomb," and besides the ash, 
 elm, and whitethorn, an elder and a wild pear-tree, as well as creep- 
 ing plants were growing, as it were, from the very stone of the tomb. 
 " They have not, it is said, been regularly planted there, but it is con- 
 jectured that birds have from time to time dropped the seeds, which 
 have vegetated." A weird tradition was extant about the middle of 
 this century concerning the " Maiden's Tomb." According to the 
 writer of the MSS., it was to the effect that the stones of the monument 
 were in the first instance riven by the ghost of the deceased lady as 
 she rose from it in obedience to the magic arts and incantations of a 
 friend of her brother, a man skilled in necromancy and having, like 
 Manfred, " the power of bringing back the spirits of the dead." The 
 lady appeared, when, it is said, " the solid stones of the tomb began 
 to crack and split with a loud noise " ; but, alas ! only to reproach the 
 brother, at whose instigation his friend had called her forth, with being 
 the indirect cause of her death, brought on by grief at the infidel opinions 
 he held, and to exhort him to repentance for his crimes, &c. 
 
 Nearer the church is the tomb of Robert Cromwell, 1723 ; here are said 
 to repose the ashes of a nephew or some other relative of the Protector. 
 A reference to the extracts from the register at Perivale shows that 
 others of the Cromwell family are also buried in this churchyard. The 
 geologist will be interested in examining the large uppermost slab of 
 carboniferous limestone of this tomb, as it shows a fine section of 
 Orthoceras twelve or fourteen inches in length ; it has been well 
 weathered, and exhibits in a very marked manner the chambers or 
 septa into which the shell is divided, like its kindred, the ammonite, 
 nautilus, and other mollusca of the order Cephalopoda. 
 
 * In 1725, an Elizabeth Colleton left a benefaction of £100 to the Boys' School, Ealing. 
 —{Falconer's " Ealing.") She was descended from an old Devonshire family bearing the 
 same arms as those on the tomb, i.e., 3 stags' heads, couped, pper., with a similar stag's 
 head for the crest. 
 
OR, PERI VALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 85 
 
 The other memorials mentioned by Lysons are to John Arnold, 
 of Furnival's Inn, Gent., 1730; Matthew Cockett, "Citizen and Gold- 
 smith," 1731 ; Captain John Johnson, 1767, which may still be seen. 
 Of the older tombs which are also still preserved are those of Samuel 
 Day, Citizen, and Armourer and Brazier, 1756 ; Isaac Stanton, 
 Citizen of London, 1724 ; Mary Tuckfield, 1735 ; Richard Badcock 
 Shury, rector of the parish, 1789 ; James Maidman, over twenty 
 years rector, 1809 ; Dorothy, wife of Richard Ems, citizen, 1753 ; 
 Jane, wife of Edward Bedwell, 1806. 
 
 Among the later memorials in the churchyard is the large one 
 to Lucy, wife of John Lateward, 1806; and John Lateward, 
 1814; and their daughters Lucy, 1817, Frances Mary, 1846, and 
 Julia Elizabeth Lateward, 1822 ; also James Wildman Charles, son of 
 the Rev. James F. and Mary Lateward, 1823. The Rev. J. F. Late- 
 ward was Rector of Perivale for about fifty years, and was the 
 immediate predecessor of the present rector. On account of advanced 
 age and infirmity, the Rev. Dr. Giles was curate in charge for some 
 years previous to 1860. Dr. Giles was the author of several works 
 intended for higher education. 
 
 A beautifully carved upright stone, with the inscription, " A 
 kindly tribute to departed worth," marks the grave of Charlotte 
 Alston Pinkerton, 1817. She was the daughter of J. Wilson, 
 Governor of South Carolina, and great-granddaughter of Sir Row- 
 land Alston, Baronet. Close to this monument is the tomb of Maria, 
 widow of Sir John Nisbett, Baronet, of Dean Castle, Edinburgh, 1856. 
 Her father, Colonel Alston, fought in the American War of Inde- 
 pendence. Here are also interred the remains of her great-nephew, 
 Mark Pinkerton, son of the above-mentioned Mrs. Pinkerton, 1852, 
 " the stone placed by Captain Newell, R.N." ; and near it is the tomb 
 inscribed '* Rear- Admiral J. J. Newell, 1862 " ; Admiral John Carter, 
 R.N., 1863, and his wife, 1868 ; Bridget Hood, wife of Rev. Richard 
 Hood, 1822; Ebenezer Ball Brown, 1869; Lieut. -Colonel W T . G. 
 Sutton, 1884, and his wife, 1882 ; C. Sneyd Edgeworth, of Edge- 
 worthstown, Ireland, 1864, and his wife, Henrica. C. S. Edgeworth 
 was, it is said, of the same family as Maria Edgeworth, the talented 
 authoress of " Castle Rackrent," " Belinda," " Leonora," " The Modern 
 Griselda," &c, of whom it has been justly said : " In all her novels 
 her pen was devoted not only to make us feel what is good, but to 
 
86 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 make us do what is good." She died at Edgeworthstown, county 
 Longford, in 1849. It has also been stated that she occasionally- 
 attended Divine service at this church. Near to it is the grave of Mrs. 
 M. Wilson, the wife of W, E. G. Wilson, M.D., 1886 ; H. Lang, 1879. 
 
 A handsome monument in marble, surmounted by a Calvary cross, 
 with anchor and cable intertwined, marks the tomb of Admiral Sir 
 Richard Collinson, K.C.B., Deputy Master of the Trinity House, 
 born 1811, died 1883. Like some others, it demands more than a 
 passing notice. This distinguished officer belonged to that little 
 band of intrepid seamen who sought, 'mid " thick-ribbed ice and 
 snow," to succour and bring back to their sorrowing country the ill- 
 fated Sir John Franklin, Captain Crozier, and the other gallant officers 
 and men composing the crews of the Erebus and Terror, who perished, 
 after great hardships and sufferings, in their brave attempt to dis- 
 cover a North- West Passage. 
 
 In reading this inscription it is impossible to help recalling the 
 share taken by the gallant admiral, whose remains now repose amid 
 far different scenes, in the memorable search, carried out by expedi- 
 tions organised both by the Government and by Lady Franklin her- 
 self, to bring back the missing crews to their friends, who, unhappily, 
 like the Danish dames of old — 
 
 " Sitting sadly by the sea-beat shore, 
 Shall look for lords who never will return." 
 
 The object of the expedition, composed of the Enterprise and Inves- 
 tigator, commanded by Captain Collinson, was to search for the Franklin 
 expedition via Behring's Strait along the northern coast of America 
 towards King William Land. It was a most adventurous and arduous 
 voyage, in which the commander's ship, the Enterprise, narrowly 
 escaped the fate of those she was sent to succour. Before reaching 
 Behring's Strait the two ships were parted, and the Enterprise was 
 absent three and a half years, and her officers and crew were shut 
 up in the ice during the greater part of that time without means of 
 communication with home. They were thus thrown on their own 
 resources, amidst the dangers and severe climatic conditions of the 
 polar regions, longer than either of the other searching expeditions. 
 Great anxiety, in fact, arose in this country as to whether they would 
 ever return. 
 
OR, PERI VALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 87 
 
 The Admiral's ship, after many difficulties, reached as far as Cam- 
 bridge Bay, and its exploring parties were almost within sight of the 
 spot where a boat of the unfortunate Franklin expedition was found 
 three years later by Captain (now Sir Leopold) McClintock. Sir 
 Richard thus missed the honour of that discovery as well as that of 
 the North- West Passage, though he had the satisfaction of knowing 
 that he virtually " made the passage " by overlapping the longitude 
 already traversed by previous explorers from the east.* 
 
 With better fortune, in one respect, than Captain Maclure in the 
 Investigator, he brought his ship safely home, while the former, 
 though he had the honour of being the discoverer of the North- West 
 Passage, had to leave his ship in the ice, a monument of his discovery. 
 
 There is also an inscription recording the death of his sister, Julia 
 Cecilia, wife of Walter de Winton ; and secondly, of R. W. Streeton, 
 who died 1878. 
 
 Immediately adjoining it is a granite tomb inscribed to the memory 
 of Amelia, widow of the Rev. J. Collinson, Rector of Boldon, Gates- 
 head, who died at Ealing in 1871. 
 
 The Arctic explorer's sisters and his brother, Major- General T. B. 
 Collinson, R.E., reside at Ealing, the latter, like the late admiral, 
 taking a warm interest in the progress of the town. 
 
 Near it is the plain tomb, surmounted by a simple Calvary cross, 
 of George Frere, 1878, who served the Government with credit in a 
 civil capacity in South Africa, as did his relative, Sir Bartle Frere ; 
 and to the west of it is a similar memorial to his grandson, George 
 Frere— son of George Edgar and Adelaide M. Frere — born 1874, died 
 1887. A handsome monument marks the resting-place of Major- 
 General Fitzmaurice, who served with distinction in the Peninsular 
 War and at Waterloo. He died at Drayton Green in 1865, the same 
 year as his eldest son, Maurice Henry Fitzmaurice, Captain and 
 Adjutant R.A., who is interred in the same tomb. 
 
 Near, too, is the grave of Rear-Admiral Frederick Augustus 
 Wetherall, 1856, and his wife, 1848 (the former was a brother of Sir 
 George Wetherall, who lived at Ealing) ; Alfredo Duprat, 1881, and 
 
 * For a full account of the expeditions sent in search of Sir John Franklin, see " The 
 North-West Passage and Search for Sir John Franklin," by John Brown, F.R.G.S., 
 F.S.N. A., &c, second edition with sequel, 1860. 
 
88 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 Albert Mainwaring Ducat, Commander R.N., 1884; the latter died 
 from the effects of an accident while in the performance of his duty 
 on board of his ship. The tomb is here of Edward Webster, 1875, a 
 barrister of repute ; he was one of the leaders in Parliamentary elec- 
 tions in this county, and he earned the respect of both political 
 parties; also that of George Masters, of Drayton Green, 1866; 
 G. A. F. Saulez, Rector of Exton, 1884 ; Sophia Anne, wife of George 
 John Haffenden, of Hanwell, 1864 ; Sophia Anne, widow of Charles 
 Patten, of Uxbridge, 1868 ; G. C. Selwyn Durant, 1872 ; Adam, son 
 of Alexander and Alice Forbes, 1881 ; George Penn, 1884; Sarah 
 Winter, 1864; W. Coomes, 1849; Walter Keyte, 1880; Marianne 
 Porter, 1888; Jane M. Northey, 1887; Mary Bowler, wife of 
 Thomas Chaloner, of Guisborough, 1858 ; C. Collet, 1882 ; T. P. 
 Rigby, 1889. 
 
 There is also a cross to the memory of W. V. Condell, 1887 ; it is 
 inscribed with the simple but significant words " Thou knowest," and 
 memorials to R. Sankey Gowlland, 1886 ; L. H. Edmeston Hodges, 
 1869; Anthony Todd Thomson, M.D., 1819, an eminent physician 
 and author of medical works ; Septimus C. M. Slade, 1886, a nephew 
 of Sir John Slade, Bart., who was for many years in her Majesty's 
 Paymaster-General's office ; Middleton Rayne, late chief engineer of 
 the Indus Valley Railway, 1882, and J. R. Randall, 1881 ; John 
 Eddy, 1875 ; Elizabeth Alder, 1884; Elizabeth C. Roberts, county 
 Kildare, 1884; T. E. J. Henry, Castleblaney, 1883; and Thomas 
 Street, 1855, and his sister Angelina Sweitzer, 1857. This monu- 
 ment bears the following pretty inscription : — 
 
 " Blessed are ye both, your ashes rest, 
 Beside the spot you loved the best, 
 And that dear home, which saw your birth, 
 O'er looks you in your bed of earth." 
 
 There are also the family graves of John Hopkinson, 1862-4 ; the 
 Chapmans, of Greenford ; Smiths, of Hanwell ; of Charles Bartho- 
 lomew, of Castlebar, Ealing ; and monuments to the wife of C. F. 
 Smart, of London, 1858 (he was a brother of Sir George Smart, the 
 eminent music composer); Henry Scott Turner, 1868, inscribed also 
 to his wife, 1875, and son, Major Scott Turner, 1871 ; Mrs. Butlin, 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 89 
 
 1868, and children; Caroline, wife of Rev. W. Gambier, Hawtayne, 
 1867 ; Mrs. M. F. Josling, 1884, and others of that family. Among 
 many others, there are very costly monuments to G. A. R. Willey, and 
 a very imposing one, to Grace Caroline Hicks, 1886, &c. ; the latter is 
 surmounted by a beautiful marble sculptured figure of an angel, &c. 
 There are simpler monuments to the rector's daughter, Florence, wife 
 of Captain Blaine, who died in South Africa ; Charles Cracknell, of 
 Ealing, 1880 ; Charles Edward Collier, 1883 ; and among the more 
 recent interments is that to the Rev. S. J. Jerram, late Rector of Chob- 
 ham, 1887, and near it the grave of his daughter, Eva, 1885. A 
 large table tomb marks the place of interment of the Rev. Dr. 
 Nicholas, the learned proprietor of the celebrated Ealing High School, 
 where many eminent persons have been educated ; some of whom are 
 alluded to in the concluding chapter. He died in 1829. 
 
 There are also examples in this churchyard of the old-fashioned, 
 quaint wooden memorials, which formerly served the purpose when 
 stone was more difficult to procure before the railway system was 
 developed. In most of them the timber is fast decaying, and the 
 inscriptions have become obliterated. One of these old memorials 
 has lately been restored, and is to the memory of Martha Filby, 1826 ; 
 Thomas Filby, 1833; Mary, his wife, 1840; Fanny Filby, 1868; 
 and Thomas Filby, 1876. There is another to the memory of 
 George Dos well, 1848. 
 
 An addition has been made to the churchyard within very recent 
 years, for the peaceful seclusion of Perivale has made it not only a 
 favourite resort of the living, but a spot preferred for the interment 
 of those who have left these earthly scenes. This has been specially 
 the case of late years, and it contains, for its size, an unusual number 
 of rich and costly monuments. Some of the least imposing memorials 
 and those inscribed with the simplest words are often the most touch- 
 ing. Among such is one to an infant, Annie Page, 1866, with the 
 epitaph, "One of these little ones." 
 
 There are fewer epitaphs in doggerel in Perivale than in most 
 village churchyards ; they are not entirely wanting, however, as 
 shown by the following. On an old headstone, inscribed to the memory 
 of the two infant children of William and Sarah Evans, are these 
 lines : — 
 
90 THE CHRONICLES OF GREEN FORD PARVA. 
 
 " When children die in infancy 
 Like flowers newly born ; 
 The Lord that sent hath only lent 
 And takes but what's his own." 
 
 Sarah Evans died 1779 ; William Evans, Citizen and Skinner, 1780. 
 
 There is a headstone which should also be mentioned ; it is near 
 the old elm which spreads its leafy branches over the entrance to the 
 churchyard, and is inscribed to the memory of a certain unfortunate 
 person and his daughter. Tradition says that the former suffered the 
 extreme penalty of the law in the early part of this century for firing 
 a pistol at a man at Apperton, with intent to kill, in a dispute of 
 some kind. The report runs that there is here an exceptional instance 
 of the body of an executed person being taken out of Newgate and 
 here interred ; while it is said by others that the remains are repre- 
 sented by broken bricks and stones which now fill the coffin. The 
 story, which is rather a melancholy one, has a foundation in fact, and 
 will be referred to later. 
 
 Such traditions dwell long in the memory of the simple rustics of 
 Perivale, some of whom still believe in the statement that there is in 
 this graveyard a tomb without an occupant. It is said the grave 
 was made, but that the person whose death is recorded was never 
 buried in it. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 " "Tis beauty all and grateful song around, 
 Joined to the low of Mne and numerous bleat 
 Of flocks thick-nibbbng thro' the clover'd rale." — Thomson. 
 
 Something should now be said about the parish of Perivale as it is, 
 and of what is known of the hamlet during the past century, when it 
 had ceased to be called " a town," as it is designated on Mrs. 
 Shelbury's monument in the church, already described. 
 
 The rectory, which adjoins the churchyard, is a half-timbered 
 building in the style of the fifteenth century ; it is very picturesque, 
 and quite in harmony with the church and farmhouses and out- 
 buildings in its vicinity. The most ancient portions of the structure, 
 Avhich are very old, may be seen at the back ; the front was added 
 about the middle of the present century. Before this addition was 
 made, the old rectory was visible as a very unpretentious building, 
 and adjoining it was a smaller house, both of which have been 
 absorbed behind the present facade and converted into one house. 
 Mr. Farthing, who lived there in 1845, and made most of the altera- 
 tions, has described it : — "It is an irregular old building, standing in 
 its own grounds, isolated on all sides. There are three fronts ; the 
 principal one looks towards the west over a large meadow orna- 
 mented with stately trees [probably the grounds of the old manor 
 house] ; it consists of three projections surmounted by pointed 
 gables of ornamental woodwork. The centre one contains the 
 antique entrance porch, with its quaintly-carved columns and twisted 
 balusters leading to the hall and spiral staircase, from whence diverge 
 long passages leading to the living-rooms and offices. The rooms 
 are lighted by projecting bay windows, in which is some stained 
 glass ; the ceilings are very low, and these are crossed by huge 
 beams of timber, giving one the idea of a ship's cabin." The old 
 
9 2 
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA 
 
 houses forming the back are probably at least three hundred years 
 old, yet are " not haunted by either ghost or goblin, but as this is 
 contrary to all rule," he says, " I have converted a laughable occur- 
 rence which once happened into the following very tolerable ghost 
 story." It is almost worthy of a place in the " Ingoldsby Legends." 
 
 A Legende of the Rectobie at Pebi-vale. 
 
 Loud roared the wind at Perivale, 
 The rain fell thick and fast, 
 
 The Rectory shook in that fierce gale, 
 The trees bent to the blast. 
 
 •'Sir Knighte ! SirKnighte," the pasto* said, 
 
 " Go not to that dread room : 
 The fiend within will strike thee dead ; 
 
 Tempt not thy certain doom.'' 
 
 " I fear no fiend," the knight replied ; 
 
 " But soon I'll crop his ears. 
 Bring me a fight, Sir Priest," he cried ; 
 
 " And have for me no fears." 
 
 "Boast not thy strength, ' ' his reverence said, 
 " For know, my son, this nighte 
 
 Thou need'st must goe unto thy bedde 
 "Without a taper's light." 
 
 " Then quickly guide me up the stair, 
 
 And give me the Boor-key. 
 I'll make this demon quit his lair, 
 
 And yield the room to me." 
 
 The knight has reached the chamber door, 
 
 And entered it so bold ! 
 When from within a dreadful snore 
 
 Made his heart's blood run cold ! 
 
 His head he ran against a post 
 
 (The bedpost of the bed), 
 Which made him think the demon ghost 
 
 Had knocked him on the head. 
 
 " Ho ! ho," thought he, " is this the way 
 
 You treat your company ? 
 Such deadly blows, I needs must say, 
 
 Prove lack of courtesy ! " 
 
 Then to the bed he groped his way, 
 
 And felt for the bed-clothes, 
 When from that bed, to his dismay, 
 
 A fiendish snort arose. 
 
 The knight cried boldly, " Who are you ? 
 
 Pray, what would you be at ? 
 Speak quickly, fiend, and tell me true, 
 
 Or I'll deal thee a pat ! " 
 
 A thought occurred to this brave knight — 
 
 A shrewd idea, d'ye see ? — 
 Both nends and ghosts do all take fright 
 
 At cock-crowing, they say. — 
 
 " Cock-a-doodle-doo-o-oo," 
 He crew ; then cried, ' ' My wig ! " 
 
 As from the bed with much ado 
 Up jumpt the Parson's pig. 
 
 To the stair-head both pig and knight 
 
 Ran, as if you'd shot 'em, 
 Over each other in their flight, 
 
 Rolling from top to bottom ! 
 
 A score of priests since then, we're told, 
 
 The rectory have taken, 
 To dust has turned that knight so bold, 
 
 The phantom pig to — bacon. 
 
 Unearthly sounds do still prevail, 
 
 But from no ghosts — alas ! 
 They come from the Great Western rail, 
 
 When the express trains pass ! 
 
 In the field west of the church and rectory may be seen the 
 depressions in the land which mark the site of the old Manor House 
 of Greenford Parva. 
 
 It was not standing in Lysons' time, and the building has been 
 
OR, PERI VALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 93 
 
 taken down about one hundred years ; not a stone or brick now 
 remains of the structure, which was, no doubt, the residence of many 
 of the Lords of the Manor. The ground plan of the building, and of 
 other houses in the hamlet, is shown in the map of John Rocques' 
 Survey of 1741-5 ; the rotting wooden gate-posts showing the 
 entrance to the grounds may, however, still be noticed in .the hedge 
 in the Greenford Road ; and the place may be seen — 
 
 " Where once the garden smiled, 
 And still where many a garden flower grows wild " — 
 
 for every year at this spot may be noticed daffodils, and occasionally 
 other cultivated flowers, among the grass, striving in vain to over- 
 come the fate to which they must yield sooner or later. 
 
 The old Manor Place at Perivale appears to have been protected 
 in ancient times by a moat, the remains of which may still be observed 
 on three sides ; its dry bed on the south, near the Brent, as well as 
 its western side, is clearly discernible. 
 
 The writer was informed by an old inhabitant, who had lived in 
 the locality forty-three years, that the northern portion had been 
 partly filled up during his time, and now was diminished to the ditch 
 in that direction. 
 
 The probability of the Manor House having been moated is itself 
 evidence of antiquity, and recalls the period when such buildings 
 were subject to the attacks of armed bands and marauders in 
 troublous times. 
 
 A side view of a part of the Manor House may be seen in a water- 
 colour drawing of the church inserted in the copy of Lysons' 
 "Environs," now in Guildhall Library, to which allusion has been 
 made ; it is evidently of older date than the others, which are 
 inscribed 1794. 
 
 In the MS. book, entitled " Pictures of Ferivale," by Mr. John 
 Farthing, a gentleman who occupied the old Rectory, and afterwards 
 Perivale Grange (now called the Grange Farm) for some years, there 
 is a pen-and-ink sketch of it, which is here reproduced, his widow 
 having kindly placed these interesting notes in the writer's hands. 
 The description of the Manor House is best given in that writer's 
 own words. It is probable that both the latter and the sketch were 
 
94 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 obtained from the Rev. James F. Lateward, Rector when Mr. 
 Farthing resided in the parish, and was on terms of friendship with 
 him (1845). 
 
 " Opposite the Rectory is a large meadow ornamented with fine 
 trees, among which is a magnificent walnut and a venerable mulberry ; 
 this was formerly the garden of the old Manor House which stood 
 here and reared its aristocratic head, looking down on the humble 
 parsonage beneath, to which it offered both a shelter and protection. 
 The present incumbent (Rev. J. F. Lateward) first saw the light within 
 its walls, soon after which event the building was taken down, it 
 being greatly dilapidated from age and the want of proper reparation. 
 
 " When the mansion was first erected, Perivale was in its palmy and 
 prosperous state, and far more populous than it has ever since been. 
 The proud owner and occupier of the house styled himself " Lord of 
 this towne," and is so designated on an old mural monument in the 
 church. The erection was of red brick, and had three principal 
 fronts, the fourth looking only towards the stables and offices. It 
 was separated from the road by a lofty brick wall, and the entrance 
 was through a pair of curiously-wrought iron gates supported by 
 pillars, also of red brick, crowned by lions carved in stone. A broad 
 gravel walk, with a grass plot on each side, led to the door of the 
 mansion. On ascending a double flight of stone steps you entered 
 the large hall, paved with black and white marble in alternate 
 squares ; stags' heads with the antlers adorned the walls, with here 
 and there demi-suits of armour and warlike weapons. A broad stair- 
 case of oak with carved balusters led to the upper apartments, and 
 there was another story over these containing the dormitories. We 
 
 will enter this lower room It is of goodly proportions, and 
 
 lighted by a large bay window glazed with small squares of a coarse 
 green glass. The walls are wainscoted with dark ' oak in small 
 panels. The fireplace is large and roomy, and there are hand-dogs 
 laden with large burning logs of wood. On the keystone of the arch 
 of the fireplace is a shield bearing the arms of Myllett, viz., Argent, a 
 cross gules with a lion passant or in the upper compartment, and the 
 motto on a ribband, ' Diligo Crucis Leonem.' Over the fireplace is 
 suspended in a carved oak frame, a portrait of a gentleman in the 
 prime of life, by a pupil of Vandyke " 
 
OR, PER1VALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 95 
 
 An old person, aged eighty-four, a daughter of one of the larger 
 farmers in the parish, told the writer she remembers hearing in her 
 girlhood old persons (who lived at the time when " Squire Harrison " 
 and his successor, Richard Late ward, resided in their Manor House) 
 speak of the importance of the old mansion and the establishment 
 its possessors maintained there. Another worthy old dame of about 
 the same age, living at Greenford, had heard similar stories of the 
 grandeur of the old place and its " many windows," and of the 
 decay and neglect which had necessitated its removal. " Time, the 
 destroyer, has now swept away every vestige of that fair mansion, 
 the venerable mulberry and huge walnut trees alone remaining as 
 mute witnesses of its former grandeur." 
 
 There can be no doubt that this Manor Place was very old when it 
 was removed. Mr. Farthing appears to suggest that it was at least 
 as old as the period when Henry Myllett lived, a brass to whose 
 memory is still in the church with the date 1500 ; perhaps it may 
 have been even older. What changes in manners, customs, and reli- 
 gion must its inmates successively have witnessed ? and then the old 
 Norman lords before ! 
 
 No doubt many of these old feudal barons, and other Lords of the 
 Manor, the De Mandevilles, De Bohuns, De Beaumonts, and those who 
 followed them, whose lives we have chronicled, were proud of their 
 possessions and titles, and like many existing people, were not very 
 particular how they obtained either the one or the other. Many of 
 them have left us little more than a record of their names — as Sir 
 Walter Scott has said : — " Their escutcheons have long mouldered from 
 the walls of their castles ; their castles themselves are but green 
 mounds and shattered ruins — the place that once knew them knows 
 them no more ; nay, many a race since then has died out and been 
 forgotten in the very land which they occupied with all the autho- 
 rity of feudal proprietors and feudal lords." In Coleridge's words — 
 
 ' ' The knights are dust, 
 And their good swords are rust, 
 Their souls are with the saints' we trust." 
 
 There are now five farm-houses in Perivale, all hay farms. It is 
 said there are no labourers' cottages, which appears to be the fact. 
 
9 6 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 The farms are known as Horsendon, Apperton (sometimes, but im- 
 properly, called Alperton), Manor, Church, and Grange farms. Horsen- 
 don and Apperton farms became so dilapidated that they have been 
 rebuilt in quite recent years, but the others, particularly Manor 
 and Grange Farms, are in part very old ; portions of Church Farm 
 are also old, though a new building was added to it some years 
 since. 
 
 Manor Farm, situated on the road from Perivale to Apperton, has 
 about 120 acres attached to it. It is not included in the Manor 
 of Perivale, but is the property of the trustees of Lady Penfold. 
 
 There is no evidence to show that it originally formed part of the 
 manorial estate, though it is subject to the same collection of tithe as 
 the rest of the parish. It has already been mentioned that Richard 
 Late ward, who, in 1767, purchased the manorial estate, valued at 
 £485 per annum, bought the whole parish, except a farm of £40 
 per annum, and no doubt Manor Farm was the exception referred to. 
 Lady Delpierre, who is Lady of the Manor, is a descendant of John 
 Schrieber, who took the name of Lateward, and became possessed of 
 the manorial property under the will of Richard Lateward. 
 
 This farm may also, in all probability, be identified with the "Besse 
 Place," a house with certain lands attached to it, which formed part 
 of the possessions of Henry Morgan, who was attainted for high 
 treason in 1613, and which was afterwards granted to John Leving- 
 ston, to which reference has also been made. There is an old room 
 in this farm-house panelled in oak with carved door. 
 
 Manor Farm was, in 1812, let to Thomas Bowler, who suffered the 
 severest penalty of the law for shooting with intent to kill one 
 Borroughes (also a farmer) at Apperton. It would seem from the 
 tradition still believed that the latter, besides showing great ingrati- 
 tude in money matters to the man who had befriended him, had 
 seduced the daughter of the former. Although the attempt to murder 
 was premeditated, it seems hard to believe that a man who had been pro- 
 bably led into evil by such a wrong culminating in a fruitless attempt 
 to avenge the injury done, to him should have been executed. Great 
 sympathy was shown to him, and even Borroughes joined in the effort 
 to avert the carrying out of the sentence. Bowler was arrested after 
 he had been in hiding twelve months, and when, as Borroughes had 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 97 
 
 got well, his family thought there was no fear of his being punished 
 severely. He was taken at a farm-house at Apperton, also in his 
 occupation, and executed. It is said his body was obtained from the 
 dissecting-room to which it had been taken and buried in Perivale 
 Churchyard, near the elm at the entrance. It is supposed that the 
 assassination of Percival by Bellingham the same year hardened the 
 heart of the Government and prevented any mercy being shown to 
 Bowler. 
 
 The strangest stories are still told about the farm where he was 
 taken, and the unnatural noises and rattling sounds heard there at 
 night for years afterwards are said to be associated with his unquiet 
 spirit ; of which uncanny sounds, &c, an old man, who was then a 
 boy, gave the writer a very graphic account, but the ghost has long 
 since been exorcised or has taken his departure "sans ceremonie." 
 It is also averred that Bowler's money, a large part of which was 
 deposited by him in an iron box and buried secretly, has never been 
 discovered. 
 
 Grange Farm, called at one time Perivale Grange, though modified 
 somewhat during the last half-century, has much of the old structure 
 still left in it. It is situated on the Greenford Road, near the rotting 
 gate posts, walnut and other trees, which still mark the entrance to 
 the grounds of the old manor-house before it was taken down. Ex- 
 ternally it still, like most of the other farm-houses and out-buildings, 
 retains its old world appearance, and adds to the beauty of this 
 secluded hamlet. The oldest portion is internally heavily timbered, 
 and there is some curious old oak carved work, now painted, near 
 the door, but whether it originally belonged to the structure it is 
 impossible to say. 
 
 Very primitive-looking is the wooden building, called the Church 
 Farm, with the thatched outbuildings and red-tiled barns connected 
 with it, which are situated near the northern entrance to the church- 
 yard. Time has tinted and mellowed them into harmony with the 
 trees and the general landscape, and even the newer portion of the 
 farm buildings is yielding to the same influence. 
 
 It is said some person many years ago attempted to renovate 
 and rebuild some of the farm-houses in Perivale, but the contract or 
 speculation proved unlucky, and, as the old rustic who informed the 
 
98 
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 writer of the tradition added, he "had to run for it, feathers or no 
 feathers." No doubt the genius of the hamlet pursued him for 
 daring to endeavour to remodel a place so destined by nature to 
 preserve its old character and appearance ! 
 
 Near the Church Farm, in the early part of this century, was the 
 enclosure where strayed animals were confined until they were taken 
 out at the owner's cost, i.e., " the pound " ; but such an institution 
 
 GRANGE FABM. 
 
 does not exist now. Probably Perivale at one time had its stocks, 
 and other punitive or corrective arrangements, but no record remains 
 of them. 
 
 The most remarkable and characteristic fact connected with Peri- 
 vale is that there is no public-house there ! Nor has there ever been 
 one, as far as the writer has been able to learn. No brewer has ever 
 had the courage to establish one. The thirsty traveller must pass 
 through the parish and walk nearly to the top of Horsendon Hill 
 before he can refresh himself with that " stouter English ale," or 
 stronger English beer, for the production of which the barley of 
 
OR, PERI VALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 99 
 
 Perivale was so famous in Queen Elizabeth's time, as recorded by- 
 Dray ton. — (See page 107.) 
 
 The history of Perivale would not be complete without an allusion 
 to its rural sports, which have been held there annually for years, 
 in connection with the Dedication Festival of its little church. The 
 Pythian games held near the Temple of Delphi are said to have been 
 instituted in honour of Apollo, and the Olympic games were dedicated 
 to Jupiter, who is supposed to have originated them after his victory 
 over the Titans ; but, alas ! as we do not know to whom the church 
 was dedicated, it is impossible to associate any name with the Dedi- 
 cation Festival of Greenford Parva. 
 
 The sports are celebrated in one of the meadows of the hamlet, 
 and are very popular. The youths, generally from the neighbouring 
 town of Ealing, contend in running and other manly exercises, while 
 the maidens vie with each other in the performance of feats requiring 
 skill and dexterity suitable to their sex. Prizes are awarded to the 
 successful competitors, and they are generally distributed by a lady of 
 more than ordinary importance. 
 
 h2 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " By the pricking of my thumbs, 
 
 Something wioked this way comes : — 
 
 ***** 
 
 Some of all professions that go 
 
 The primrose way to the eternal bonfire." — Macbeth. 
 
 There was one building of which Perivale once could boast, which 
 must have added to the beauty of its scenery, i e., a windmill. A tradi- 
 tion of its former existence is still preserved in the mind of an aged 
 woman {cetat eighty-four) who " was born and bred in the parish," 
 a daughter of one of the old farmers whose names will be men- 
 tioned. She remembered hearing in her childhood very old people 
 say there had been a windmill there, but, except that it was near an old 
 oak, she had not a very clear idea as to where it stood, but had heard 
 that old Squire Harrison, Lord of the Manor before the Latewards 
 possessed it, used to have corn ground there more than a hundred 
 and twenty years ago. Mr. Farthing, in his MSS. written nearly fifty 
 years since, not only mentions the tradition of its former existence, 
 but has given us a sketch of the windmill at Perivale, " from an old 
 drawing in the British Museum of about the year 1470." The MS. 
 also contains the following curious legend connected with it, which it 
 is presumed he obtained from some of the old people to whom he 
 refers, as his source of information ; the account is best given in that 
 writer's own words. 
 
 The Legend of Perivale Mill. 
 
 " Wandering along the banks of the Brent one fine afternoon, 
 accompanied by my two dogs and Master Cain (the old sexton and 
 clerk), the latter in search of large stones for rock- work, we came to 
 a charmingly secluded spot formed by an abrupt curve of the river 
 and a thicket of whitethorn and guelder-rose bushes, matted together 
 by the tendrils of the briony and woodbine. The turf was like velvet 
 
THE CHRONICLES OF GREEN FORD PARVA. 101 
 
 and beautifully verdant, being sheltered from the scorching rays of 
 the sun by the tall trees which grew around ; . . . thousands of blue- 
 bells and white violets adorned the banks, and the clear waters of 
 the stream were almost hidden from the eye by the overhanging 
 shrubs and trees, as it meandered over its pebbly bed. . . . The 
 dogs barked with delight as they roused some wood-pigeons from 
 their perch or startled the shy kingfisher from its nest of fish-bones 
 and sent it skimming — 
 
 ' Along the vista of the brook, 
 Where antique roots its bustling course o'ertook, 
 And tangled shrubs and moss of emerald green 
 Cling from the banks, with wildflowers sweet between.' 
 
 The melody of the birds alone broke the silence of the place ; the 
 blackbird's joyous whistle and the softer song of the thrush, with the 
 heavenly notes of the lark as she hovered over her nest in the 
 adjoining field, riveted me to the spot. ... I could not help ex- 
 claiming, as I threw myself down on the soft turf, ' What a charming 
 spot for a picnic ! ' ' What's that ? ' said my companion. I told 
 him, and he then laughed and said, ' Ay, and a nice, pretty name 
 the place has got for gentlefolks to come junketing to.' ' Why, how 
 is it called ? ' said I. ' Names are of little consequence — 
 
 ' ' The rose 
 By any other name would smell as sweet." 
 
 1 That may be,' quoth he ; ' but it wouldn't sound well to ask ladies 
 to visit such a place as this, for, let me tell ye, no one about these 
 parts would come here after dark. 'Tis called, and with good reason, 
 too, "The Devil's Plat."'" 
 
 The following "authentic" legend is associated with it, and though 
 the story has probably been embellished by the writer, it is not un- 
 likely that it contains the germs of truth, as far as the tradition is 
 concerned. 
 
 " About two hundred and fifty years ago Perivale was not only 
 more populous than it now is, but was a comparatively thriving 
 place, as the legend on an old monument in the church shows, for 
 the husband of the lady to whose memory it was erected (Mrs. Shel- 
 bury) is thereon described as ' Lord of this Toune.' A windmill 
 then stood upon the spot where I was lying, at which the inhabitants 
 
io2 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA : 
 
 had their wheat ground. This mill was owned by an unsociable sort 
 of man, whose name was Abel Reed, who resided alone within its 
 precincts. Near the mill stood the cottage of a poor old widow 
 woman, who was looked upon by her neighbours as a witch, and 
 dreaded accordingly. All the villagers believed in her powers, except 
 the miller, who considered her no better than a cheat and an im- 
 postor ; he, moreover, took a malicious delight in telling her so when- 
 ever she crossed his path ; therefore no great love existed between 
 Abel Reed and old Dame Gigs. 
 
 " One day she met the miller as he was returning from the ale- 
 house, and being then somewhat quarrelsome, he began abusing the 
 old woman, and threatening her with the stocks, &c. This so roused 
 the old woman's ire, that, raising her withered arms above her grey 
 head, she declared Abel Reed to be a lost man, a child of the devil, 
 and prognosticated that ere twelve months expired he would either 
 be drowned in the Brent or crushed by his own millstones. 
 
 " From that hour the miller was looked upon distrustfully by 
 his neighbours, and his business fell off. About a year after this 
 prophecy the miller was missing, and as several days had elapsed 
 without any tidings of him, an inquiry w r as thought necessary. This 
 was all very well, but who was to make it ? No one dared to enter 
 the mill until old Dame Gigs, after sneering at their cowardice, 
 volunteered to go in and see what was the matter. 
 
 " Some of the villagers assembled to see the result, and the old 
 woman began to mount the ladder leading to the room in the mill. 
 This being of considerable height, and the dame's agility not having 
 increased with her years, she trembled, made a false step, and then 
 fell to the ground. This added to the excitement of the bystanders, 
 and some of them having conveyed the old woman to her cottage, the 
 others prepared to make another essay, . . . and having done so, a dis- 
 covery was soon made. Between the mill-stones were lound pieces of 
 rag and broadcloth, whilst pulverized bones, hair, and blood told too 
 plainly the end of the unfortunate miller, and Dame Gigs, in spite 
 of her imputed skill, could not save her own life, but died shortly 
 after from the effects of her fall. After these tragical events not one 
 would take the mill, and it became a ruin. No villager would pass 
 the spot at night, unless compelled to so, and when they did they 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 103 
 
 related to their friends all sorts of stories about it : how they had 
 heard the moaning of Abel's spirit and the shrieks of Dame Gig's 
 ghost amid the howling of the wind, and some even averred that 
 they had seen the forms of Abel Reed and the old dame who had 
 cursed him, pursuing each other round the gallery of the haunted 
 mill, and heard noises as of persons struggling together. 
 
 " Matters remained in this state for a long time, when at last an 
 old miser declared his intention of occupying the ruined mill, to the 
 great surprise of the villagers, and, notwithstanding their entreaties 
 and warnings, he eventually did so. Many of the simple folk, how- 
 ever, shook their heads and said no good would come of it. 
 
 " Shortly afterwards the old man was missing, and this, circum- 
 stance revived afresh all the stories about the haunted mill ; though 
 many of the villagers believed he had forfeited his life by his temerity, 
 yet a few of the more sensible portion thought the old man might 
 still be living, though too ill to leave his abode in search of assist- 
 ance. Acting on this conjecture they went in a body to the spot, and 
 called loudly to the old man by his name ; no answer was, however, 
 returned, and it was then suggested that some one should enter the 
 building. The constable was called upon virtute officii ; but he flatly 
 refused, as did all the others. At last a young man who had no 
 friends or relatives (being a foundling) was induced to undertake the 
 task, and Simon Coston, amid the breathless expectation of the rest 
 below, ascended the ladder, Having reached the gallery he pushed 
 open the door, and, after a pause of a few seconds, entered. A few 
 moments of painful silence and anxious suspense ensued, when a 
 groan, followed by a loud shriek, startled the assembly, and Simon 
 Coston rushed out upon the gallery, exclaiming, ' The ghost ! the 
 ghost ! Fly, fly for your lives ! ' No further intimation was neces- 
 sary. Away scampered the villagers, without daring to look behind 
 them or offering to assist poor Simon in his perilous position. 
 
 " Some hours afterwards a consultation was held, and it being 
 found that poor Simon Coston was also missing, it was determined 
 that another attempt to discover the dreadful mystery should at once 
 be made. Accordingly several stout men, having fortified their 
 courage by drink and armed themselves with guns, pitchforks, &c, 
 they proceeded towards the place in a body. Having arrived at the 
 
io + THE CHRONICLES OF GREEN FORD PARVA; 
 
 fence which divided the mill from the lane, they once more shouted 
 out the names of the missing men. A pause ensued, and then was 
 heard a hollow sepulchral voice, ' Bury me, bury me, ere you sleep, 
 In Peri vale Churchyard ten feet deep.' The men, trembling in every 
 limb, rushed through the opening and discovered the dead body of 
 the old man on the other side of the palings ! The mill itself was 
 empty, and Simon Coston was never more heard of." 
 
 Some thirty years after these occurrences, and when the recollec- 
 tion of them was becoming obliterated, a gentleman purchased an 
 estate at Greenford (Magna), and built himself a fine house there. 
 There he resided with his lady and family, and curiously enough the 
 name of the new proprietor was Simon Coston. Some few old people 
 thought he bore some resemblance to the poor youth who had been 
 so strangely missing, but this was mere surmise, and no one could 
 suppose for a moment that the wealthy Squire Coston and the poor 
 Greenford foundling could have aught in common. Squire Coston's 
 family died before him, as may be seen by the very handsome and 
 quaint old monument in Greenford Church (Magna). The old gentle- 
 man was, however, alive in 1665, for he then gave the cover for 
 the font, which is now in Perivale Church, but he must have died 
 soon after. On looking over his papers his executors found a key to 
 the mystery of the mill, and they discovered also that the deceased 
 and the foundling were one and the same. 
 
 It appeared that when Simon entered the mill he saw at a glance 
 how things stood : the old miser had been arrested by the hand of 
 death in the very act of counting his money, and being a quick- 
 witted fellow, Simon hit on the plan of frightening the folks away 
 from the place and then securing the treasure to himself. 
 
 As we have seen, this he did most successfully, and having trans- 
 ported the dead body to the place where it was found, he removed the 
 money from the mill and concealed himself until the second search 
 was over, which he knew would very soon be made ; accordingly, when 
 the neighbours came again, he uttered the doggrel before quoted, 
 and having seen the persons safe off with the old miser's body, he 
 decamped in the opposite direction with the money. Arrived in Lon- 
 don, he soon after took ship for Flanders, and, being a prudent 
 youth, he got employment in a merchant's house, and by his dili- 
 gence and attention eventually became a partner. " He married, 
 
OR, PER/VALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 105 
 
 and, having realised a handsome fortune (no doubt by the aid of 
 the miser's savings), he determined to return and enjoy it in his 
 native place." " The mansion he built no longer exists, as it was 
 destroyed by fire, but the fishpond that adorned the garden and the 
 avenue which led to the house may still be seen, the latter being 
 called ' Cost on' s Lane ' to this day. Thus ends the legend of the 
 haunted mill, which stood on what was ever after called the ' Devil's 
 Plat.' " 
 
 How much truth there is in this story it is impossible to say, but 
 probably it may have some foundation in fact, however small may be 
 the base on which this romantic superstructure is reared. This, how- 
 ever, is certain, as shown after inquiries made at Greenford by the 
 writer, that there are among the poorer people of that village, persons 
 who have a strong objection to pass through Coston's Lane on a dark 
 night, for fear of meeting Coston's ghost, which is said to haunt the 
 grounds of the old house which has long since been levelled to the 
 ground, and that the same unearthly visitor is supposed more fre- 
 quently to hover about the old pond which once was included in the 
 demesne, and which is associated in some mysterious way with the 
 later destinies of Coston and his family. 
 
 One old man declared that on going to the field where the pond is 
 situated to collect his horses, he found them all scared and trembling, 
 showing signs of great terror, and while he was getting them to- 
 gether he saw " something white " hovering over the miniature lake, 
 which " something " appears to have been terrified too, for he heard 
 a great splash as it jumped into the water, as Coston is said to have 
 done over two hundred and thirty years ago. The piece of water, now 
 almost covered with aquatic j)Jants, has certainly an uncanny appear- 
 ance at eventide, when a mist floats above it and bats are flying in its 
 vicinity. There are some large trees about it which cast gloomy 
 shadows, but what adds most to its weird aspect is several very old 
 pollard-trees, which are bent and contorted in different directions ; 
 most of them are either so decayed that a half of the interior of the 
 trunks is laid open, and others appear to have been struck by light- 
 ning, and now hang in a curiously fantastic way over the pool. 
 Whether it is that the lakelet is in a sequestered spot away from 
 Coston's Lane, or that the dismal-looking trees which threaten to fall 
 into it afford a suitable home for the "moping owl," it would be hard 
 
io6 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 to say ; perhaps both causes may conduce to its being frequented by 
 the bird of the night, and that it often startles the superstitious 
 peasant by its hoot when he — 
 
 " Molests his ancient solitary reign." 
 
 The place has certainly a weird look at nightfall, and recalls Poe's 
 remarkable verses in " Ulalume " : — 
 
 ' ' It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, 
 In the misty mid-region of Weir — 
 It was down by dank tarn of Auber. 
 In the ghoul-haunted woodland of "Weir." 
 
 An old waggoner who had lived in Green ford nearly forty years said 
 he knew many people who " dursen't go near it after nightfall, but for 
 his part he had been by there at night hundreds of times, and never 
 saw anything worse than hisself," which still leaves the character of 
 the ghost shrouded in mystery. 
 
 Coston's house appears to have been burnt down, and his box of 
 plate is said to have been thrown into the pond, which one " intelli- 
 gent " man informed the writer is said to have no bottom. He is said 
 to have lost his wife by the plague, and suffered other misfortunes, 
 though originally so rich that it is now averred his riding horses " were 
 shod with silver." 
 
 It is strange that such traditions and superstitions should linger so 
 long in a country village. Simon Coston has been dead about two cen- 
 turies and a quarter, and yet it is supposed his shade still — 
 
 " Revisits the glimpses of the moon." 
 
 Among the changes which have taken place in the ground about 
 Perivale Church is the disappearance of an old wood or plantation, 
 which is shown to the south of it in Kocque's Survey of Middlesex, 
 made in 1741-5. 
 
 It is said that the best wheat in England was grown in the vale 
 south of Harrow-on-the-Hill, and "that Queen Elizabeth and Henry 
 YIII. had their farm produce froma farm, or farms, at Perivale." Others 
 say that the former " took no composition from the villagers there, but 
 received it in kind " ; and that the place is called Purevale from the 
 " clearness " of the corn which was grown there. Perivale was sometimes 
 called Cornhill or Cornhull in the reign of Edward III. and later, and 
 its reputation for producing good corn had apparently then been 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 107 
 
 established. Cornhill, or Cornhull, was probably the slope of Horsen- 
 don Hill. The reputation of Perivale for producing the finest wheat 
 in his day (1563 to 1631) has been preserved in the poetical descrip- 
 tion of England entitled the " Polyolbion," by Drayton. It is divided 
 into thirty songs, or books, of which the one in which allusion is made 
 to " Perryvale," " Perivale," or " Purevale " — which, he says in a note, 
 " yieldeth the finest meal of England" — is the sixteenth. It is very 
 quaint. 
 
 ' ' As Coin come on along, and chanced to cast her eye 
 Upon that neighbouring hill where Harrow stands so high,* 
 She Peryvale perceived prank' d up with wreaths of wheat 
 And with exulting terms thus glorying in her seat ; 
 ' Why should not I be coy and of my beauties nice, 
 Since this my goodly grain is held of greatest price ? 
 No manchet can so well the courtly palate please 
 As that made of the meal fetch'd from my fertile leaze. 
 Their finest of that kind, compared with my wheat, 
 For whiteness of the bread, doth look like common cheat, 
 "What barley is there found, whose fair and bearded ear, 
 Makes stouter English ale or stronger English beer? 
 The oat, the bean, the pease, with me but pulses are ; 
 The coarser and browner rye, no more than fetch and tare, 
 What seed doth any soil in England bring, that I 
 Beyond her most increase, yet cannot multiply ? 
 Besides, my sure abode next goodly London is, 
 To vend my fruitful store, that we doth never miss 
 And those poor baser things, they cannot put away, 
 How'er I set my price, ne'er on my chapmen stay.' 
 When presently the hill that maketh her a vale 
 With things he had in hand did interrupt her tale, 
 With Hampstead being fallen and High-gate at debate ; 
 As one before them both that would advance his state, 
 From either for his height to bear away the praise, 
 Besides that he alone rich Peryvale surveys. 
 But Hampstead pleads, himself in simples to have skill, 
 And therefore by desert to be the noblest hill ; 
 As one that on his worth and knowledge doth rely 
 In learned physic's use. and skilful surgery ; 
 And challengeth, from them, the worthiest place her own 
 Since that old Watling once o'er him to pass was known." 
 
 * It is stated that when some divines were disputing before Charles II. about the visible 
 Church, he turned their attention to that of Harrow-on-the-Hill, which has ever since 
 been proverbially called the visible church. — (Lysons' "Environs.") Harrow Hill "was 
 chosen by William Bolton, the last Prior of Great Bartholomew, in Smithfield, on which 
 to build him a house to preserve him from a deluge that was prognosticated from certain 
 eclipses in watery signs and was to happen in the year 1524. With this not only the 
 vulgar but also learned men were so unreasonablv infatuated that they victualled them- 
 selves (as both Hall and Speed confidently report) and went to high ground in fear of bein°- 
 drowned ! Amongst these was the Prior, who not only provided himself with a house there 
 at Harrow, but carried all sorts of provisions which were thither to serve for the space of 
 two months." — (Camden's "Britannia," translated by Edmund Gibson, p. 328.) Stow, 
 however, contradicts this report and Lysons says he was also Rector of Harrow. 
 
io8 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 Some idea of the population of Perivale in the last century may be 
 gathered from the following table. The earliest baptism recorded is 
 in 1707, and burial in 1720. It is not possible to continue the 
 full list of the former for the next decade from the register, on 
 account of the pages having been abstracted between 1789 and 1807, 
 as already mentioned. 
 
 The total baptisms from 1707 to 1786 were as follows : — 
 
 From 1707 to 1726 inclusive . . . 28 
 
 ,, 1727 „ 1746 „ ... 39 
 
 „ 1747 „ 1766 „ ... 32 
 
 „ 1767 „ 1786 „ ... 22 
 
 The total burials from 1720 to 1799 were : — 
 
 From 1720 to 1739 inclusive . . .53 
 
 „ 1740 ,, 1769 „ ... 63 
 
 „ 1760 „ 1779 ,, ... 38 
 
 ,, 1780 ,,1799 ,, ... 58 
 
 There are no burials registered between 1799 and 1802. 
 
 Many of those entered here were not parishioners ; some, as already 
 stated, were of persons who lived in London. The diminished number 
 of baptisms shows the hamlet decreased in population during the last 
 fifty years of the above record. In 1795, however, there were five 
 houses in Perivale, and in 1871 seven habitations with thirty- three 
 inhabitants. In 1881 the total number of houses was seven, also, 
 with a population of thirty-four people. It seems that the population 
 has since been decreased by the migration of a man and his wife and 
 eight children ; such a withdrawal would have caused a serious reduc- 
 tion in the amount of the Poll Tax if such a source of revenue had 
 still existed. Happily there is no fear of any financial difficulty arising 
 in Perivale on that account. 
 
 About three-quarters of a mile north-east of the church, in the 
 parish of Perivale, and north of the canal, there is an ancient earth- 
 work and moat, the age of which is not known though it appears to 
 be of considerable antiquity. 
 
 The earthwork is of irregular quadrilateral form ; the fosse now 
 only contains water on the south side, about which is a belt of trees ; 
 on the western side there is a depression leading to a circular hollow 
 in the ground, in which at some period some kind of structure was 
 placed. About a foot beneath the turf a bed of sandy concrete occurs, 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 109 
 
 which is, no doubt, artificial, and suggests that the spot may afterwards 
 have formed the site of a windmill at Peri vale, perhaps the one to 
 which allusion has been made, though it is not near the Brent. 
 
 It seems too hazardous to claim for this moated earthwork the high 
 antiquity which appears to be indicated by the few flakes of porce- 
 lainized flint artificially produced, which have been found among the 
 roots of the trees and in molehills at this spot, though enough has 
 been discovered to make it desirable that a cutting through the 
 mound should be made. 
 
 Horsendon Hill, the lower slopes of which are in the parish of 
 Perivale, is a naturally-formed hill of London clay surmounted by a 
 deposit of gravel of glacial, or possibly of pre-glacial, age (Westleton 
 beds). The ascent is gradual until near the summit, where it is steep. 
 A magnificent view may be obtained from the top, extending to a 
 distance of twenty-five miles to the south-south-east and south-west. 
 There are traces still left of the hill having been rudely fortified at a 
 very remote period, probably at a time before written history began : 
 a few pieces of coarse pottery, hand-made and not turned in a lathe, 
 as well as some flint flakes of the neolithic age have been found near 
 the top. The name of the hill, " Horsendon," or " Horsingdon," 
 appears to indicate that it was occupied in very remote times as a hill 
 or tribal fort : most of the higher hills were used as places of retreat 
 in the inter-tribal warfare which was always more or less going on in 
 the newer stone age and long afterwards, as shown by General Pitt- 
 Rivers and others. At such times the families of the tribe were safer 
 on the hills than in the valleys, while the higher ground, made more 
 secure by earthworks, formed good positions from which an advancing 
 hostile tribe could be seen, or from which a successful raid could be 
 made. There are two terraces, one above the other, facing the south, 
 besides the broken ground at the top, which are probably artificially 
 formed. No doubt such " points of vantage " continued in use after 
 the Roman invasion, even into the Saxon period. 
 
 It is probable that Horsingdon owes its name to the conjunction of 
 two words, the one much older than the other, the concluding 
 syllable "don," being the Keltic dun, " a hill fortress," as in Dunmore, 
 Dunkeld, &c, and Horsing is probably Anglo-Saxon, meaning the tribe 
 (ing) of the Hors. In numerous places in England we have evidence 
 of the early Saxon occupation of the country in the names of towns 
 
no THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 and villages containing ing, signifying clan or tribe, such as Bickling- 
 ton, Lullington, Henington, Hardington, &c. These places are situated 
 near Cadbury, Somerset, said to be the last stronghold of the British 
 Kelts. It is suggested that the Hardings, Sofings, Babbings, &c, were 
 early Saxon tribes, and that when they settled in a place permanently 
 the suffix " ton," signifying " enclosure or town " (the commonest of 
 our English names), was added ; but Horsendon, or Horsingdon, was 
 more probably the hill fort of the Horsings or Horsen. Ing is 
 said, however, by Worsaae to be derived from the Danish enge, a 
 meadow.* Canute is believed to have encamped his forces near this part 
 of Middlesex previously to his engagement with Edmund Ironside, by 
 whom he was afterwards defeated at Brentford. 
 
 A Legend of Horsendon Hill. 
 
 Mr. John Farthing's MSS., referred to in other places, contains a 
 tradition about this hill in which the mythical hero Horsa is intro- 
 duced. He says tradition assigns this mound (perhaps he means the 
 broken ground at the top) as the burial-place of Horsa, a bold Saxon 
 chief, the son of the king of this part of Britain, who, from his resi- 
 dence on the top of the neighbouring hill,f was called " Harro of the 
 Hill." " The wife of Horsa was supposed to be gifted with supernatural 
 powers, and from her performing her magic ceremonies and revels 
 with her elfin companions in the vale below, it took the name cf 
 • Fairy Vale,' or Peri-vale. Horsa and his spouse had but one child, 
 a most beautiful and highly-gifted daughter, who was called Ealine (Yil- 
 linge). Her mother taught her so admirably that she was in those 
 days esteemed a prodigy of learning. The fame of her beauty and 
 talents brought many suitors for her hand, but no one was so fortunate 
 in obtaining her love as a neighbouring chief called Bren, who com- 
 manded a powerful tribe on the banks of the Thames. He sent 
 ambassadors to demand her in marriage, and after due negotiation he 
 was accepted by her parents. The joining of hands over the holy 
 
 * " Danes and Norwegians," T. T. A. Worsaae, 1852. 
 
 t "In some old English records Harrow is called ' Hare we atte Hull ' (or Hill), but in 
 the most ancient documents it is called Herges, a name probably derived from the Saxon 
 word Hearge, Hergh or Herige, which is sometimes translated, a troop of soldiers and some- 
 times, a church." Lysons, who is here quoted, thinks the latter derivation the more prob- 
 able, and that there may have been a church on the hill before the Norman Conquest 
 which would have been a prominent feature in this part of the county. He says Herga 
 super montem was the ancient Latin name of the place. 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. in 
 
 stone within the magic circle was performed with great pomp and 
 ceremony according to the rites of Odin, the Saxon Deity, and after a 
 festival of many days' duration, Bren carried home his beauteous prize 
 to his own castle. 
 
 " This union proved unfortunate, for the lady was too learned for 
 her ignorant husband, who slighted her for those less refined com- 
 panions whose tastes and sentiments were more in accordance with 
 his own sensual disposition. Ealine (Yillinge), finding herself thus 
 deserted and dishonoured, vowed revenge on her faithless husband, 
 and having a favourite starling which she had herself reared and 
 taught to speak when a child, she completed its tuition and then set 
 the bird at liberty, well knowing it would seek its native vale. The 
 winged messenger flew back as conjectured, and having discovered 
 Horsa, alighted on his shoulder and told the tale taught him by its 
 mistress. The fiery chieftain immediately assembled his warriors and 
 prepared to avenge his child by the signal chastisement of his brutal 
 son-in-law. Bren, however, got intelligence of Horsa's intention, and 
 having summoned his vassals, crossed the river with all his forces. 
 The two armies met and crossed at the ford which has ever since borne 
 his name. Here Bren was slain and Horsa mortally wounded ; but 
 notwithstanding his condition, he ordered his men to carry him over 
 the river, and having ravaged Bren's country with fire and sword, he 
 brought away his daughter in triumph, and great spoil besides. Horsa 
 died of his wounds soon afterwards and was buried with great pomp, 
 along with his arms and favourite war-horse, by his people on this 
 spot, who, in commemoration of his valour, raised over his remains 
 the tumulus or mound in question, which has ever since borne his 
 name, although corrupted to the words ' Horsendon ' or 'Horsington.' 
 
 " Ealine (or Yillinge) and her mother, both being widows, retired to 
 the recesses of the adjoining forest, where they bewailed their sad loss 
 and devoted themselves to study. They lived, it is said, to a great 
 age, and Avere almost worshipped by the rude people about them for 
 their sanctity and learning. Ealine (or Yillinge) survived her mother, 
 and, at her decease, was buried on the spot where she had so long 
 lived and at length found a final resting-place. This, in remembrance 
 of her virtues, was called ' Ealine's (or Yillinge's) Haven,' by which 
 name it is to this day known. Great cures have been performed by 
 the waters in the vicinity. She was, after the introduction of 
 
ii2 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 Christianity, canonized by the name of Helena, and her portrait may 
 still be seen in stained glass in one of the windows in Perivale Church ; 
 she is represented with a book in her hand, in allusion, no doubt, to 
 her wisdom and learning." 
 
 " Even now," says the narrator, " the affrighted peasant, as he 
 hastily passes round the brow of the hill at the witching hour of night, 
 fancies he hears the solemn tread of Horsa's giant steed as he paces 
 round the place of his sepulture ; and some go so far as to affirm they 
 have seen the shadowy form of the dead warrior when the pale moon 
 illumines the hill, and the white mists curl upwards from the vale at 
 its foot. For the satisfaction of my readers," he says, " I can boldly 
 aver that, although I have been on its summit both late and early, I 
 have never seen aught there worse than myself." 
 
 Such is the legend of Horsendon Hill. Whether it is "one of the 
 traditions which" Mr. Farthing says he "gleaned from the memories of 
 aged persons," and whether it was ever extant in the locality to the full 
 extent he has narrated, or drawn more or less from the depths of his 
 powerful imagination, must for ever remain an open question. 
 
 It is a fact, however, that there were, early in this century, remains 
 of old painted glass in the side windows of the church, which had 
 suffered even more injury than those in the chancel, and among them, 
 about the period at which the legend was written (1845), was one 
 representing the figure drawn so carefully by Mr. Farthing, and which 
 probably represented a saint of the Romish Church. — (See page 67.) 
 It is true, too, that Haven Green is called Ealing's or Eling's Haven in 
 the old maps. Nothing, as far as the writer knows, has been seen of 
 late years of " the shadowy form of the dead warrior," but he was 
 gravely informed that on Greenford Marsh, on the north of the Green - 
 ford Road, a very remarkable phenomenon was noticed a few years 
 ago by several people and commented on : i.e., on a winter's morning, 
 when the ground was covered with hoar frost, the footprints of a large 
 animal, apparently going in the direction of Horsendon Hill, were 
 observed, and though the field was of the usual frosty hue, the grass 
 in the impressions of the hoofs " was scorched of a bluish tint." 
 The question is not yet settled whether the difference of colour was 
 due to the fiery feet of Horsa's steed or to unequal condensation due 
 to causes which may be easily explained. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " All things must change 
 To something new, to something strange ; 
 For nothing that is can pause or stay ; 
 The moon will wax, the moon will wane ; 
 The mist and cloud will turn to rain, 
 The rain to mist and cloud again, 
 To-morrow be to-day." — Longfellow. 
 
 The registers of the births, deaths, and marriages, and the records of 
 the meetings of vestries are not exciting compilations, though the 
 three first have their attractions to Dryasdust, the genealogist, in 
 filling up pedigrees, and may be even fascinating to the claimant to 
 the traditional " lost estate " when he fancies among the names and 
 dates he may find the connecting links of the chain which is to 
 bring him fortune. 
 
 But old parish records are often interesting to the ordinary reader, 
 on account of the incidents which are occasionally alluded to beyond 
 the mention of names of persons who are chronicled in each division 
 in succession as babies ushered into the world, as married, and, finally, 
 as buried " in woollen " according to the Act, or otherwise, and, then, 
 how quickly they are followed in the same course by their children 
 and grandchildren, until the procession of human life and the con- 
 tinuity of its story becomes saddening. 
 
 Truly there is much matter for contemplation in a parish register. 
 Who can read the old records of weddings, births, and deaths without 
 for a moment pausing "to cast a look behind"? If we could bring 
 before our mental vision some of the varied groups of people who, 
 in succession, for some hundreds of years have stood before the altar 
 of our little church, how strange would they appear to us now ; how 
 pictureque and quaint would be the dress of the bride and bridegroom 
 if we could clothe them in the fashion of the times when some of 
 these entries were made. 
 
ii+ THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 The roll is inscribed by people of many degrees of importance. 
 What a varied pageant would that long list give us ! Yet it matters 
 not whether the picture we conjure up is of knights, esquires, farmers, 
 or peasants, titled gentlewomen, the lady of the village, or the little 
 village maiden of low degree : my lady or the simple daughter of the 
 soil plighted her troth at the altar with the same love in her heart as 
 that which fills the breast and blushes on the veiled cheeks of the 
 bride of to-day. But a little while and the group is altered, and a 
 new life is added to it, associated with all the pride, tenderness, and 
 maternal self-denial which follows the incoming into this mysterious 
 world of one of the most helpless of beings. The present is but the 
 echo of the past with a very slight difference. Love and sorrow are 
 the contemporaries of all times ; they are, in a sense, ever young. A 
 brief period elapses and the chronicle tells us of another event, which 
 affects the little group that filled up the picture, and the same bitter 
 tears as are shed to-day, mark the entrance into the little church of 
 the father, mother, or child. Then there is the blank which is such 
 a mystery ! and the green mound of the village burial-place, where — 
 
 " All human love and hate 
 Find one gad level ; where soon or late 
 Wronged and wrong- doer, each with meekened face, 
 And cold hands folded over a still heart, 
 Pass the green threshold of our common grave, 
 Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart." 
 
 How much of love, sorrow, joy, hope, virtue, and sin is covertly 
 hidden in the pages of the parish register ! 
 
 The rector has kindly allowed the writer to examine the two 
 books which contain the earliest records, as already mentioned. The 
 later register has not been examined. The oldest register, an oblong 
 book with vellum leaves, shows the record of deaths to have com- 
 menced in 1707, and that of the births and marriages in 1720. 
 Inside the cover is a copy of the words of the bequest of Robert 
 Cromwell, of the parish of Paddington (contained in his will, dated 
 September 10, 1722), as follows : — "And also upon further trust that 
 the said John Cromwell, my Brother, and his heirs shall pay out of 
 the said estate (lands in Heys in Middlesex) yearly and every year, 
 on every Christmas Day, to the Minister or Parson of the said parish 
 of Perivale and his successors, Vicars or Parsons of the said Parish, 
 for ever Six Pounds in consideration that he and they preach a Ser- 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 115 
 
 mon in the Parish Church of Perivale in the afternoon of the first 
 Sunday in every month, and not otherwise. The first Sermon to 
 begin and to be made as soon as the Vicar or Parson shall have 
 notice or knowledge thereof after the decease of my said Wife, and 
 the first payment to be made him on the first Christmas Day that 
 shall happen next after her decease." How long the payment and 
 the sermon have been in abeyance it is impossible to know, but 
 probably before the commencement of the present century. 
 
 It has already been mentioned that the Cromwells here alluded to 
 were probably of the same family as the Protector, and it may be 
 useful to those who should attempt to determine the matter to know 
 that the following are the entries referring to the Cromwells in the 
 register. Between 1720 and 1812 they appear, like the baptisms, to 
 have been transcribed by the rector, Richard Mills, from an older 
 record " taken by Mr. William Brownbill, Rector of the said Parish," 
 in 1719, giving the date of burial.* 
 
 " 1720, June. Elizabeth Cromwell, of the parish of Micham, Surrey. 
 1723, Dec. 30. Robert Cromwell, and Margaret, his wife. 
 
 1727, Sept. 27. Sarah Cromwell, the wife of John Cromwell, of Micham in Surrey. 
 
 1728, May 7. E. Cromwell, the daughter of John Cromwell, of Hayes." 
 
 * With reference to the Cromwells of Perivale, and their possible connection with a 
 family of the same name settled at Ealing, though at an earlier date, a letter appeared in 
 the West Middlesex Standard, of February 15, 1890, signed "A Genealogist," which fur- 
 nishes some interesting information, as follows : — " In the suit Cromwell v. Cromwell (see 
 Chancery proceedings, Mitford, 335, 51), the bill recites the will of Walter Cromwell, 
 senior, of Ealing, yeoman, who was father of the parties. By this, which was dated 
 16th July, 1668, he devises 'Hangers' to his son, John Cromwell; an annuity of £40 
 to his wife Margaret ; and to his son Walter an annuity of £7, and 5s. a week ; this 
 Walter, the son, had a daughter, Margaret ; the elder Walter had a daughter, Jane, who 
 married William Godwin, and a grandchild, Henry Godwin : he bequeathed to the poor of 
 Ealing £10, to be paid within six months of his death, and gave his residence to his son, 
 John Cromwell. The executors were Edward Millet, of Hanwell, yeoman, and Joseph 
 Wade, of Ealing, scrivener. The legacy to Walter Cromwell was directed to be paid to 
 Edward Millet at his own house, and to be applied by bim for the use of Walter Cromwell. 
 Walter, who was the eldest son, disputes his father's will, alleging he was not sane at the 
 date of making it." The result of this Chancery suit, brought in 1680, is not stated. It is 
 well to mention also, for the information of those interested in the Cromwell pedigree, that 
 George Cromwell (signed Crumwell) , of Eling, Middlesex, bachelor, 30, and Elizabeth Bolles, 
 spinster, 21, daughter of Thomas Bolles, of Wallington, Herts, Esquire, " who consents," 
 were married at St. Sepulchre's (St. Bartholomew the Great or Less), London, on 6th Aug., 
 1663. — Vide Colonel Chester's "London Marriage Licences," 1521-1869 (Quaritch). 
 
 William Granger, editor of "The Museum and Extraordinary Magazine," published in 
 1804, a very curious old book, after giving an account of Mrs. Bridget Bendish, grand- 
 daughter of the Protector, says Richard Cromwell, the Protector's son, died at Cheshunt, 
 Herts, July 13, 1712, aged 86, and "that the son of bis son Oliver, named William 
 Cromwell, the great-grandson of the Protector, died in Kirby Street, Hatton Garden, 
 unmarried, July, 1772, aged 85"; and writing in 1804, he states that "Mr. Oliver 
 
 i 2 
 
n6 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 They are, with one exception, described, like others, up to a certain 
 date as buried in woollen. This was in consequence of an Act 
 passed in the reign of Charles II. , an enactment which remained in 
 the statute-book for one hundred and twenty years, and by it no 
 body could be buried in "anything made or mingled with flax, hemp, 
 silk, hair, gold or silver, or any stuff or thing other than what is 
 made of sheep's wool only," on pain of £5 fine, and an affidavit 
 had to be made for this purpose either to the magistrate or the officia- 
 ting minister. Nevertheless, in several cases at Perivale the enactment 
 was disobeyed, and the rector had to record that he had not received 
 an affidavit ; it was so in the case of Robert Cromwell and Margaret, 
 his wife, mentioned above. In the case of Ann Lateward, of Ealing, 
 who died in 1779, a penalty seems to have been paid, as it is written — 
 "she was buried in Linen, for which the undertaker paid 50/, which 
 was distributed among the poor." 
 
 The exportation of English wool had been the subject of various 
 Acts since Edward III. In 1660 the export of wool was, after many 
 oscillations between permission to export, partial prohibition, and 
 actual prohibition, finally made penal ; and as the production of 
 wool exceeded the consumption the price felL The Act referring to 
 burials was one of the very remarkable expedients resorted to for 
 stimulating the demand for English woollen manufactures. 
 
 Of course, like every other parish register, the one at Perivale con- 
 tained entries such as a " wayfaring man " or " a pauper " was " buried 
 in woollen " — poor outcasts, who died without friends in some barn or 
 outhouse. The brevity of the entries reminds us of Hood's well- 
 known lines : — 
 
 " Rattle his bones over the stones : 
 He's only a pauper who nobody owns." 
 
 The following entry shows that at that time robberies by highway- 
 men occurred in the vicinity of Perivale and Ealing. From the 
 register it appears there were several families of Verreys in Perivale, 
 and that they had been settled there for some generations. 
 
 " 174f. Samuel Verrey, Farmer : He was set upon by two foot 
 pads on Saturday night last abount 7 of ye clock near Castle-bear 
 
 Cromwell, an attorney in the Million Bank office, and Mr. Thomas Cromwell, now in the 
 East Indies, sons of Thomas Cromwell, of Snow Hill, and the Protector's great-grandsons, 
 are the only survivors of his male line." 
 
OR, PER/ALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 117 
 
 Hill, & on making some resistence was shot by one of y m thro' ye 
 body : of which wound he languish'd till Monday morning and then 
 expired. B d in Woolen, as per affidavit received." 
 
 A small " broadsheet " is in the possession of one of the unfor- 
 tunate man's descendants, dated January 24, 1747, which gives — 
 
 " A full and particular account of the Apprehending and Taking 
 of William Groves & Noah Groves for the barbarous Murder of 
 Samuel Yerrey, a Substantial Farmer of Oxendon Hill [sic] in the 
 Parish of Perrivale, who going home last Saturday night about 
 7 o'clock, was attacked close by the empty house by Castle-bear, late 
 in the possession of D r Hollings, near the Uxbridge Road, with the 
 whole examination before the Right Hon. the Worshipful Justice 
 Clithero, and their commitment last night, the one to Newgate, the 
 other to New Prison." 
 
 It appears from the evidence that Verrey and his son were riding 
 " near the sign of ' Ye Feathers,' " and the farmer had passed the 
 robbers, but seeing his son stopped by them, he rode back and struck 
 one of them a violent blow," when the other villain shot him in the 
 breast, and robbed him of part of his money. The dangerous condi- 
 tion of the highroads about Ealing and Perivale at that time, and 
 the dread which accompanied a journey of a few miles, even when 
 the traveller was mounted, is manifest from the sequel : Verrey 
 " settled his affairs and earnestly desired all people to be cautious of 
 travelling late or making any defence if attacked by such villains." 
 
 The following is a list of the Rectors, from 1706 to the present 
 time, with the year of the death of such as were buried in Perivale 
 Churchyard, as shown in the register. 
 
 It may be mentioned that the last rector noticed in Newcourt's 
 list (see p. 51), is Richard Ward, who was rector in 1700. No doubt 
 he was succeeded by Beard, who was rector in 1705. The following 
 names appear to make the list consecutive : — 
 
 " William Brownbill rector, presented, 1706 ; died, 1719. 
 
 Richard Mills „ „ 1719; „ 1746. 
 
 Richard Badcock Shury rector in 1783 ; ,, 1789. 
 
 James Maidman „ 1790; ,, 1809. 
 
 William Pearson „ 1810; resigned. 1812. 
 
 Frederick James Lateward (son of the patron) . ,, 1812 ; died, 1861 (?) 
 
 (The Rev. Dr. Giles was curate in charge during the latter part of this period.) 
 Charles J. Hughes, LL.D., rector, presented in 1861, present incumbent." 
 
u8 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 Doubtless, if an older register had been extant, it would be found 
 that many of the old rectors, besides those mentioned, were buried 
 in the little churchyard, and that there was many a one before — 
 
 " Who in yonder pile his voice was heard to sound, 
 But now his body rests beneath its hallowed ground." 
 
 Between 1750 and 1783 the following clergymen officiated at the 
 church, but the larger part of the duty was taken by the Rev. A. 
 Cookson ; Philip Fletcher, Dean of Kildare ; Charles Cuthbert, 
 " clerk" ; A. Cookson, Rector of Newton, Lincolnshire ; C. Ayleway, 
 Curate of Ealing ; John Dodson ; Charles Campbell, curate ; J. Hig- 
 gate ; R. Shury, curate ; J. Willis, clerk : J. Robinson, curate, and 
 Robert Winkle, " minister." 
 
 It is noticeable that in the last century, as in this, many 
 persons who resided in London, or at a distance elsewhere, were 
 brought to Perivale for interment in the graveyard of the little 
 church ; among such are John Arnold, of St. John's, Clerkenwell, in 
 1730 ; John Roy Arnold, of St. Bridget's, London, 1742 ; Augustus 
 Arnold, of St. Sepulchre's, London, 1743 ; Mathew Cockett, of St. An- 
 drew's, Holborn, 1732, and others from Stepney, Westminster, &c. ; also 
 Philip Fletcher, Dean of Kildare. He appears to have had the right 
 of presentation to the living, and to have occasionally officiated in 
 the church. Dean Fletcher was the brother of the Bishop of Kildare, 
 and the author of a poem entitled " Truth at Court," which was 
 much read at the time, but which has now passed into oblivion. He 
 also wrote another poem called " Nature and Fortune," which, though 
 quoted in Dodsley's "Collection" (ed. 1782), has not escaped the 
 same fate. Of the other Fletchers, Mrs. Frances Fletcher was interred 
 here in 1768, and Frances Fletcher, of Crowold, in 1776. There are 
 also other entries than those whose monuments have been mentioned, 
 referring in like manner to the Harrisons and Latewards, and those 
 families with whom they intermarried, as the Clerkes, Fullers, &c. 
 
 Among those whose names are in the register of burials is that of 
 George Augustus Elliott, of Ealing, eldest son of Lord Heathfield, the 
 gallant defender of Gibraltar (died in 1753). Lord Heathfield lived 
 for years on Castlebar HilL 
 
 It is curious to note among the marriages in the church at Peri- 
 vale, the number of instances in which both parties came from a 
 distance, and were married by licence. Some of those who sought the 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. ug 
 
 seclusion of the '* church with no name," to take the new vows were 
 widowers. Thus, in 1740, Richard Weedon, of St. John's, Wapping, 
 widower, married Mary Styles, of Hillingdon, spinster, by licence. 
 Some of the names conjoined in the entries are of persons bearing cog- 
 nomens identified with the previous history of the parish and advow- 
 son. Thus, in 1727 John Howard, of Harrow, married Sarah Millet, 
 of this parish. In 1737 Edward Clerke, of New Inn, Middlesex, 
 married Mrs. Jane Harrison, by licence. In 1740 Harry Johnson, 
 of St. Augustine's, London, married Betty Atlee, of Hillingdon, by 
 licence; and in 1750 Simon Fuller Wykes, of St. Sepulchre's, Lon- 
 don, married Mrs. Susanna Harrison, by licence. 1757, John Fuller, 
 widower, and Elizabeth Knight, spinster, both of this parish, married 
 by licence, by Philip Fletcher, Dean of Kildare. In 1758 William 
 Wroughton, of Halton, Bucks, bachelor, and Dorothy Musgrove, of 
 St. Mary, Oxon, were married. The last entry is like some others, 
 which look very like " runaway matches." 
 
 It is not pleasing to record that the register of Perivale Church, 
 like that of so many other churches, has been sadly mutilated, and 
 obviously for the purpose of destroying the evidence it would have 
 afforded. The parchment leaves have been abstracted, containing the 
 baptisms between May, 1789, and August, 1807; and a portion of 
 the leaf, containing a marriage on each page, between 1793 and 1798, 
 has been taken off. The pages have been cut out neatly with scissors. 
 How could such an act be committed without the knowledge or 
 negligence of the rector who had charge of the book at the early 
 part of this century ? 
 
 Such excisions to destroy the evidence of a marriage were not 
 uncommon among the chaplains to the Fleet Prison, as the following 
 extract shows, but are quite unexpected at Perivale : — 
 
 " ' Would you readily marry me if I had a partner at hand, or get 
 me married just now?' inquires a citizen of Farringdon Within to 
 the clerk and registrar of the Fleet. ' Of course we could, sir,' says 
 the Rev. Mr. Symson ; ' and if you are at a loss for a partner, we can 
 find you one directly — a widow with a handsome jointure — a bloom- 
 ing virgin of 19;' and here he comes close and whispers, '■ If you 
 don't like her, there is no harm done — tear out the entry — you 
 understand.' " * 
 
 * Knight's ''London." 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 " I hold the world but as the world — 
 A stage, where every man must play a part." 
 
 Merchant of Venice. 
 
 Unpretending as is the church and hamlet of Perivale, it could 
 boast of a parish clerk in 1861, when the present rector entered 
 upon his duties. His name was Cain, and he was sexton as well as 
 clerk, and he held these offices even longer than the gravedigger in 
 Hamlet, who had " been sexton here, man and boy, thirty year," 
 for, in fact, Cain had been sexton and parish clerk for fifty years. 
 His long service is recorded, with his death at the age of eighty-three, 
 upon a small wooden cross in that part of the churchyard which 
 appears to have been set aside for the parishioners, as shown by the 
 inscriptions on the headstones, or where " no frail memorial " meets 
 the eye but — 
 
 " Heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap. 
 Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, 
 The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep " — 
 
 the honest farmers — the Westmores, Barnjums, Trustrums, Smiths, 
 Gibsons, &c. — who paid the tithe and governed the parish to the 
 best of their ability. 
 
 " Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, 
 
 Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke. 
 How jocund did they drive their team afield ; 
 
 How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke ! " 
 
 " Old Cain," as he was called, was considered very eccentric, but 
 eccentricity is often but another name for simplicity, and simplicity 
 is becoming a rare virtue in these days. Divine service had been 
 conducted in most of Cain's time in a very primitive manner, 
 though probably not the less sincere on the part of the few who 
 " were gathered together " ; albeit, it is not surprising that the 
 worthy old clerk found it difficult to fall into new-fangled altera- 
 
THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA. 121 
 
 tions, which he could not understand, and some very curious anec- 
 dotes are related of him. It was no uncommon thing for the old 
 man to be seen in such a position as to command a view of the path 
 from Ealing while the rector was preparing for the morning service, 
 and hear the former shout out : " Can't see no congregations 
 a-coming along, sir. May I put the books up ? " 
 
 Among the old servants in the church was the hand barrel-organ, 
 which for many years had done duty and done its best to keep the 
 " congregations " in time when they sang ; but alas ! the same fate 
 which is the lot of mankind in their old age, at last overtook that 
 venerable musical instrument — it lost many of the teeth which 
 enabled it to pour forth its volume of sound ; it had never been of 
 the sweetest, and the harsh, grating roll of the toothless notes did 
 not conduce to the harmony of the singing. With the advent of 
 the Rev. Dr. Hughes came improvements in many directions, includ- 
 ing the music — among them the institution of matins and evensong. 
 The simple rustic had never heard of such services, and, though it 
 may seem to the reader to be an invention on the writer's part, he 
 can give the best authority for saying that the clerk and sexton 
 asked the new rector whether it was not Mr. Matins who wrote the 
 music in use in the services. After this it is easy to believe that 
 the old man became the victim of a joke played by some boys in a 
 school kept by the curate in charge, the Rev. Dr. Giles, the imme- 
 diate predecessor of the present rector, who, when he had to give out 
 the hymn (selected from the collection at the end of the book of 
 Common Prayer, which was then in use) : — "Let us sing to the praise 
 and glory of God No. 5, together with the ' Gloria patri,' " persuaded 
 the clerk to alter it into — " Let us sing to the praise and glory of 
 God No. 5, together with the glorious patriarch." 
 
 It is also on record that Cain, noticing that the performer on the 
 barrel-organ had made a mistake and was playing the evening hymn 
 instead of the one given out, interrupted the music with the reminder, 
 '*. You be a-playin' the evening hymn instead of the mornin' hymn." 
 Perhaps, after all, it was the only Avay of getting over the difficulty, 
 and the old sexton intended to be decorous, if it does not appear so 
 in our eyes now, when nearly thirty-five years have passed away. 
 Such incidents were then not uncommon in this as in other churches 
 
122 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 in the country ; nor is it improbable, as it has been averred, that the old 
 curate-in-charge at that time, seeing two well-known ladies enter the 
 church and join the few rustics who composed the congregation, requested 
 his wife in an audible voice to " go and bring the offertory plate " : 
 he had abandoned all hope of the offertory producing anything except 
 from such attendants. It is not surprising that under such circum- 
 stances he should have sometimes paused in the service and indicated 
 himself the pew into which the better class of worshippers should go. 
 
 These were the good old days of high pews, when the expression, 
 attitude, and dress of the worshipper were not open to the idle gaze 
 and criticism of the more undevout and indifferent members of the 
 congregation. The pews were replaced by open sittings in 1868, and 
 before that time a proper means had been found for warming the 
 church : until then it had been customary to send an iron pierced 
 vessel filled with lighted coke from the rectory. 
 
 The " roomy pew " which belonged to the Lateward family, " lined 
 and cushioned with faded and worm-eaten scarlet cloth," was imme- 
 diately opposite the reading-desk ; doubtless it had been used by many 
 of the territorial lords of Perivale before them. The old barrel-organ 
 was placed on the north-west side of the building close to the vestry, 
 and in front of it was the seat of the worthy old clerk and sexton, 
 Richard Cain. The church was then supposed to contain a maximum 
 of sixty persons. 
 
 "Nothing," says Mr. Farthing, in his notes in 1845, "comes amiss 
 to Cain, the old sexton — farming, cattle doctoring, rick-making, thatch- 
 ing, gardening, making rustic ornaments, carpentering, building, grave- 
 digging, brewing (and drinking the beer afterwards), and a hundred 
 other occupations he was equally clever at ; " but there is one thing 
 he could not do, i.e., sing psalms, although he could, " over a Christ- 
 mas fire, with the yule log burning cheerily, strike up many a song 
 and roundelay. He would have made a capital settler in the back- 
 woods, and in time would doubtless have become rich ; but fate fixed 
 his abode at Perivale : here was he born, and many generations of 
 Cains before him, and here in all probability he will be buried when 
 old ' Edax rerum ' thinks proper to mow him down with his scythe, 
 and then another sexton shall do that for poor Richard which he, in 
 his day, hath done for so many who have gone before him." 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 123 
 
 " There is nothing of the sycophant about him : he looks you boldly 
 and steadily in the face when he speaks, and there is a sly twinkle in 
 his clear blue eye which clearly indicates that he considers himself as 
 good as you, although not so well off in the world." He cracked his 
 little jokes with the Bishop when the latter on one occasion visited the 
 church. Nor was the good Bishop at all displeased with him, " for 
 there was never the appearance of impertinence, much less incivility, 
 about him, but on the contrary he rewarded him with a gratuity which 
 made the old man very proud, as other parish clerks were not treated 
 in the same manner." There is " simply a downright honest John 
 Bullism about old Cain " ; and when, "after a hard day's toil, he bids 
 you a cheerful ' Good night,' and seeks his tumbledown cot, you feel 
 assured there is one happy and contented man" at any rate in the world. 
 
 But, with all his good qualities, Cain could not sing the Church 
 music, and as the difficulties created thereby were partly the cause 
 of the introduction of the old barrel-organ, it is as well to give an 
 account of the way the obstacles arose and were overcome in the 
 writer's own words. " I was much shocked and scandalised by the 
 miserable manner in which the Psalmody was burlesqued ; without 
 taste, voice, or ear, poor Cain, the clerk, grunted forth the most dolorous 
 and unearthly sounds. It was really a penance to the serious portion 
 of the congregation, and a matter of unseemly mirth to the more 
 thoughtless when he ruthlessly murdered the poetry of the sweet 
 Psalmist of Israel, who had been previously martyred by Dr. Brady 
 and his laureated coadjutor. 
 
 ' Tate and the doctor had great qualms 
 When they translated David's psalms. 
 But had it been poor David's fate 
 To hear Cain sing and them translate, 
 I am sure it would have driven him mad ' — 
 
 Cain's cacophony " proving intolerable," " I at first thought of pro- 
 curing a similar instrument to the one at the church at Twyford " (an 
 Eolina), but as there might be difficulty in getting any one to play it, 
 it was determined, if possible, " to procure a barrel-organ, which any 
 one could play upon." Ultimately " one was procured which contained 
 twenty psalm tunes, and, with this to help, we reopened the church 
 in fine style," the writer of the " Pictures of Perivale " acting as 
 leader ; but, alas ! to his dismay, no one but old Cain attempted to 
 
j 24 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 sing, and the latter and the former together made such a discord, 
 as, he says, made him heartily wish Cain, " the instrument, and my- 
 self anywhere but in Perivale Church." Having ultimately got a little 
 choir together, things promised to go well, but the old clerk was not 
 to be disposed of so easily ; for he " was determined to lead, or, rather, 
 mislead, and the obstinate fellow, who croaked like a frog in a marsh, 
 persisted in singing, as he called it." The two or three ladies who 
 helped gave up their self-imposed task in disgust. There would have 
 probably been a reversion to the old style of music but for the inde- 
 fatigable exertions of Mr. Farthing, who subsequently added ten new 
 tunes to the instrument, prevailing on old Cain at the same time " to 
 give up his unconscionable howling " on his being duly installed as 
 " organist," or grinder to the barrel-organ. 
 
 The person who had for many years about this period officiated at 
 the organ in this manner, and whose services it was considered 
 desirable to replace by those of Cain, in the hope that he would be 
 content therewith, and not again join in the vocal music, was one 
 Thomas Hope, a curious character. He was an old man and very 
 poor, but still the owner of three or four hovels he had built just out- 
 side the parish on the western side of Horsendon Hill. They were 
 let for the modest rent of Is. or Is. 6d. a week to people as poor as 
 himself. Hope was a " good landlord " in one sense : he received 
 very little rent, and never enforced his claims, and even ground the 
 organ gratuitously. Although not a parishioner, his name is identified 
 with Perivale as one of its institutions in the early part of this cen- 
 tury. The old man was, in fact, the means of communication to 
 some extent between the hamlet and the outer world ; he was 
 entrusted with commissions to execute in the adjacent towns. Ealing 
 beiDg then but a small village, and the commodities required not 
 being generally obtainable there, he was often dispatched to Brent- 
 ford to purchase such articles as were needed. 
 
 The peculiar feature in Hope's character was his passion for stand- 
 ing sponsor to the children born in the neighbourhood of Perivale. 
 It is said " he stood " for more than five hundred children, and was 
 present as a spectator at twice that number of baptismal ceremonies. 
 It is not surprising that " his memory is still green around Perivale," 
 and it is likely to remain so. 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 1*5 
 
 The old man's attention was not, however, only devoted to the occa- 
 sions of responsibility associated with the entrance into this mysterious 
 world : he had an equal enthusiasm for attending funerals. For this 
 purpose he would walk many miles, and it is said he always stayed 
 until the graves were filled up ; in fact, he rivalled old Machyn, in 
 Henry VIII.'s reign (who left us his diary), in his desire to be present 
 on such occasions, with this difference : the latter bestowed his atten- 
 tion on the " exit " of important people, whereas old Hope was pre- 
 sent at the obsequies of the rich and poor alike, and left no record. 
 
 As for Cain, the worthy old sexton and clerk, more fortunate than 
 Hope, has he not been immortalized in verse by the poet of Perivale 
 before mentioned ? The following stanzas are from the — 
 
 ODE TO RICHARD CAIN. 
 
 Near Perivale : hard by the worn high- 
 way, 
 Close to the winding Brent his hovel 
 stands, 
 The roof and walls are crumbling to decay, 
 Save where repaired by his own toil- 
 worn hands ; 
 Observe the crazy hut, ye passers by ! 
 And pity the poor man who lives so 
 wretchedly. 
 ***** 
 The various phases of the moon he knows, 
 And whence her orb derives her silver 
 sheen, 
 From what strange cause the winding 
 Brent o'erflows, 
 By which the meads so oft have flooded 
 been: 
 Recounts what comets have appear'd of 
 
 old, 
 Portending want and woe and miseries 
 manifold. 
 
 A goodly sight I wot it is to view, 
 
 Cain as the Parish Clerk on Sabbath 
 day, 
 Seated beneath the organ in his pew, 
 Or kneeling down with lifted hands to 
 pray: 
 As ever and anon, at close of prayer, 
 He shouteth out a — men with solemn air. 
 
 " Such times an ancient suit of black he 
 wears, 
 Which from the Rector's wardrobe did 
 descend ; 
 Love to his clerk the worthy Parson 
 bears, 
 Pities his griefs and wishes to befriend : 
 But what, alas, can our incumbent do, 
 Blest with a wife and sons and daughters 
 too! 
 ***** 
 
 " His youthful feats with honest pride he 
 told, 
 In rural sports what honours he had 
 won; 
 How on the green he threw the wrestler 
 bold, 
 How far he leapt ; and oh, how swift 
 he ran ; 
 Then with a sigh he fondly gave due 
 
 praise 
 To rivals now no more and friends of 
 former days ; 
 
 ' ' At length concluding with reflection deep : 
 Alas ! of life few comforts now remain, 
 Of what I was, I but the shadow keep, 
 
 Worn down by labour, penury and pain. 
 Yet let me not arraign just Heaven's 
 
 decree, 
 The lot of Human -kind, as man belongs 
 to me." 
 
 The minute-book of the vestry from 1812 to 1851 was evidently 
 commenced under the direction of the rector, the Rev. James F. Late- 
 ward, and, like the register, begun with such care by the Rev. R. 
 
iz6 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 Mills, the rector in 1719, was apparently a new departure, an attempt 
 to proceed in a legal and proper manner in recording the events of 
 the church and parish. 
 
 The first resolution of the vestry in 1812 referred to the purchase 
 of a new Prayer Book, the one in use " being so torn as to be 
 incapable of being repaired ; " the second was to bring the Grand 
 Junction Canal Company, which had " not been regularly rated to 
 the parish rates" within the area of assessment, and forthwith to 
 levy rates upon it, and then to resolve " that, as William Trustrum, 
 junr., will have performed the office of Parish Clerk for nine years at 
 Easter next, and has received no salary for such office, it is ordered 
 that he be paid out of the parish rates at the rate of £2 12s. 6d. per 
 annum for the said nine years." It is probable that Trustrum would 
 not have been so patient in regard to his increasing claim if "the 
 principal inhabitants" (an expression often used) had met oftener in 
 vestry and proceeded to levy rates. When they did meet, however, 
 they acted vigorously, and ordered that a rate be made at 2s. 8d. in 
 the pound on the Grand Junction Canal Company from 1810 to 1811, 
 and another rate on the " inhabitants " for overseers' expenses between 
 1811 and 1812 at Is. 7d. in the pound. They purchased an iron 
 chest to contain the new register books, and ordered "that the roof of 
 Perrivale Church be forthwith repaired at the expense of the parish, 
 and that Joseph Hopgood, pauper, be allowed seven shillings a week 
 at the expense of the parish." In 1814 there is a curious entry — " that 
 Mr. Westmore, senior, having consented to do and finish at his own 
 expense the repairing and mending of the road leading from Apperton 
 to Perrivale in Marbone Hills, the said proposal and offer be accepted 
 and agreed to by Mr. Barnjum and Mr. Amer." 
 
 In 1817 it was resolved to allow Mr. Barnjum out of the poor rate 
 made in 1814, and out of and from "the two following rates made 
 and assessed in 1817, one pound each." What service he rendered 
 for this munificent payment is not stated, but there are reasons for 
 believing that he was then' the representative of law and order, and 
 had performed the duties of parish constable. 
 
 Emboldened by the satisfaction which these Acts appear to have 
 given to " the inhabitants," a vestry was held in 1817 for the purpose 
 of nominating and making a list of substantial householders, or "such 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 127 
 
 persons as shall be resident in tins parish, for the purpose and choice 
 of his Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the serving the office of 
 Surveyor of the High Ways of this parish for the year ensuing." 
 
 The minute is signed by the churchwarden, the overseer, and two 
 inhabitants — two signatures, the others by their marks. There is no 
 evidence that the " surveyor of highways" was then elected, though 
 that officer was appointed two or three years subsequently. 
 
 It must not be supposed, however, that the Yestry of Perivale in 
 1818 was without power (unless, indeed, it was illegally assumed). 
 At a meeting held in that year, at which the two overseers, the 
 churchwarden, and one " inhabitant" were present, they resolved and 
 agreed " that James Curtis do pay into the hands of the church- 
 wardens and overseers fifteen pounds for and towards the relief and 
 support of his illegitimate child." 
 
 In 1820 William Rolph was appointed constable, at £2 2s. per 
 annum ; and at a subsequent meeting a proposal from the rector 
 that " Hazard's salary (parish clerk) was or further should be 
 increased was negatived by the undermentioned meeting." All the 
 farmers, which is nearly synonymous with the ratepayers, number- 
 ing five, attended this meeting with the rector. Hazard was then 
 being paid at the rate of £2 12s. 6d. per annum. 
 
 For a considerable time one churchwarden sufficed, but in 1824, 
 and for some years afterwards, two were appointed. The overseer or 
 overseers appear to have been chosen, and rates levied for the neces- 
 sary relief of the poor, varying from Is. to 3s. in the pound, and 
 a church rate irregularly, up to 1832, when a blank occurs, and 
 there is no recorded meeting until 1836, when the churchwarden, 
 William Hierons, and two inhabitants attended, and appointed a 
 churchwarden and a constable. 
 
 In 1826 there appears to have been a serious dispute in Perivale 
 about money matters. Barnjum, one of the principal inhabitants, 
 had called in the good offices of the rector, who, as he says, " was 
 always anxious to promote at all times good will and friendship 
 among his parishioners." Mr. Barnjum " expressed his desire to 
 settle his accounts of money with those parishioners of Perivale who 
 had claims on him, provided a certain sum which was due to him 
 was paid ;" but the vestry seems to have had no effect, Mr. Barnjum 
 
i28 THE CHRONICLES OF GREEN FORD PARVA ; 
 
 " being altogether at variance with that desire for reconciliation, this 
 disposition being manifested in perverse and most unfounded objec- 
 tion to the accounts of rates, &c, delivered to him as due by the 
 overseers;" and "by an evident determination on his part to avoid 
 payment of the said rates." He had also omitted to pay his tithe 
 when called on to do so by the churchwardens. How this serious 
 business was settled the record sayeth not, but it is evident it was 
 settled in some way. It appears that at this time " the services of 
 Mr. Hawkins as 'vestry clerk' had for a considerable time been de- 
 voted with great fidelity to the parish without remuneration, so the 
 sum of five pounds was named by Mr. Barnjum, and agreed to be 
 given to him out of the next poor rate," as a gratuity. 
 
 As in the great world so in the small world of Perivale, the inhabi- 
 tants had their rise and fall in fortune. Mr. John Westmore, 
 farmer, who had served the office of overseer and churchwarden, and 
 who, in other ways, appears to have been " a prominent citizen," must 
 have suffered a reverse in his career, as, in 1831, a vestry is called 
 to consider ° what it was competent to be allowed him ; it was 
 agreed that the sum of 8 s. per week was sufficient for the main- 
 tenance of Mr. and Mrs. Westmore ; and it was also the wish of the 
 said inhabitants that the daughters of Mrs. Westmore should not 
 reside with them." What will strike the ordinary reader in perusing 
 these proceedings, is the independent action of the Perivale vestry. 
 There is no suggestion of any reference to any central authority, such 
 as the Board of Guardians, up to this date. Presumedly that body 
 did not exist, and the social amenities of the Board at Brentford had 
 not come into action. 
 
 It is evident from the minutes of the vestry that the rector had 
 some difficulty in getting a church rate voted for " the repairs and 
 other expenses of the church." One was passed of 3d. in the 
 pound in 1830, "to defray church fees and expenses," as well as 
 Is. in the pound in 1830 and 1831, "for the immediate and neces- 
 sary relief of the poor and other purposes mentioned by the several 
 Acts ;" but though there was the average attendance of three or 
 four people in the latter meetings when the poor rates were voted, 
 there seems to have been no enthusiasm displayed in favour of the 
 church, to say the least, when the rate for defraying the church fees 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 120 
 
 and expenses were considered, as it appears, the meeting was attended 
 only by a gentleman who united in his own person the offices of 
 churchwarden and overseer, and by another person who describes 
 himself as " an inhabitant," and who subsequently was appointed 
 " constable," perhaps for his meritorious attendances at the vestry 
 meetings. A few years later, and the said churchwarden and overseer 
 offered to fulfil the office of constable, and "as a constable was 
 required," his offer was agreed to. 
 
 It is evident from the minutes that in 1836, after the lapse of 
 four years, during which no vestry meetings are recorded, the church 
 had been neglected, and that the Rural Dean had found it necessary 
 to interfere. In August a meeting was held, " when, after much 
 conversation and friendly advice given to his parishioners by the 
 incumbent, in urging them to comply with the orders of the Rural 
 Dean respecting the repairs and fittings of the church, as settled 
 between the Rural Dean and the churchwarden, it was resolved by 
 vote, in addition to the said repairs and fittings ordered at the last 
 meeting," held three weeks earlier — " That the tower of the church, 
 which had been painted once over, should be painted once apain, the 
 rector not having been able to carry into effect the order of the 
 Rural Dean that the whole of it should be painted three times, and 
 even a minority of the vestry having dissented to its being re- 
 painted." The other resolutions refer to other reparations ; but 
 they are modified in an economical sense, and not in accordance 
 with the orders of the Dean. Among the resolutions there is one 
 " that a new surplice be ordered, that the old Prayer Book be re- 
 paired for the clerk, and that, instead of a new Bible and Prayer 
 Book for the reading-desk, the churchwarden be directed to procure 
 a second-hand Bible and Prayer Book (if he should be able to do so) 
 suitable for the purpose." 
 
 The sixth resolution put at this meeting is a remarkable one : 
 " That a font with a lid for christenings be not ordered, on the score 
 that, in point of fact, there are no christenings for 'parishioners of 
 Perivale, nor likely to be any. On this consideration the rector [as 
 he writes pathetically] was unable to procure the assent of any one 
 of his parishioners to the order for the font." 
 
 The old font which is now in the church, and which bears on the 
 
 K 
 
1 30 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA. 
 
 cover the inscription, " The Gift of Simon Coston, Gent, 1665," was 
 subsequently found hidden away among rubbish which had accumu- 
 lated. In 1861 there was such a collection, filling the little vestry 
 under the tower. It is evident that at this time there was no 
 proper font in use in the church. 
 
 The 8d. in the pound for church repairs then levied appears to have 
 been calculated to produce £24 10s., arising from a gross rental of 
 £755. This was not obtained without great difficulty, as the farmer 
 (Mr. Hierons) assessed at the highest amount (£200 per annum) 
 repeatedly refused to bear his portion of the rate, and left the vestry 
 (held in December, 1836). Under these circumstances the rector 
 found it impracticable to give effect to the assent of the parishioners 
 for a Prayer Book for the clerk, new surplice, &c. " It was, however, 
 determined that the churchwarden should give immediate orders for 
 the repair of the tower, shattered by the late winds," and the order 
 for the collection of the rate was confirmed. 
 
 In March, 1837, the largest ratepayer referred to still persisting in 
 his determination not to pay the £6 13s. 4d. due from him, a con- 
 siderable deficit arose, and the churchwarden was threatened with 
 legal proceedings to enforce the payment of certain bills ; but at the 
 vestry, called in consequence, only the rector, the churchwarden, 
 and John Hobbs, "an inhabitant rated at £10," attended. At this 
 meeting, on the proposal of the rector, seconded by the aforesaid 
 Hobbs, Mr. Smith was appointed " churchwarden of the parish, 
 overseer, and guardian of the poor for the year ensuing." 
 
 In 1839, when another church rate of 5d. in the pound was 
 made, to cover the deficit which still continued, and other expenses, 
 the rental of the lands in Perivale had increased collectively to 
 £1,136 10s.; and in 1849 to £1,152. The disbursements from the 
 church rate are henceforth carefully set forth, and a rate of two or 
 threepence annually seems generally to have sufficed. The minute- 
 book, and, in fact, the whole management of the church, &c, bears 
 distinct evidence of great improvement since Mr. John Farthing 
 became churchwarden in 1846. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 " A lonely stream that sobs along, 
 Like a child that has lost his way, 
 Making its moan in the heartless hills 
 That imprison it night and day." 
 
 The river Brent, which forms such a picturesque feature in the 
 country around Peri vale, is the result of streams rising in the districts 
 of Hendon, Finchley, and Hampstead. After passing through Kings- 
 bury, where, by artificial means, it has been converted into a lake or 
 reservoir, and past Willesden and Twyford to Perivale, it turns south 
 and enters the Thames at Brentford. 
 
 The subsoil of the whole of this part of Middlesex is London clay, 
 except the tops of the higher hills, where, as on Harrow Hill, a capping 
 of Bagshot sand and gravel occurs, as part of the continuous Tertiary 
 strata beneath, and a remnant of the vast thickness of the same beds 
 which in Tertiary times covered the whole of Middlesex, long before 
 there was even a beginning to the present sculpture of the surface into 
 hill and dale. On the lesser hills, rising from 150 to over 200 feet, 
 Avhich border the valley, another formation occurs —it is of Quatern- 
 ary Age, which succeeded the Tertiary, and on the summits, as well as 
 clothing some of the higher slopes of "the Mount," Hanger Hill, &c, 
 are deposits, the relics of that period of great cold when much of the 
 British Isles was covered deep in ice or frozen snow called neve, the 
 result in great part of the vast outpouring of the glaciers, which, ema- 
 nating from the mountains of Scotland, Cumberland, and Wales in 
 confluent flow, overspread the land. 
 
 They are of the highest interest to the geologist, since the incom- 
 ing of man into this country is associated with this epoch, which has 
 been fitly called the Glacial Period. 
 
 Upon the summit of '* the Mount," which, with Hanger Hill, &c, 
 forms a ridge dividing the Brent Valley from that of the Thames, there 
 was found, when the reservoirs there were made, deposits which appear 
 to have been formed in a lake at that hisdi level before the Brent 
 Valley had been eroded. The silty laminated beds of the lacustrine 
 
 k 2 
 
i 3 z THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 deposits contained deep furrows filled with gravel and clayey matter. 
 Under these furrows the stratified beds were twisted and contorted, 
 as if from the pressure of masses of ice which in melting deposited 
 the stones. Some very large masses of sarsen stone or greywether, 
 one of which has been preserved there, were found in the excavations, 
 while all over the surface of the land small boulders of rock were dis- 
 covered, which had been transported by ice from the north of England, 
 Wales, and even probably from Scotland, all pointing to the severe 
 •climatic conditions which prevailed ere the present valleys were formed. 
 Similar deposits occur at Finchley and other places north of Pf rivale, 
 and such lakes are often formed in the morainic matter or bounded 
 by the ice itself, as the neve, or icecap, recedes in countries where an 
 arctic climate now prevails. 
 
 The gravel which the Brent deposits along its course is composed 
 of much-rolled and other pebbles, derived from the hills to the north 
 of the county, and they are found at all levels up to fifty feet in the 
 valley ; they mark the depth to which the valley had been eroded at 
 different times in the past. There is also evidence all along the valley 
 of the river having changed its channel many times in the course of 
 its history, for our little river behaves exactly as great rivers are found 
 to do when they flow through a flat valley. In time of flood it has 
 often made short cuts across instead of following its old bends and 
 curves, besides continually cutting back its old banks in some places. 
 The ancient channels are now T often marked by old pollard oaks, some 
 of w r hich date back to the time when the poor were allowed to cut 
 them for fuel when coal was very scarce, while an absence of trees on 
 the margin in other places where the river now flows, shows the course 
 of its later vagaries. Such is a brief outline of the geology and 
 physiography of the Brent Valley. 
 
 A few words about the humbler denizens and temporary sojourners 
 in Peri vale and the Brent Valley and our story is told. What history 
 of a rural hamlet is complete which does not tell us something about 
 the birds which frequent it ? 
 
 Have they not their favourite home on the banks of our pretty 
 Brent ? their haunts among the trees, hedgerows, and meadows about 
 Perivale ? Let the jaded and anxious City man accompany a friend who 
 is familiar with the notes, habits, and haunts of birds in a few 
 rambles in that secluded country in spring and summer, and the 
 
OR, PERI VALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 133 
 
 revelation of a new world will be made to him. He will find, as White 
 of Selborne says, " that the winged tribes have various sounds and 
 voices adapted to express their various passions, wants, and feelings, 
 such as anger, fear, love, hatred, hunger, and the like. All species 
 are not equally eloquent ; some are copious and fluent, as it were, in 
 their utterances, while others are confined to a few important sounds. 
 No bird, like fish-kind, is quite mute, though some are rather silent." 
 It requires a keen eye, a quick ear, and a habit of observation to 
 really obtain an insight into the bird world, but, like every other part 
 of Nature's stupendous whole, wherein a connection and continuity 
 exists between the infinitely great and the infinitely small, the subject 
 is of the highest interest. 
 
 "Our River" is the favourite home of the yellow-and-pied wagtail, 
 and the grey or winter wagtail may occasionally be seen there too ; 
 so also the sedge-warbler. 
 
 The gem-like kingfisher, who makes amends for his lack of song 
 by his brilliant plumage, may sometimes be observed to dart across 
 its rippling waters, perhaps guided by hereditary instinct to visit the 
 resort of its ancestors, when fish were more abundant in the Brent 
 than they now are. As to fish, it must be admitted that there is not 
 much to tempt the angler there at present. Still perch, roach, and 
 chub are not altogether absent from it, nor the pike either : all have 
 been caught here within recent years. There is even a tradition that 
 within the last fifty summers a trout has been seen in the little river. 
 
 At any rate the followers of old Isaac Walton may still be found 
 on the banks, credulous and hopeful to the last ! 
 
 Among the migratory birds the high-wheeling swifts and the lower- 
 flying swallows can be found hovering over the water in search of the 
 beautiful dragon-flies and other insects which abound there. 
 
 The hard- billed seed- feeding black-headed bunting breeds on its 
 banks, and its close relative, the yellowhammer, plaintively makes 
 its demand seemingly for " a little piece of bread and no cheese," with 
 that delightful cadence at the end which caused us as schoolboys 
 to give this interpretation to its song. The common bunting, the 
 largest of its kind, is often seen. The linnet, with its beautiful rose 
 tints, which are not given to it all at once, but require at least two 
 years to come to perfection, may be occasionally heard, while black- 
 birds and thrushes are common and add to the melody which, in due 
 
i34 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 season, pervades the air. The lovely goldfinch, too, though now be- 
 coming rare, is heard, and also the bullfinch, decked in brilliant 
 colours of red, lavender, and black, accompanied by his sober mate 
 dressed in black and brown tints, are amongst the songsters which 
 frequent the vale. But the chaffinch is at present the special prize 
 of the Whitechapel birdcatcher, who unhappily may be seen on 
 almost any day in spring and summer (more especially on Sunday) 
 with his covered cage and lure birds — their eyes sometimes burnt out, 
 poor wretches — a sight which causes a shudder to anyone who is not 
 destitute of feeling. 
 
 The migratory pipits or pipit larks, both the tree and meadow 
 species, are more or less common ; the former arrives and commences 
 his pretty song about the end of April ; the rock pipit has been 
 caught at Harrow. The whin chat and stone chat are abundant. 
 The reed-warbler breeds at Perivale, and the sedge-warbler, as already 
 mentioned, may occasionally be observed near the Brent ; a nest of 
 the grasshopper warbler has been recorded as found at Harrow, 
 though some years ago. 
 
 The greater and lesser white-throats are abundant, and the garden 
 warblers moderately so, in the neighbourhood. A common summer 
 visitor is the willow wren> and the golden-crested wren. The latter, 
 the smallest of our English birds, whose note is as minute as its body, 
 is not unfrequently met with, as he is a hardy little bird and braves 
 our severest winter. The bottle-shaped nest of the long-tailed tit 
 has been found in the Brent Valley, and the grey, blue, and coal tits 
 are frequently seen. 
 
 The nightjar is said to be not uncommon between Perivale and 
 Harrow, and the plover or peewit, sometimes called the lapwing, has 
 been observed on Greenford Marsh, as usual feigning to be wounded 
 when near its nest to distract attention from its home ; while in 
 winter its congener, the golden plover, driven by the snow from its 
 usual haunts, has found a temporary abode in the Brent valley. 
 Common as he is, the robin should not be forgotten, for he is faithful 
 and abides with us all the year round, and finds some old outbuilding 
 in which to make himself a home — 
 
 " And when rude winter comes and shows 
 His icicles and shivering snows, 
 Hop o'er my cheerful hearth and be 
 One of my peaceful family." 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 135 
 
 The nutthatch has been seen, so too the redstart, and it is pleasant 
 to hear in the vale the melodious warble of the blackcap. The most 
 mute and the latest of our summer visitors, the flycatcher, may be 
 observed darting from some branch upon its prey — catching the fly 
 in the air, and then returning to its post of observation to await the 
 approach of another victim. The teal has been noticed at Apperton, 
 in the Brent Valley, as well as at Harrow ; and large flocks of star- 
 lings may be often seen feeding in the meadows, not too greedy and 
 perhaps too politic to attempt to interfere with the rooks and jack- 
 daws who share their repast, thus preserving the grass from the 
 injury which would follow the too great abundance of insect life. 
 
 The lark is always singing in the valley. 
 
 " Higher still and higher 
 
 From the earth thou springest 
 Like a cloud of fire ; 
 
 The blue deep thou wingest 
 And singing still does soar, and soaring ever singest." 
 
 The green woodpecker, or yaffle, as it is commonly called, may 
 startle the pedestrian with its loud laugh ; and the cuckoo, " herald 
 of springtime," preceded by the wryneck, • lingers through all the 
 changes in his cry in the Valley : that ungrateful bird of whom the 
 Fool in "Lear" bitterly saj^s: — • 
 
 ' ' The hedgesparrow fed the cuckoo so long, 
 That it had its head bit off by its young." 
 
 The heron may be sometimes seen, with languid flight, compelled 
 like the kingfisher to visit its old fishing haunts. The kestrel 
 appears at times hovering in the air, seemingly almost without 
 motion. As for the other hawks, the sparrow-hawk is rare, and a 
 merlin was shot near the Stone Bridge on the Greenford Road 
 in 1861. 
 
 In the evening, and all night long in early summer, the landrail's 
 harsh note may be heard amidst the long grass, now sounding so 
 near and then so far ; and a spotted crake was shot near Perivale 
 some years since. Fair Philomel has not forsaken the vale yet, and 
 still softens the heart with her tender, mellow notes. 
 
 ' ' Sweet bird, that shunnest the noise of folly — 
 Most musical, most melancholy " — 
 
 as Milton wrote in "II Penseroso," a poem perhaps composed when 
 
136 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 he lived not very far away in a village in the adjoining county (Chal- 
 font). The snipe has been shot in the neighbourhood, and the wood- 
 cock has fallen in recent years to the gun of the sportsman ; so also 
 the moorhen with its dusky brood. 
 
 The barn owl may occasionally be noticed in noiseless flight over 
 the meadows, and the tawny owl heard hooting from some old tree. 
 Scott says : — 
 
 " The lark is but a bumpkin fowl, 
 i He sleeps in his nest till morn, 
 But my blessing upon the Jolly Owl, 
 That all night blows his horn." 
 
 The ornithologist may once in a way come across the larder of the 
 shrike or butcher-bird, containing his impaled victims, and the bittern 
 has been known to startle the Cockney sportsman with its great size 
 amidst the smaller game of which he is in search. 
 
 The snipe (the jack snipe, it is said), as well as the larger species, 
 makes its appearance every year from October to March, and is occa- 
 sionally shot by the farmers. Stuffed specimens of the former are 
 preserved at Manor Farm. The low bleat of the partridge was 
 unexpectedly heard lately, but at the early part of this century there 
 was a considerable amount of game in Perivale, and a gamekeeper 
 was in the service of the Lord of the Manor to look after it. 
 
 There are delightful little nooks along the Brent in the vicinity of 
 Perivale — places where the white scented water-lily grows luxuriously 
 and the banks are decked with " long purples " (Losestrife) and a pro- 
 fusion of other wild flowers, secluded amongst the scented hawthorns, 
 blackthorns, wild roses, and other low-growing trees, with bryony 
 intertwined ; here and there the gnarled trunk of a venerable pollard 
 oak is in the view as the stream flows against its root or a larger tree 
 has fallen from the same cause across it. In many parts an artist may 
 find " bits " which it w r ould be difficult to match for quiet beauty ; 
 hours may be passed there in summer time — if the riflemen are not 
 practising at the butts and destroying the harmony and repose of the 
 scene — listening to the low hum of Nature purring over her endless 
 work of transmutation, when the silence is only broken by the lowing 
 of the kine and the confused melody of birds and the buzz of insects 
 combined with the- gentle ripple of the river, or suddenly by the low 
 splash of the so-called w T ater rat, which is, however, not a rat at all, 
 but the water-vole, a little creature allied to the beaver family. 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 137 
 
 The meadows, particularly those north of the canal, are generally- 
 rich in cowslips, but primroses are getting scarce, while the little 
 adder' s-tongue fern, which formerly was found near the hamlet of 
 Peri vale, has fallen a prey to the itinerant fern- vendor and has become 
 extinct in recent years. 
 
 The woods on the canal and on Horsendon Hill — diminished as the 
 latter has been during the past ten years, until but a poor remnant of 
 them is left — still remind us of the spring as the season comes round 
 by the tender blue wild hyacinths and the anemones, or "wind 
 flowers," which grow there and in other places. 
 
 There are in the valley many plants which are not common near 
 London, including the sweet-scented rush, with which our less luxu- 
 rious forefathers did not disdain to cover their floors in lieu of carpets 
 and often slept upon. A manuscript in the British Museum enu- 
 merates certain festival days on which the choir of a church Avas 
 strewn with rushes, hay, sand, and ivy leaves. It was also formerly 
 the practice to celebrate the consecration of a church or the anniver- 
 sary of the saint to whom it was dedicated by carrying garlands of 
 rushes and flowers in procession to the church door.* The little 
 church at Perivale, whose dedicatory saint is unknown now, was 
 probably the scene of many occurrences of the same custom. 
 
 Shakespeare says : — 
 
 " Upon the wanton rushes lay you down." 
 
 The custom of annually strewing rushes in churches was in vogue 
 as late as 1827 at Grasmere, Westmoreland. Hone gives an 
 interesting description of it as related by a tourist, and says Words- 
 worth took great interest in the ceremony, f 
 
 The rush-bearing procession took place in the evening, the children 
 having been occupied some time before in gathering them and in 
 preparing garlands of wild flowers. " The procession over, the partv 
 adjourned to the ballroom — a hayloft — where the country lads and 
 lasses tripped it merrily and heavily, he who could make the most 
 noise being considered the best dancer." 
 
 The scented rush is found abundantly on the banks of the canal, 
 with its neighbour, the flowering rush — high above the forget-me-nots, 
 "skull cap," and other luxuriant growing plants, the white masses of 
 
 * Britton's "Dictionary of Architecture and Archaeology of the Middle Ages." 
 t " Table Book," vol. ii., p. 678. 
 
1 38 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA 
 
 the " water bedstraw " being often conspicuous. The pretty " arrow- 
 head " grows well on the banks of the Brent, and so also does the 
 common water-lily. The " weasel- snout " is found more rarely, 
 but the "dog mercury," not met with in many places so near London, 
 may be gathered here, and so too the yellow nettle, though it is fast 
 disappearing. 
 
 In springtime the fields are decked with the cuckoo-flower, the 
 lady-smocks, which Shakespeare has immortalised in the lines : — 
 
 " When daisies pied, and violets blue, 
 And lady- smocks all silver white, 
 And cuckoo -buds of yellow hue, 
 
 Do paint the meadows with delight." 
 
 This chapter is best concluded with the beautiful picture of a 
 sunset at Perivale, extracted from Mr. Farthing's MSS. : — 
 
 " Observe the flowers are silently folding up their leaves ; and the bees, laden with the 
 luscious spoils of many a far-off meadow, are wending homewards with a drowsy hum. 
 Above the tall old elms wheel flights of dusky rooks— the feathered clergy of our childhood's 
 fancy. Masses of shadow sleep upon the sward beneath, checkered at intervals with 
 patches of green and yellow light — Nature's rich fresco, over which the sheep roam to and 
 fro with almost noiseless footfalls. Daylight is wavering, and a pale thin haze creeps 
 stealthily along the vale, covering the little river with a delicate filmy curtain ; but a 
 glowing light is still poured out upon the uplands towards the east and on the iron cross of 
 the church's tower. 
 
 " Now look to the west ! See how gloriously the sun goes down, with all his magnificent 
 retinue of gorgeous clouds — purple and gold, ruby and amethyst, turquoise and pearl ! 
 The dark dank veins of Mother Earth can veil no colours half so radiant as those the face of 
 heaven puts on at sunrise and sunset ; and now the Day-god dips lower and lower ; then, 
 hovering like a glory above the crest of one dark tree, lingers, and sinking disappears. 
 
 "How deep is now the solemn, intense and unbroken silence ! The breeze has sunk, 
 not a leaf stirs, not a songbird's note comes floating through the air ! There is a suspen- 
 sion, as it were, of Nature's pulse, as though the loss of fight had awed each woodland 
 warbler and made even inanimate things acknowledge its solemnizing power ! 
 
 " But hark ! listen to that low prelusive song from yonder thicket. It grows and 
 strengthens until it mounts and swells into a full rich liquid strain, sinking and soaring 
 and quivering until the air is literally impregnated with melody, bird answering bird, 
 nightingale uttering sweet music to nightingale, a perfect choral evening hymn of praise 
 when the day is departing and the earth is still ! But even now, just where the sun went down, 
 the sky still wears some reliquary glory, some traces of its yet scarcely departed grandeur. 
 There are gleams of vivid, silent, innocuous fightning, and sudden openings in the rifted 
 clouds, which one might well believe to be glimpses of the heaven beyond, caught moment- 
 arily while its refulgent gates unclosed to welcome in some wandering angel or bright 
 intelligence. This, too, departs, and one by one, trembling and glittering, the sparkling 
 stars appear. The hills deepen in their colour ; the misty haze expands and thickens as it 
 spreads. Objects remote mingle and blend confusedly and the sky grows pale. The eye 
 can scarcely distinguish between the solid hills of earth and those other piled-up heights 
 whose broken summits vary in form with every varying current of the atmosphere. Lights 
 twinkle in the windows of yonder house, and night, with its solemn silence and its shadows, 
 settles down upon the darkened world." 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 " My childhood scarce had glided into youth 
 When my soul felt its secret depths, and drew 
 The forms of fancy into light and truth." 
 
 Lord Lytton (" The Tale of a Dreamer "). 
 
 The attraction which the winding Brent had for Lord Lytton, and the 
 allusions made to it in some of the most touching episodes in his works, 
 were explained when the " Life, Letters, and Literary Remains " of the 
 great novelist, edited by his son, the present Lord Lytton, appeared in 
 1883. The cause of these references is there found in autobiogra- 
 phical notes found among his papers, revealing, though only in frag- 
 ments, a " brief tale of true passion and great sorrow," the effect of 
 which seems not only to have influenced his life but to be reflected 
 in his writings. 
 
 After leaving Dr. Hooker's school at Rottingdean, Lord Lytton, 
 then Lytton Bulwer, was placed in 1819, when he was sixteen years 
 of age, in the small but very select school at Ealing kept by the 
 Rev. Charles Wallington. The house " was a large, ancient, time- 
 worn edifice, in which the lord of the manor, or other great man 
 of the parish, might be supposed to have lived in the reign of William 
 and Mary or Queen Anne." 
 
 The autobiographical record of 1820 says : — " The country around 
 the village in which my good preceptor resided was rural enough for 
 a place so near the metropolis. A walk of somewhat less than a 
 mile, through lanes that were themselves retired and lonely, led to 
 green sequestered meadows, through which the humble Brent crept 
 along its snake-like way. O God, how palpably, even in hours the 
 least friendly to remembrance, there rises before my eyes, when I 
 close them, that singular dwarfed tree which overshadowed the little 
 stream, throwing its boughs half-way to the opposite margin ! I 
 wonder if it still survives. I dare not revisit that spot. And there 
 
1 4 o THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 Ave were wont to meet (poor children that we were !) thinking not of 
 the world we had scarcely entered ; dreaming not of fate and chance ; 
 reasoning not on what was to come ; full only of our first-born, our 
 ineffable, love. Along the quiet road between Ealing and Castlebar, 
 the lodge gates stood (perhaps they are still standing) which led to 
 the grounds of a villa once occupied by the Duke of Kent. To the 
 right of those gates, as you approached them from the Common, was 
 a path. Through two or three fields as undisturbed and lonely as if 
 they lay in the heart of some solitary land far from any human 
 neighbourhood, this path conducted to the banks of the little rivulet, 
 overshadowed here and there by blossoming shrubs and crooked 
 pollards of fantastic shape. Along that path once sped the happiest 
 steps that ever bore a boy's heart to the object of its first innocent 
 worship. 
 
 " She was one or two years older than I. She had the sweetest 
 face, the gentlest temper ever given to girlhood. The sort of love 
 we felt for each other I cannot describe. It was so unlike the love 
 of grown-up people ; so pure that not one wrong thought ever crossed 
 it, and yet so passionate that never again have I felt, nor ever again 
 can I feel, any emotion comparable to the intensity of its tumultuous 
 tenderness. 
 
 " It was then summer. She did not live in the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood of those pleasant fields which were our place of daily 
 meeting ; but though she was w r ell born, very peculiar circumstances 
 had created for her a liberty almost equal to my own. We were too 
 much children, both of us, to talk in set phrase of marriage ; but we 
 believed, with our whole hearts and souls, that we w r ere born for each 
 other, and that nothing could ever separate us. And so w r e had no 
 care for the future. That was the warmest and the brightest summer 
 I ever knew in this country ; I can remember nothing like it. The 
 sky smiled and glowed on us as if it also were full of love. At the 
 Duke's lodge the gardener used to sell fruit, so there, as I passed it, 
 I made my purchases for our little feasts, and as I was always first 
 upon the spot I spread them out on the grass, where the stream grew 
 darker, under the boughs of that old dwarf tree. When I saw her 
 at a distance, my heart beat so violently that I could not breathe 
 without a painful effort ; but the moment I heard her voice I was 
 calm. That voice produced, throughout my whole frame, a strange 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 141 
 
 sensation of delicious repose ; the whole universe seemed hushed by 
 it into a holy stillness. Comparing what I felt then with all I have 
 felt since, I cannot say it was real love. Perhaps not. I think it was 
 something infinitely happier and less earthly. Till that time my 
 spirits had been high and my constitutional gaiety almost turbulent, 
 but when I sat beside her, or looked into her soft melancholy face, or 
 when I thought of it in absence, the tears stood in my eyes, I knew not 
 why. I am not sure that she was what others would call handsome. 
 Often now I see faces that seem to me beautiful, and people smile at 
 me when I say so. But looking close into my impression of them, I 
 perceive it was a trait, a look, an air like hers that charmed me with 
 them, and my only notion of beauty is something that resembles her. 
 No one ever suspected our meetings, nor even, I believe, our acquaint- 
 anceship. I had no confidant in either of my companions ; I was well 
 with all but intimate with none. And the poor girl had no sister, 
 no mother, no friend, I believe, but me. I think it was her desolate 
 state, in its contrast to my own happy home, and ardent hopes and 
 bright prospects, that first drew me to her. I never breathed her 
 name to a human being. How thankful I am for my silence ! Sweet 
 saint ! your name at least shall never be exposed to the deliberate 
 malignity, the low ribaldry, that have so relentlessly assailed my own. 
 If ever I fulfil the hopes I once cherished ; if ever I outlive my foes 
 and silence their atrocious slanders ; if ever the time should come, when 
 your memory will not be reviled because it is dear to me and sacred ; 
 when none are left to hate you for the love you gave me, and from 
 those who will only have known you as its most sinless martyr, the 
 tale of your long unrecorded sufferings may win, perhaps, tears softer 
 and less bitter than my own ! Never, if ever, but never till then, 
 shall that tale be told. 
 
 "The last time we met was at evening, a little before sunset. I 
 had walked to London in the morning to buy her a book which 
 she had wished to read. I had not written my name on the title- 
 page, but I said, half jealously, as I gave it to her, ' You will never 
 lend it to any one — never give it away ? ' 
 
 " She shook her head and smiled sadly ; and then after a little 
 pause, she said, without answering my question, ' It will talk to me 
 when you are gone.' So then for the first time we began to speak 
 gravely of the future. But the more we discussed it the more dis- 
 
i 4 2 THE CHRONICLES OF GREEN FORD PARVA ; 
 
 quieted we became, and it ended with the old phrase, ' We shall 
 meet to-morrow.' 
 
 " The sun had set and it was already dark. I could scarcely dis- 
 tinguish her features as I turned to depart. But when I had left the 
 spot some little way behind me, looking back to it I could see that 
 she was still standing there, so I turned and rejoined her. She was 
 weeping. Yet she had then no knowledge of what was to happen, 
 and she could not say why she wept. I was unable to comfort her, 
 for I shared (though in a less degree) her own forebodings. But I 
 covered her hands with my tears and kisses, till at last she drew 
 them away from my grasp, placed them on my head as I half knelt 
 before her, said in half-choked accents, ' God bless you ! ' and 
 hurried away. 
 
 " It was my turn then to linger on the spot. I cried out, ' To- 
 morrow, to-morrow, we shall meet as before ! ' My voice came back 
 to me without an answer, and we never met again. Never, never ! 
 The next day she came not, nor the next ; then I learned that she 
 was gone. What had happened I cannot relate. Some months 
 afterwards there came a letter — not from her. She was married. 
 She whose heart, whose soul, whose every thought and feeling, all 
 were mine to the last — she who never spared even a dream to 
 another — lost, lost to me for ever ! " 
 
 " It does not seem to have occurred to my father," says the bio- 
 grapher, " either at the time or afterwards, that the poor girl's dejection 
 throughout the final meeting was caused by something much stronger 
 than presentiment. The evasive reply to the request that she would 
 never lend the book he gave her (a request which in her altered 
 circumstances she might have no power to fulfil), her lingering to 
 weep on the spot where they had parted, and the sudden spasmodic 
 effort with which she tore herself away from her lover's ebullitions of 
 feeling — all indicate plainly that she was consciously bidding him a 
 last farewell. Their interviews had probably become known to the 
 father, and he must have peremptorily interfered to put an end to 
 an apparently hopeless attachment. The sequel is told in outline. 
 She was forced into a marriage against which her heart protested. 
 For three years she strove to smother the love which consumed her ; 
 and when she sank under the conflict, and death was about to release 
 her from the obligations of marriage and life itself, she wrote a letter 
 
OR, PE RIVAL E, PAST AND PRESENT. i 43 
 
 to my father with her dying hand informing him of the suffering 
 through which she had passed, and of her unconquerable devotion to 
 him, intimating a wish that he should visit her grave." Of his 
 pilgrimage to that spot (somewhere in the neighbourhood of Ulls- 
 water) in the summer of 1824, the great idealist has left an autobio- 
 graphical note, from which the following is abstracted : — ■ 
 
 " I had one object in this tour far beyond any thought of pleasure 
 and adventure. There was a spot amidst these districts which I had 
 long yearned to visit, with such devout and holy passion as may 
 draw the Arab to the tomb of the Prophet ; a spot in which that 
 wild and sorrowful romance of my boyhood which had so influenced 
 my youth lay buried for evermore. And until I had knelt alone 
 and at night, beneath the stars at that shrine, I felt that my life could 
 never be exorcised from the ghost that haunted it — that my heart 
 could never again admit the love of woman, nor my mind calmly 
 participate in the active objects of men. I performed that pilgrim- 
 age : what I suffered in one long solitary night I will not say. At 
 dawn I turned from the place as if rebaptised or reborn. I recovered 
 the healthful tone of my mind ; and the . stage of experience and 
 feeling through which my young life had passed contributed largely 
 to render me whatever I have since become." 
 
 There is a fervid Byronic tone and feeling about this story which 
 finds expression also in his poem of " The Tale of a Dreamer." It 
 may seem to some minds, who lack the poetic instinct, unreal or 
 at least exaggerated ; they can only realise in thought their own 
 experience, and as such an episode of simple innocent love may never 
 have occurred to them, they may be disposed to doubt its ever having 
 happened to any one else. There are others who may read these 
 pages who will not only believe this charming narration, but can, 
 looking back through the vista of years, find in their own lives a 
 similar, though not perhaps so striking, an incident of pure unalloyed 
 love which has left its effect, and for good, in after years when the 
 tempters to sensuality and evil encompassed them more closely. 
 
 At any rate, as the author of the " Life and Letters of Lord Lyt- 
 ton " has said, " out of that grave of buried hopes sprang a second 
 life, partaking to the last of the source to which it owed its being, so 
 when we turn from the love story in the early poem to the last of its 
 author's finished works, we find in ' Kenelm Chillingly ' the same 
 
14-4 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA; 
 
 incidents and emotions, producing the same effects and culminating 
 in the same elevating aims. The poem was composed within the 
 opening gates of life ; the prose romance under the hovering shadow 
 of death." "Viola is the protoype of Lity. Her epitaph was written 
 not in the summer of 1824, but in the winter of 1873." That 
 epitaph may be epitomized into : — 
 
 l< I have known love, I have known sorrow. 
 The dawn of that love was when standing 
 On the green banks that shade Brent's humble flood, 
 Musing o'er pleasures past and scenes to be." 
 
 The biographer describes the effect upon his father of his reading 
 the manuscript of " Kenelm " to his wife and himself. It was New 
 Year's Eve — the eve of the year of his father's death — " on which 
 he finished the chapter describing Kenelm's sufferings above the 
 grave of ' Lily.' He was profoundly dejected, listless, broken, and in 
 his face there was the worn look of a man who had just passed through 
 the last paroxysm of a passionate grief. We did not then know to 
 what the incidents referred, and we wondered that the creations of 
 his fancy should exercise such power over him. They were not crea- 
 tions of fancy, but the memories of fifty years past." 
 
 The banks of the Brent, near Perivale, forms the scene of one of 
 the prettiest pictures in " My Novel," wherein frequent reference is 
 made to it. It is when " Leonard and Helen, strolling forth from 
 Ealing, towards the cool of the sunset, passed the grounds that once 
 belonged to the Duke of Kent, on Castlebar Hill, as they wandered 
 down to the Brent ; there they sit, under the shade of a pollard tree 
 that overhung the winding brook. He flung off his hat, tossed back 
 his rich curls, and sprinkled his brow from the stream that eddied 
 round the roots of the tree that bulged out bold and gnarled from 
 the bank, and delved into the depths below. Helen quietly obeyed 
 him, and nestled close to his side." 
 
 Amidst the lights and shadows of this mysterious life, such peace- 
 ful surroundings as the valley of the Brent are necessary at times to 
 renew our conceptions of peace, absolute innocence and purity, " To 
 walk with the breeze upon one's brow (as Gasparin has said), to 
 trample the level grass exuberant with freshness, to climb upon the 
 mountains ; to follow through the meadows some thread of water 
 gliding under rushes and water plants — I give you my word for it 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 145 
 
 there is happiness in this. At this contact with healthy and natural 
 things, the follies of the world drop off as drop the dead leaves when 
 the spring sap rises and the young leaves put forth. The pangs of 
 the heart lose their vehemence ; the great blue sky which reflects 
 itself in the soul, gives it its own peace ; the Divine goodness, pity 
 and power wrap us round ; it is a halt, as it were, upon the threshold 
 of Paradise." 
 
 Such thoughts as these must have animated and freshened the 
 fallen soul of John Burley, the wild literary Bohemian whom the 
 author of " My Novel " has described as returning periodically to the 
 banks of the Brent. There he fished for " the one-eyed perch," an 
 allegory, in which is covertly contained the story of his wasted life 
 and its cause. 
 
 " But it is that perch ; for, harkye, sir, there is only one perch in 
 the old brook. All the years I have fished here I have never caught 
 another perch, and this solitary inmate of the watery element I know 
 by sight better than I knew my lost father. For each time that I 
 have raised it out of the water its profile has been turned towards me, 
 and I have seen with a shudder that it had. only one eye. It is a 
 mysterious and most diabolical phenomenon, that perch. It has been 
 the ruin of my prospects in life." 
 
 Who does not feel some pity for John Burley when he retired from 
 the " moil and strife " of his ordinary life to Pittshanger Farm, which 
 is just outside the boundary of the parish of Perivale, to recruit his 
 moral strength and health in the peace and seclusion of the Brent 
 valley ? The character is painted by the idealist, but it is drawn 
 from life, and we may well believe that the author intended to show 
 that the good that was in John Burley was in part preserved by his 
 wanderings there. 
 
 Was it not in the same neighbourhood, too, that Thomas Edwards, 
 the " ingenious author " of the " Canons of Criticism," dwelt ? The 
 author of that work, famous in its day, spent much of his early life 
 at Pittshanger Farm ere he removed to an estate he purchased in 
 Buckinghamshire. Charles Dibden wrote some of his best songs at 
 his house in Hanger Lane overlooking Perivale. Could they live so 
 near and not enjoy the walks along the Brent valley ? 
 
 Among the men of note who received part of their education at 
 
 L 
 
i+6 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA ; 
 
 the famous school kept by the Rev. Dr. Nicholas, called " Ealing 
 
 Great School," now carried on by the Rev. John Chapman, were Sir 
 
 Henry Rawlinson, Bishop Selwyn, Sir Henry Lawrence, and his brother 
 
 Lord Lawrence, Charles Knight, W. M. Thackeray, Cardinal Newman, 
 
 and his brother, Professor Francis William Newman, Richard West- 
 
 macott, the eminent sculptor, and Frederick Thesiger, afterwards Lord 
 
 Chancellor (Chelmsford). We may be very sure they knew well the 
 
 little church, hamlet, and fields along the river at Perivale in the 
 
 course of their rambles when out of school ; the face of that country 
 
 is nearly unaltered, the old trees are still there, and the little stream 
 
 flows on with the same murmurous melody " to join the brimming 
 
 river" ; there are the same sounds and scenes as when these eminent 
 
 men, so distinguished afterwards in their several careers, wandered there 
 
 in the freshness of youth. Fancy part of the boyhood of the Oriental 
 
 scholar [the translator of the until then unread cuneiform inscriptions 
 
 of ancient Nineveh], the pious bishop, the great soldier, and eminent 
 
 statesman, the amiable and learned advocate of the old idea of a "via 
 
 media " in the Church, the great humourist and author of " Vanity 
 
 Fair," and the publisher who earned the title of "Good Knight" — 
 
 passed amid these scenes ! One wonders what the two brothers 
 
 Newman, so antagonistic in their conclusions in after-life, were like 
 
 when they rambled about the north of Ealing and the Brent valley, 
 
 and particularly the boy who was to become one of the leaders in the 
 
 great " Oxford Movement," as it was called, in conjunction with Keble 
 
 and Pusey, a movement which gave birth to the memorable " Tracts 
 
 for the Times," and resulted in the publication of the " Apologia," a 
 
 book as much renowned for its logical power as is its author for his 
 
 consistent action in view of his convictions. It was he who wrote the 
 
 hymn, " Lead, Kindly Light," which has united in one common prayer 
 
 the followers of the high church, low church, and no church doctrines. 
 
 Newman mentions his old school at Ealing in the " Apologia," and 
 
 Charles Knight has said, in "Passages of a Working Life" — "My school 
 
 life was real happiness." 
 
 There was another boy who went to school at Ealing who is equally 
 well known for his honesty as for his ability. Happily his path has 
 net led him into the domain of theology, but into the laborious but 
 surer region of science. Professor Thomas Henry Huxley,* the eminent 
 
 . * Beeton's "Modern Men and Women." 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. 147 
 
 physiologist, formerly Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy, 
 &c, in the Royal College of Surgeons, President of the Royal Society, 
 and the author of several important works which have added much 
 to the sum of human knowledge, was born at Ealing, and went to 
 school there, and we may be certain that Peri vale and the Brent 
 valley were the scenes of many of his boyish rambles. 
 
 The boy contains within him that which makes the man, and 
 though it is but rarely that we know anything reliable of the early 
 life of great men, still the scenes of their school days, the places they 
 frequented, become classic ground. The recollection of the scenes 
 and events of our school days are never quite forgotten. The river 
 where we fished — whether successfully or otherwise/the nests we took, 
 the birds we saw or caught, the meadows and country lanes we fre- 
 quented, seem often so indelibly fixed in the memory that a sound, 
 the sight of something seemingly unassociated with them, an odour 
 even, is sufficient to bring the pictures back vividly to the mind. 
 They are an essential part of the long gallery of the past, which, as 
 0. Wendell Holmes says, " seems to need but one short process and 
 the pictures are fixed for ever." This reverting to the surroundings 
 of early life is especially the case in old age. One of the truest 
 touches of Shakespeare is that of the roystering hero of many unseemly 
 bouts — the poor dying Falstaff — "babbling of green fields " and play- 
 ing with the flowers. 
 
 Not far away, for it is little more than half an hour's walk, is 
 Fordhook, Ealing, the house where the great novelist and accomplished 
 author, Henry Fielding, lived, and from which he departed for Lisbon, 
 broken in health and vainly hoping to restore it in a warmer climate. 
 On the 26th June, 1754, he says : — " On this the most melancholy 
 sun I had ever beheld arose, and found me awake at my house at Ford- 
 hook. By the light of this sun I was to take leave of some of those 
 creatures on whom I doted," &c. As we know, he never returned 
 to those he loved so well, and the walks around Fordhook, and among 
 which Perivale would surely have been one, knew him no more. 
 
 Fordhook was for a while the residence of Lady Byron and the 
 poet's daughter. " Ada, sole daughter of my house and heart," was 
 married there to Lord King, afterwards the Earl of Lovelace. 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Staughton, the eminent Nonconformist divine, the 
 author of many works of great historical interest, &c, lived for some 
 
1 48 THE CHRONICLES OF GREEN FORD PARVA ; 
 
 years in Kent Gardens, overlooking the valley, and has confessed his 
 fondness for rambles in Perivale. 
 
 These references to memorable persons who have lived on the 
 borders of the Brent valley, and to whom its attractions must have 
 been familiar, could be much amplified, but the laws regulating 
 " space" forbid. 
 
 There is one allusion, however, which ought not to be omitted, 
 though it relates to a person well known in his time in quite another 
 way from any of those mentioned. Could it be otherwise than that 
 Perivale and the Brent valley must have been " household words " on 
 the lips of the famous old sportsman, Squire Osbaldiston, who lived 
 in his later years on Castlebar Hill, and kept his hunters there ? His 
 name is not forgotten now among old sporting men, but in the first 
 half of this century W. Harrison Ainsworth described him as the 
 " Hercules of the sporting world," the " copper-bottomed squire," 
 who in horsemanship and endurance he compares to Dick Turpin.* 
 
 In those days the stag-hounds often met in or near the parish of 
 Perivale (they may be seen there, but more rarely, now), and there 
 was some good sport to be had in the valley and its vicinity. 
 
 It is about forty years since the grand old sporting squire lived, 
 whose well-mounted, handsome form, even in his declining years, 
 might have been seen galloping across the fields ; but his old residence 
 remains. It was afterwards occupied, with the grounds around it, by 
 Thomas Sparke Parry for thirty years, and known as Castlebar Lodge. 
 
 Since that tenancy expired, however, has come what Swinburne 
 has called, " the fiery feet of change," and the premises have become 
 the prey of the builder, and " genteel villas " have partly enclosed 
 the quaint, old, gabled country-house which old Squire Osbaldiston 
 called his own. 
 
 Lastly, but the most exalted in rank, and associated with our loyal 
 sympathy, for he was the father of our Queen, his Royal Highness 
 the Duke of Kent lived for some years on Castlebar Hill in a mansion 
 which overlooked the Brent valley. His residence occupied the site 
 on which Kent House now stands, and some of the windows com- 
 manded beautiful views of Perivale, Harrow, &c. 
 
 This chapter will not, however, be complete without a reference to 
 
 * "Rookwood." 
 
OR, PERIVALE, PAST AND PRESENT. H9 
 
 Mr. John Farthing, the author of the manuscript notes, poems, and 
 sketches entitled " Pictures of Perivale," which have been placed in 
 the writer's hands by his widow, a niece of the late Sir Henry Smart, 
 the well-known composer of music. He was a gentleman of good 
 family, settled at Milverton, Somersetshire, and at one time a man of 
 comfortable means. He came to reside at Perivale in 1845, occupy- 
 ing the old Rectory, which he partly restored, and afterwards Perivale 
 Grange, now called Grange Farm. At that time the church was, as 
 he says, the meanest abode in the parish, with a congregation of six 
 or seven persons ; in fact, it was the general opinion among the 
 inhabitants that the sooner it fell down the better. The Rector does 
 not appear at this period to have done much to improve it, nor his 
 relative, the Lord of the Manor. Mr. Farthing, however, did all he 
 could to make the little church worthy of its object. The complete 
 seclusion of the place charmed him. Imbued with a strong love of 
 nature and deep reverence for its Almighty Author, he and his 
 sisters, who resided with him before his second marriage, appear to 
 have found amid its peaceful scenes a welcome retreat from the 
 turmoil and anxieties of life. 
 
 "Having," as he says, "plenty of leisure, I amused myself from 
 time to time in gleaning from old authors and the memories of aged 
 persons residing in the vicinity all the particulars I could collect 
 relating to the j)iace." 
 
 It is evident, however, he had not access to many old books and 
 documents, and the chief merit of his MSS. relates to the information 
 current at his time and then passing into oblivion. 
 
 If his knowledge of the early history of Perivale, derived from old 
 records, was small as compared with the information since obtained, 
 the reader of his notes is compensated by the information he has 
 given us in other respects, and also by the vivid and beautiful pic- 
 tures he has drawn showing the aspects of nature about Perivale. 
 The legends have no doubt been amplified from some ideas or tradi- 
 tions then extant, but they are expressed in a pleasing style. His 
 descriptions of Perivale, and of the natural beauties of the country 
 about, are written in poetic prose, and in verse parts of which are 
 on a level with our minor poets, although (particularly the religious 
 poetry) the lyre is sometimes touched with too saddened a hand. 
 
15° 
 
 THE CHRONICLES OF GREENFORD PARVA. 
 
 We may fitly conclude these " Chronicles of Greenford Parva " 
 with some of his verses. 
 
 Quatrains to Peei-Vale. 
 
 Sweet Vale, embosomed in these gentle hills ! 
 Ye meads, just seen thro' yonder opening 
 glade ! 
 Ye darksome woods ! ye softly murmuring 
 rills! 
 Thou church, half hid beneath yon yew- 
 trees' shade ! — 
 
 From the high top of Horsington, blest 
 scene, 
 With transport do I hail thy peaceful 
 charms ! 
 'Mid Nature's beauties, tranquil and serene, 
 I seek a refuge from the world's alarms. 
 
 Oh, bid me welcome, then, ye verdant 
 steeps ! 
 Oh, bid me welcome to your flowery 
 brakes ! 
 Lull'd in your bosom, every sorrow sleeps, 
 And only mild and calm reflection wakes. 
 
 Ambition's vessel on this peaceful shore 
 Here rests at last, her anchor calm con- 
 tent ; 
 
 Here Curiosity is seen no more, 
 
 With prying eye exploring each event. 
 
 But o'er the grassy meads the Muses rove, 
 Or by yon stream that thro' the valley 
 strays ; 
 
 While Inspiration whispers thro' the grove, 
 And sportive Fancy in the foliage plays. 
 
 From yonder little church among the trees, 
 Ne'er does the piteous noise of terror 
 sound, 
 
 Nor o'er this Tempe does the balmy breeze 
 E'er waft discordant notes of woe around. 
 
 On the tall trees the thrush her wild note 
 sings 
 While the brisk grasshopper still chirps 
 below, 
 The mower's scythe thro' all the valley 
 rings, 
 And the bees hum as laden home they go. 
 
 In the soft meads the lowing herds repose, 
 The gentle sheep browse calmly in the 
 
 While in the copsy dell at evening's close 
 The loiterer seeks the cool delightful 
 shade. 
 
 Oh blest is he who from his heart can hail 
 This tranquil scene, here study Nature's 
 page 
 
 As Petrarch, in his rock-encompass'd vale, 
 And in Scillontes' shades the Grecian sage. 
 
 My wants are few : a garden, friend and 
 field, 
 An arbour with sweet honeysuckles drest, 
 A low-roof d cot from worldly eyes con- 
 cealed — 
 A spot where two united hearts may rest. 
 
 {Adapted from the German of Von Salis). 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Adeian, 67 
 
 Advowson of Perivale, earliest mention of, 26 
 
 Value of, 75 
 JEveve, 8 
 
 Alborowes, W., Rector, 30, 51 
 Alder, 88 
 
 Aldermanbury Conduit, 37 
 Alston, 85 
 Ansgot, 8 
 
 Ansgar, the Haller, 7 
 Ankerwyke, the Priory of, 22 
 Archery, 33, 82 
 Arnold, John, 85 
 Arundel, Lord, 30, 51 
 Atlee, 119 
 
 Avres, Lawrence de, 32 
 Aynsworth, Rector, 42, 52 
 Azar, 8 
 
 Baptisms at Perivale, 108 
 
 Barrel organ and music at Perivale, 120, 123 
 
 Bartelot, H., Rector, 39, 52 
 
 Bartholomew, 88 
 
 Bixter, Richard, 50 
 
 Beard, Rector, 52, 54 
 
 Beaumout (note), 27, 30, 31, 35, 51 
 
 Bede, 12 
 
 Bedwell, 85 
 
 Bell-Monte, see Beaumont 
 
 Bellomont, see Beaumont 
 
 Bell of Perivale Church, 60 
 
 Besse Place, 53, 96 
 
 Bible first placed in churches, 46 
 
 Birds of the Brent Valley, 133-6 
 
 Blaine, 69, 88 
 
 Bohun, 16, 22, 23, 25, 38, 52, 58 
 
 Bolas, 69 
 
 Boteler, Petrus de, 26 (and note) 
 
 Borders (note), 12 
 
 Bovate (note), 12 
 
 Bowler, Thos., 96 
 
 Bowles, Rev. W. L., 61 
 
 Bradford, burnt, 43 
 
 Brent, changes in the channel of the, 56 
 
 Brentford, martyrs at, 43 
 
 Brentford, battles at, 50 
 
 Bridger, 53 
 
 Britton quoted, 77 
 
 Brown, 43, 45, 52, 85 
 
 Browne, 44, 45, 53 
 
 Brown's, John," North-West Passage,&c, "87 
 
 Brownbill, Rector, 83, 147 
 
 Burials at Perivale, 108 
 
 In woollen, enactments concerning, 116 
 Butlin, 88 
 Butler's "Hudibras," 48, 49 
 
 Cain, Richard, 120, 123, 125 
 Calyn, Patricius, Rector, 44, 52 
 Camden's "Britannia," 20, 107 
 Canons of St. Paul's, 7, 57 
 Carter, J., Admiral, 85 
 Carwarthen, D., 50 
 Castle-bear Common, 6 
 Chancel window, old, 56 
 Chaloner,' 88 
 Chapman, 88 
 Charlton, 35, 51 
 Chaucer, 32 
 
 Chinchgate, J , Rector, 36, 51 
 " Chronicles, &c, of Middle Ages," 26 
 Churchwardens, 74, 127, 128 
 Churches, number of, mentioned in Domes- 
 day, 77 
 Church rates at Perivale, 127, 130 
 Clerke, 82, 119 
 
 " Clerkenwell, History of " (note), 33, 37 
 Cleveland, Duchess of, quoted, 18, 23, 24, 27 
 Cockett, 85 
 Collet, 39, 40, 52, 88 
 Collier, 88 
 Colleton. 83, 84 
 Collinson, 86 
 
 Commissions to suppress Popery, 45 
 Common or Folksland, 13 
 Condell, 68, 88 
 Conduits, benefactors of, 37 
 Congregations at Perivale, 73 
 Coome, W., Rector, 37, 52 
 Coomes, 88 
 
 Cooper, Vicar of Ealing, 50 
 Cornhill or Cornhull, see Perivale 
 Corn of Perivale highly esteemed, 106 
 Coston, Simon, 51, 62, 101, 103, 105 
 
'52 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Cracknell, 88 
 
 Croft, 53 
 
 Cromwell. 55, 84, 114, 115 
 
 Curates at Perivale, 118 
 
 Daniel, 53 
 
 Day, 69, 85 
 
 Delpierre, 53 
 
 Derivation of local names, 34, 109 
 
 Diana's Temple near St. Paul's, 7 
 
 Dibdin, 145 
 
 Dido, 12 
 
 Domesdav Book, 6, 8, 9, 12, 57, 77 
 
 Doswell, 89 
 
 Drayton's " Polyolbion," 6, 107 
 
 Ducat, 68, 88 
 
 Dugdale quoted, 22, 27, 30, 31 
 
 Duncombe, 80 
 
 Duprat, 87 
 
 Durant, 88 
 
 Durandus, 66 
 
 Ealine's, Eling's or Yillinge's Haven, 111, 112 
 
 Ealing "ruinated," 50 
 
 Eastfield, Sir "William, 37, 52 
 
 Eddy, 88 
 
 Edgeworth, 85 
 
 Edmundus, Rector, 32, 51 
 
 Edward I., oath of, 24 
 
 Coin found at Perivale, 25, 58 
 Edwards, Thomas, 145 
 Elliott, George Augustus, 118 
 Ely, John, Rector, 38, 52 
 Ems, R., 85 
 
 Epitaphs, 79, 80, 81, 82, 88, 89 
 Erasmus, 40 
 Excommunication of a Lord of the Manor, 1 8 
 
 Farmhouses. &c, at Perivale, 96, 112, 120 
 
 Farnham, Nicholas de, 22 
 
 Farnham Royal Church, 59 
 
 Farthing, John, 67, 68, 69, 70, 74, 80, 84, 91, 
 
 93, 100, 122, 138, 149 
 Feudal system (note), 10 
 Fielding, 147 
 Filby, 89 
 
 First-fruits Perivale Church, 51, 52 
 Fitzmaurice, 87 
 Fitz Piers, 20 
 Fitzstephen, 14 
 Fleet marriages, 119 
 Fletcher, 52,53, 117, 118 
 Floods at Perivale, 75 
 Folkyngham, Manor of, 30 
 Font at Perivale Church, 62, 129 
 Forbes, 85 
 
 Fortescue, Sir John, 33 
 Forest land in North Middlesex, 14 
 
 Foss's "Tabulae Curiales" (note), 44 
 Foxe's "Acts and Monuments," 40, 41, 44 
 Frere, 87 
 Froude on destruction of Church property, 
 
 45 
 Fuller, 119 
 
 Gates, 80 
 
 Geology of the Brent valley, 131 
 
 Gerrart, Sir C, 53 
 
 Gilbert, Vicar of Ealing, 50 
 
 Giles. Rev. Dr., 85, 122, 147 
 
 Gowlland, 88 
 
 Gravale, John de, Rector, 30, 51 
 
 Greenhill, 83 
 
 Greenford, Greneford, Parva, 5 
 
 Magna, 11 
 
 Near Staines, 22 
 " Greyfriars Chronicle," 46 
 Gurnel (and note), 54, 68 
 Gyfford, Jac, Rector, 38, 52 
 
 Haffettden. 88 
 
 Haines' "Monumental Brasses," 80 
 
 Hallam on Socage, 13 
 
 Halle, 37 
 
 Harrison, 48, 52, 68, 69, 82, 118, 119 
 
 Harrow, 36, 107, 110 
 
 Hauberks, Ric, Rector, 30, 51 
 
 Hawtayne, 88 
 
 Helias, " The Knight of the Swan," 23 
 
 Helen's, Saint, Priory of, 32 
 
 Henry VIII., 40 
 
 Henry, 88 
 
 Heylyn, 46 
 
 Higid or Hiwisc, see Hide 
 
 Hide as a measure of land, 12 
 
 Hicks, 88 
 
 Hind, W., Rector, 51 
 
 Hillingdon, 50 
 
 Hobman, Thos., 48 
 
 Hobman. F., Rector, 48, 52 
 
 Hodges, 88 
 
 Hone's "Table Book," 59 
 
 Hood, 85 
 
 Hooper, Robt., Rector, 39, 52 
 
 Hope, Thos., 124 
 
 Hopkinson, 88 
 
 Horsendon, 109, 110 
 
 Horsington, see Horsendon 
 
 Howard, 119 
 
 Houndslow, 34 
 
 Houses in Perivale, 108 
 
 Hughes, 68, 69, 147 
 
 Hunting and hawking, 36 
 
 Huntingdon, Henry of (notes), 18, 27 
 
 Huxley, Prof. T. H., 146 
 
INDEX. 
 
 '53 
 
 Idyl of the Brent, an, 139 
 
 Jeeeam, 88 
 Johnson, 85, 119 
 Josling, 88 
 
 Kelham on measurement of land, 12 
 Keyte, 88 
 
 Kingsbury, Roman remains at, 76 
 Knight, Charles, 119, 146 
 Knights' fees (note), 10, 35 
 
 Lambaed, Bic., Rector, 36, 51 
 
 Lamb, Charles, on a sun-dial, 60 
 
 Lane, 48, 49, 52, 78, 80 
 
 Land, increase in the value of, at Perivale, 76 
 
 Value in Saxon times, 8, 13 
 
 Ancient measures of, 1 1 
 Langton, Walter de, 23, 27, 58 
 Lateward, 53, 79, 82, 85, 116, 118, 125, 147 
 La-wing of Dogs, 34 
 Lawrence, Lord, &c, 146 
 Legend of " The White Swan," 23 
 
 " The Maiden's Tomb," 84 
 
 Perivale Rectory, 92 
 
 Perivale Mill, 100 
 
 Horsendon Hill, 110 
 Lepers' Window, 70, 71 
 Leprosy in England, 7 1 
 Levingston, John, 53 
 Leuric, 8 
 Lewin, Earl, 8 
 Lockwood, 53 
 Lollardism, 36 
 Lysons, 6, 22, 26, 56, 58, 65, 80, 83, 85, 107, 
 
 110 
 Lytton, Lord, 139—145 
 
 Machyn, Henry, 43, 45 
 
 Magnavilla, see Mandeville 
 
 Magna Charta (note), 13 
 
 Maiden's Tomb, 84 
 
 Maidman, J., Rector, 55, 117 
 
 Mandeville, 6, 8, 10, 15, 18, 19, 21, 58 
 
 Maneyard, W., Rector, 52 
 
 Manor House at Perivale, 93 
 
 Maplesdon, 48, 52 
 
 Marshall, T., Rector, 44, 52 
 
 Marsack, 53 
 
 Masters, 88 
 
 Maude, the Empress, 10 
 
 Marriages at Perivale, 119 
 
 Metcalf, "Knights Banneret," &c. (note), 44 
 
 Middlesex landowners at the Conquest, 8 
 
 Middleton, J., 38, 52 
 
 Mihnan, Dean, 46 
 
 Mills, Richard, Rector, 147 
 
 Millet, 47, 52, 73, 78, 79, 81, 119 
 
 Minute book of Perivale Vestry, 126 
 
 Morgan, Henry, 53, 96 
 
 Murray, 53, 96 
 
 Mussendon, J., Rector, 32, 51 
 
 Mylett brasses,; 78 
 
 " My Novel " quoted, 144-5 
 
 " Myths of the Middle Ages," 23 
 
 Nelson's " Laws of England," 7 
 
 Newcourt, 5, 30, 42, 43, 49, 51, 56 
 
 Newell, Admiral, 85 
 
 Newman, Cardinal, &c, 146 
 
 Nicholas, Rev. Dr., &c, 68, 88, 89, 146 
 
 Nisbett, Sir John, 85 
 
 Nobull, Hugo, 37, 52 
 
 Norden, 5 
 
 Northey, 88 
 
 Nye, Philip, 49 
 
 Ode to Richard Cain, 125 
 Orientation of Perivale Church, 69 
 Osbaldiston, Squire, 148 
 Osmond, Nic, Rector, 47, 52 
 
 Paddington, water tower at, 37 
 
 Pannage, 7 
 
 Parish Churches, foundation of, 77 
 
 Parish constable at Perivale, 126 
 
 Paris, Matthew, 16, 21 
 
 Patten, 88 
 
 Paul's, Saint, Canons of, 7 (note, 57) 
 
 Pearson, W., Rector, 117 
 
 Penn, 88 
 
 Penfold, 96 
 
 Percival, John, Sheriff, 39 
 
 Peri-vale, Quatrains to, 150 
 
 Perivale Church, date of, 20, 57 
 
 Orientation of, 58 
 
 Windows in, 67, 68, 70, 73 
 
 Reredos, &c, 67 
 
 Sacramental plate, 73 
 
 Patron saint, unknown, 56 
 
 Architecture of, 57, 58, 61, 65 
 
 Holy water stoup, 62 
 
 Causes of its neglect and injury, 59, 63 
 
 Value of living, 75 
 
 Register, 119 
 
 Divine service at, 69, 72 
 Perivale rural sports, 99 
 
 Parish, population of, 108 
 Pinkerton, 85 
 Poor law, administration of, at Perivale 
 
 126, 128 
 Population of Perivale, 108 
 Porter, 88 
 
 Purevale, see Perivale 
 Pyerson, J., Rector, 52 
 
 M 
 
154 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 j,* 
 
 Ramsey Abbey, plundered by a Lord of the 
 
 Manor of Perivale, 17 
 Randall, 88 
 
 Rawlinson, Sir Henry, 146 
 Rayne, 88 
 
 Read, E., Rector, 48, 52 
 Rectors of Perivale, 51, 117 
 
 Buried in Perivale, 117 
 Rectory at Perivale, 90 
 Reformation, germs of the, 31 
 Register, 113, 117 
 Rigby, 88 
 Roberts, 88 
 Rocque's Survey, 6, 93 
 Roman remains near Perivale, 76 
 Roses, War of, 39 
 Rush bearing, 137 
 Rysdale, Rector, 44, 52 
 
 Sacramental plate, 73 
 Saulez, 88 
 
 Sawtre, John, burnt, 36 
 " Saxon Chronicle," 9 
 
 Fibulae, 11 
 
 Churches in England, 76 
 Saxons, West, interment of warriors near 
 
 Perivale, 11 
 Say, Beatrix de, 20, 21 
 Schar or Scat Penny, 14 
 Schrieber, John, 53 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 9 
 Seaxe, East, 11 
 Segrave, J., Rector, 36, 51 
 Selwyn, Bishop, 146 
 Service, Divine, at Perivale, 72, 73 
 Shelbury, 47, 79 
 Shury, R., Rector, 85, 147 
 Slade, 88 
 Smart, 88 
 Smith, 88 
 Socage, 13 
 
 Sokemen or Socmen, 13 
 Southwell, 42, 43, 65 
 Stanton, J., 85 
 Staughton, Rev. Dr., 147 
 Stephanides, see Fitzstephen, 14 
 Stickleton, Manor of, 26 
 Stowe, 21, 30, 37, 38, 45 
 Street, 88 
 
 Sudbury, Simon de, 31 
 Sunset at Perivale, 138 
 Sutton, Colonel, 85 
 Sweitzer, 88 
 Swift, Dean, 75 
 
 " Table Book," Hone's, 137 
 
 Taylor, J., Roctor, 39, 52 
 
 Temple Church, 17 
 
 Thackeray, 146 
 
 Thesiger, Sir Frederick, 146 
 
 Thornbury, "Old and New London," 39 
 
 Thomson, Anthony Todd, Dr., 85 
 
 Tryers, Committee of, 48' 
 
 Tuckfield, 85 
 
 Tuf ton, Sir John, 45 
 
 Turner, 88 
 
 Twyford, 7, 57, 75 
 
 Vestries at Perivale, 74, 125 
 Vere, Henry de, 20 
 Verry, S., 116, 117 
 Veysey, Thos., Rector, 44, 52 
 Virgate (note), 12 
 
 Walden, Register of, 18 
 
 Walford, Edward, " Greater London," 50 
 
 Ward, Pet., Rector, 36, 51 
 
 Webster, E., 88 
 
 Westmacott, 68, 146 
 
 Westminster Abbey, 11, 15 
 
 Wetherall, 87 
 
 White Swan, Legend of the, 23 
 
 Whittington, Sir Richard, 37 
 
 Wickliffe, 32 
 
 Wildman, James, 82 
 
 Willey, 57, 68, 88 
 
 William the Conqueror, saying of, 15 
 
 Wilson, Governor of S. Carolina, 85 
 
 Wilson, Dr., 86 
 
 Windmill at Perivale, 100 
 
 Winter, 88 
 
 Wyatt, H., Rector, 48, 49, 52, 83 
 
 Wykes, 119 
 
 Yeoman, derivation of , 83 
 Tews in churchyards, 83 
 Yillinge (Ealing), 36, 37 (note) 
 
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