till 1603, when King James granted it to John Earl of Mar.' It was valued at £10 per annum. "I have not," says Lysons, "been able to find any other account of this estate or to trace its site It was situate at Stroud Green, adjoining Hornsey Wood. It was surveyed in 1726 by Thomas Brown for James Colebrook, Esq., and consisted of 121 acres, but it is not known whether it was originally of larger extent. The Ferne Park Road represents the site of the manor. A sketch of what was said to be the old Manor House will be found amongst the illustrations.

These last three manors were entirely subsidiary to the Manor of Hornsey, and seem, politically speaking, to have been but little more than names.

The Manor of St. John of Jerusalem.

At the dissolution of the monasteries at least four-fifths of the parish of Islington was in possession of the clergy, and the tract of land comprised in the Manor of St. John of Jerusalem was the most considerable of these estates; the name is derived from its having formed part of the possessions of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, a religious order instituted about the beginning of the twelfth century.2 In a record of the numerous possessions of this order about A.D. 1373 are the names of the following estates:

Prior Sancti Joh'is Jer'l'm in Anglia.

West Smethefelde.

Finchesley.

Iseldon.

Kentisheton.

Canonburie Maner, Middl*.

The lands of which the order remained in possession till the time of the dissolution included nearly the whole parishes of St. John and St. James, Clerkenwell, and the greater part of Islington, from its south-western extremity at Battle Bridge to Highgate on the north, and by Hornsey Lane and Duval's Lane to Ring Cross and Canonbury on the south.

The so-called Finchley lands are some sixty-four acres lying on the east side of Colney Hatch Lane, Muswell Hill, which by a strange anomaly are claimed as a portion of the parish of Clerkenwell, because the lands belonged to the Priory of Clerkenwell. By the same process of reasoning Clerkenwell might just as well claim the larger proportion of the parish of Islington.

The grand house belonging to the order stood on the site of St. John's Square, Clerkenwell, of which the ancient gateway still remains. Such was the humility of these knights, that they at first styled themselves "Servants to the poor servants of the hospital at Jerusalem"; and, to 2 Nelson's History of Islington.

1 Pat. Rolls, 1 James, part 5.

express their poverty, took for their seal the representation of two men riding on one horse; but by the munificence of some of the kings and nobles, together with the accession of lands and possessions which they received on the suppression of the Knights Templars (temp. Edward II.), the order was found, at the dissolution of religious houses, to be endowed with land in England alone, to the yearly value of £2,385 12s. 8d.; and about the year 1240, it is said to have possessed 19,000 lordships or manors in different parts of Christendom." 1

Bishop Latimer complains in one of his sermons that the revenues of the Church were seized by the rich laity, and that the incumbent was only a proprietor in title; that many benefices were let out to farm to secular men, or given to their servants as a consideration for keeping their hounds, hawks, and horses, and that the poor clergy were reduced to such short allowance that they were forced to go to service, and turn clerks of the kitchen, surveyors, receivers, etc.; and Camden complains that "avarice and sacrilege had strangely the ascendant at this time; that estates formerly settled for the support of religion and the poor, were ridiculed as superstitious endowments, first miscalled and then plundered."

The bishops were too easy in parting with the lands and manors belonging to their bishoprics, and the courtiers too eager in grasping everything they could lay their hands upon. For instance, letters patent dated December 17th, 1540, were issued by King Henry constituting Westminster Abbey a Cathedral, and Thomas Thirlby was appointed bishop, with a diocese including all Middlesex except Fulham; but in the reign of Edward VI., March 29th, 1550, "the new bishop resigned his office in consequence of the king's letters patent, together with his new diocese, to the Bishop of London, from whom it had been taken, but in the meanwhile he had alienated much of the land." 2

On October 21st, 1647, "An ordinance was read in the House of Commons, for paying the arrears of the army and the soldiery of the kingdom that have served the Parliament, and the question remitted to a Committee chosen for that purpose. The House then further declared, that the arrears of the soldiery of the kingdom that have served the Parliament in this war shall be satisfied and paid out of the sale of bishops' lands belonging to bishopricks, after the present engagements shall be satisfied."

The manor of Hornsey was accordingly surveyed by order of the Parliament, but that portion which had always been kept in demesne had been leased in 1645 to Smith, Esq., for £120 per annum, and there were belonging to it 650 acres of wood and waste. The lease was scrupu

1 Camden's Britannia.

2 Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum.

3 Rushworth's Hist. Collection.
4 Lysons.

lously respected,—indeed the Commonwealth invariably recognised private rights,—and as it did not expire until the period of the restoration, the lands in question became the nucleus of the present ecclesiastical estate in Hornsey, purchasers of the surrounding property finding it desirable that they should either present, or sell at a nominal figure, lands the very holding of which was an offence to the dominant party in the State. When the bishop's lands were sold, the manor of Hornsey came into the hands of Sir John Wollaston, who held it till his death in 1658, after which his widow enjoyed it till the restoration.

Sir John (who resided in the mansion which formerly stood on the site of Cholmeley Park) was a trustee for the sale of these lands, and under the heading of "The Houses," etc., will be found some particulars of the prices Sir John paid for some of them. In the Library of the British Museum is a scarce little work in which Sir John Wollaston's name is mentioned; it is entitled

"Mystery of the Good Old Cause briefly unfolded, in a catalogue of such members of the late Long Parliament that held offices both civil and military, contrary to the self-denying ordinances hereunto annexed. Together with the sums of money and land they divided among themselves during their sitting. Also a list of such Aldermen and Common Councilmen and others as made profit by the continuance of the war, excise taxes, and oppressive proceedings of that Parliament.

Printed in the first year of England's liberty after about twenty years' slavery."

The parish of Hornsey contains 2,930 ac. I r. 30 p., of which its woodlands are now but 312 ac. 2 r. 21 p., divided as follows :—

Note.-Enfield Chase, part of the old woodlands north of London, was also cut down

by order of Parliament (Harrison).

In the times referred to, in the earlier history of the parish, the probability is that these figures would be reversed, and the woodlands, instead of being 300 acres, would have been nearer 2,500 acres !

After the constant record of alienation the history of the manor affords, it is quite refreshing to chronicle a recent graceful and generous act of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, in whom the lands of the Bishop of London are vested, in restoring for public use a portion of the old forest of Middlesex as represented by "The Gravel Pit Wood," Highgate.

The inception of the idea which led to this interesting concession is due to Mr. H. R. Williams, of the Priory, Hornsey, the Chairman of the Hornsey Local Board, who urged the subject upon public attention in a letter to The Times on 10th September, 1884; it was warmly seconded by a leading article in that paper on the next day, followed by similar articles in the daily and weekly press. Mr. Williams followed up his suggestion in other letters under date 13th September, 17th September, the 8th and 20th October, 1884, which The Times again followed by a leader on the latter date. The outcome was, that this beautiful wood consisting of about 70 acres was conveyed by the Commissioners to the Corporation of the City of London, as a free gift for the use and recreation of the public for ever; and it was dedicated to that purpose by the Lord Mayor (Sir John Staples) on the 30th October, 1886. Fuller reference to this interesting matter will be found under the chapter Highgate of To-day."

66

Important as this gift is in itself, and still more important as the recognition of public claims on property held for public uses, it hardly goes far enough. To make the gift complete, it should include the " Churchyard Bottom Wood," from which the Gravel Pit Wood is divided only by a narrow road running almost its entire length, and thus secure about one hundred and twenty acres of beautiful and diversified woodland within five miles of the City. If the second wood unhappily falls into the hands of the builder, it will entirely mar the intention of the original gift, as it will then without doubt be surrounded by houses; whereas the two plots of woodland combined, would command an isolation which would greatly enhance the charm of their sylvan beauty.

THE FLYING SPUR.

CHAPTER II.

THE PARISH, THE CHURCHES, AND THE SCHOOL.

Origin of the parish-The parish churches of Hornsey-The rectors from 1321-Monuments in the church--Notes referring to some of the rectors-The Rev. William Cole and the Bishop -Extracts from the parish register and the vestry minutes-Bishop Aylmer-Hornsey items -Hornsey charities-The Hermitage of St. Michael's, Highgate-The Hermits-Paviage grants-The Hermitage conveyed to Sir Roger Cholmeley as a suppressed religious foundation-The old chapel, its monuments, gifts-The Highgate charities-Extracts from the registers-The preachers or readers of the old chapel-The Cholmeley school-Sir Roger Cholmeley-The original statutes of the school, its income-The great law suit, Dr. Dyne and its resuscitation--The school and the school buildings-The consolidated chapelry and church of St. Michael-Order in council-The vicars-The parsonage-The ecclesiastical district of All Saints.

ARISHES were first ordained in England by Honorius V., Archbishop of Canterbury, about 636; prior to which period the clergy lived in common, every clerk receiving his proportion out of the common stock for his maintenance. These parishes appear, however, to have been bishoprics, or at least comprehended a greater portion of territory or district than is consistent with the ordinary extent of a parish or parochial cure of souls; when the distribution into smaller districts took place, it seems difficult to ascertain. The boundaries of parishes were first ascertained by those of a manor or manors, because it very seldom happens that a manor extends itself over more than one parish, though there are often many manors in one parish. As Christianity spread, the lords began to build churches upon their own demesnes or wastes, in order to accommodate their tenants in one or two adjoining lordships; and that they might have divine service regularly performed therein, obliged all their tenants to appropriate their tithes to the maintenance of the one officiating minister, instead of leaving them at liberty to distribute them among the clergy of the diocese in general; which accounts for the frequent intermixture of parishes one with another. For if a lord had a parcel of land detached from the main of his estate, but not sufficient to form a parish of itself, it was natural for him to endow his newly-erected church with the tithes of such lands. Hence the parochial division of England in the Taxatio Ecclesiastica, compiled