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under the tower at the west end, where they are lost to view. These are described by Lysons in his "Environs of London." One of them, formerly on the south side of the chancel, commemorates Sir Michael Hickes, whose effigy in armour, life-size, is represented in alabaster; the monument also comprises the effigy of his wife, in a mourning habit, holding a book. Sir Michael Hickes died in 1612. The other monument commemorates Sir William Hickes, who died in 1680; another Sir William Hickes, his son (1702), and Martha Agnes, Lady

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Hickes, wife of Sir William Hickes the younger (1723). On the first-mentioned monument the knight and his lady are lying with their feet together and their heads apart, as if they had just had a conjugal "row." This idea, however, is negatived by the language of regret at parting, and of hope to meet in another and better world which are ascribed to them in Latin verses of doubtful correctness and elegance. On the other monument Sir William Hickes is dressed in a court suit, wig, and ruffles, reclining in a semi-defiant attitude, with his bâton as Warden of Waltham Forest in his right hand. At one end of the tomb stands his son, also in a court suit, and in a military attitude; whilst his lady, who for her age might be the wife

another, apparently of the reign of James I. or Charles I., exhibits a London tradesman in the habit of the day, with his wife and a bevy of children, also suitably attired.

The third brass has a quaint English inscription in rhyme-I cannot say in poetry. It records the death of a Lady Mary Kingestone in 1557:

"If you wyll the truythe have,

Here lyethe in thys grave,
Dyrectly under thys stone,
Good Lady Mary Kyngestone;

Who departyd thys world, the truth to say,
In the month of August, the XV day;
And, as I do well remember,

Was buryed honorably 4 day of September,
The yere of our Lorde, rekynyd truly.

[Leyton.

MVC fourty and eyght varely;

Whos yerly obyte and anniversary
Ys determined to be kept surely,

JOHN STRYPE.

At the costs of hyr sone, Sr Henry Jernynghame

truely;

Who was at thys makyng,

Of the Quenes gard cheffe capteyn."

Lady Kingestone-or Kingston-was the wife of Sir William Kingston, and daughter of Richard, Lord Scroope. She had been first married to Edward Jerningham.

Among other monuments in the church may be mentioned those of Charles Goring, Earl of Norwich,

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part of the last century. John Strype, the celebrated historian and antiquarian, lies buried in the chancel, but his gravestone has been covered and concealed by the new flooring. He was duly licensed by the Bishop of London, and though never actually inducted, held this vicarage during the long period of sixty-eight years. He died at the residence of his grand-daughter, at Hackney, in December, 1737, at the age of ninety-four.

Strype is said to have been of German descent, but to have been born at Stepney in 1643. He graduated at Cambridge, and on being admitted to

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PORTRAIT OF STRYPE.

who died in holy orders, was presented to the incumbency of 1670, and of Theydon Bois, but resigned a few months afterwards, Sir Richard on being appointed minister of this parish. He Hawkins, dated was for some years "lecturer" of Hackney, until Not the his resignation of that post in 1724, and he held least interesting also with his Essex living the sinecure of Tarring, memorial, however, in Sussex, to which he was presented by Archbishop is a tablet to the Tenison. The history of Strype's long life, in so memory of William far as it is of any public interest, consists merely of Bowyer, the eminent the list of his successive publications, among the more important of which may be mentioned "Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer," "Life of Sir Thomas Smith, Principal Secretary of State to Edward VI. and Elizabeth," "Historical Collections relating to the Life and Acts of Bishop Aylmer," "Annals of the Reformation," Lives of Archbishops Grindal, Parker, and Whitgift, and

printer, and author of "Critical Conjectures on the Greek Testament," who died in 1777, and whose "Life," as written by Mr. John Nichols," his apprentice, partner, and successor," and at whose expense the tablet was erected, contains many interesting particulars of the state of literature and of literary characters through a great

"Ecclesiastical Memorials of the Church of and entered into articles wth John Mount of England under Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Walthamstow, Bricklayer, to build and finish ye Queen Mary." In 1720 he produced an edition of Stow's "Survey of London." Strype probably spent the first fifty years of his life in collecting the materials of the voluminous works which he gave to the world in the succeeding forty.

The churchyard is full of handsome tombs, showing that the dead who lie here occupied highly "respectable" positions in life. Amongst others who are so recorded are Sir John Strange, Master of the Rolls, and author of some legal reports; and Pope's friend, David Lewis, author of the forgotten tragedy of "Philip of Macedon." A gravestone to the memory of Mrs. Elizabeth Wood bears upon it the following punning inscription :"Wail not, my wood, thy trees untymely fall,

They weare butt leaves that autumn's blast could spoyle;
The bark bound up, and some fayre fruit withal,
Transplanted only, she exchanged her soyle.
She is not dead, she did but fall to rise,
And leave the woods, to live in Paradise."

The Vicarage, which stands at the fork of two roads in the high street, was built by Strype, and has some nice carvings of the Stuart era on the lintel and posts. The following extract from one of the old parish registers, probably written by Strype himself, may interest our readers :

"An Account of ye Building of ye Vicar's House of this Parish."-"The Vicarage House of this Parish of Low Leyton, having been of a long time very ruinous, and being at its best state but mean and unfit to receive a Minister with his family, ye present Incumbent, John Strype, M.A., having lived seven years and upwards in ye said Parish, and officiated there as their Minister, thought fit at ye general Vestry at Easter, Anno 1677, to acquaint ye Parishoners with a promise they had made him, at his first coming among ym: wch was, to repair, or rather if need were, to rebuild ye said Vicarage House. Upon wch Motion, ye Vestry appointed Matthias Goodfellow and Robert Harvey, Merchants, to take a view of ye old Vicarage House, and to consider and report ye charge of rebuilding it. Wch was done wthin a short time after by ye former of them, having taken a surveyor and workmen along with him. And a report thereof was accordingly returned at ye next Vestry, wth a Model drawn by Mr. Richard Sadleir, an Inhabitant of this Parish, for ye intended new House, Containing 30 Foot in Front and 26 Foot in Rear. Here upon a Voluntary Subscription was made by divers of ye wel-affected Parishoners, towards ye charge of ye work . . . . Upon this encouragemt ye said Incumbent undertook ye Building thereof himself,

House wth al manner of Workmanship and Materials necessary thereunto. And so ye Foundation of this House was begun to be laid in ye Month of August, Anno 1677, And al finished in ye Month of September ye year following. And ye abovenamed John Strype came into it, to dwel and reside there (by ye Favour of God), ye 26th day of September, in ye year 1678."

During the time of the Civil War a captain of a troop of horse, under the Parliament, named Kem, was foisted on the parish as vicar or parson. He preached, as Laud tells us, one Sunday in August, 1641, in the chapel of the Tower of London, before the illustrious prisoner, "in a buff coat and a scarf, but with a gown on. He told the people they were all blessed that died in this (Parliamentary) cause, with much other such stuff.”

In consequence of the great increase in the population of Leyton of late years a new church (All Saints') was built in 1864. It is constructed of brick and stone, cruciform in plan, with south and west porches. The architecture is of the Decorated style, and the east window, of five lights, and also two others in the chancel, are filled with stained glass.

The National Schools, built in 1847, are in the Elizabethan style, and were raised by subscription, at a cost of £1,200, on the site of the old free school founded at the end of the seventeenth century by Robert Osler, who endowed it with a rent-charge of £12, for seven boys of Leyton and seven of Walthamstow.

There are several charities in the parish, chiefly gifts in money and bread to the poorest inhabitants. The parochial almshouses, by the churchyard, a low range of eight single-roomed tenements, were founded by one John Smith, a merchant of London, in 1656. In the Lea Bridge Road are the Almshouses of the Master Bakers' Pension Society.

Lea Bridge and the road thence to Woodford were made in 1756-7. The bridge itself is partly in the parish of Hackney. It consists of a single arch, built of iron; the approaches to it being of brick with stone dressings and facings. Close by the bridge are the reservoirs of the East London Water Company, the engine-houses, with their tall brick shafts being conspicuous objects by the roadside. Near the bridge is a station on the Great Eastern Railway. The Lea at this point. divides itself into two or three different channels in its course through Hackney Marshes. On one of these branches, about a mile southward from Lea Bridge, were the old Temple Mills, said to have

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anciently belonged to the Knights Templars, and afterwards to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem.* In 1720 these mills were used for brass works; but at the beginning of the present century they were appropriated to the manufacture of sheet lead, and subsequently used as flock mills. The building, which was principally of wood, was pulled down many years ago; and the stream which worked the mill is now under the control of the East London Water Company, above mentioned. The mill spanned the stream, and adjoined the "White Hart" public-house, an hostelry well-known to anglers in these parts.

Among the natives of Leyton was Sir Thomas Rowe, or Roe, Ambassador for James I. to the Great Mogul and to the Sultan of Turkey, and author of a narrative of his travels in that capacity. On his return from the East, Sir Thomas was made Chancellor of the Order of the Garter, and also sworn a Privy Councillor. The celebrated Alexandrian Manuscript of the Greek Testament, of which a fac-simile was published by Dr. Woide towards the end of the last century, was brought to this country by Sir Thomas. He died in 1644. Thomas Lodge, the dramatic poet and actor, known also as a translator of the works of Josephus and Seneca, &c., lived at Low Leyton, as he dates from that place one of his plays, "The Wit's Miserie," which was printed in 1596.

The hamlet of Leytonstone lies to the east of Low Leyton, and stretches for about a mile along the Epping Road in its course from Stratford, from which place it is about two miles north as the crow flies. The main street runs parallel with the Epping and Ongar branch of the Great Eastern Railway, the railway-station being close to the church. The district was formed into a separate

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ecclesiastical parish in 1845. In 1861 the population of Leytonstone was about 2,400. This number had doubled itself in the course of the next ten years, since which time there has been a proportionate increase, streets and rows of "villas" having rapidly sprung up in all directions, particularly eastward, towards the districts once covered by Hainault Forest.

The church of St. John the Baptist was built in 1843; it is constructed of white brick, with stone dressings, and consists of a chancel and nave, with a pinnacled tower at the western end, containing a clock and six bells. The east window, a triple lancet, is filled with stained glass.

was

In 1879 another ecclesiastical district formed at Harrow Green, at the north-western extremity of the parish, abutting upon Ruckholts. This new district has been made up of portions of the several parishes of Leytonstone, Leyton, Wanstead, West Ham, and St. Paul's, Stratford New Town. The church, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, was built in 1878.

The Congregational Church, built in 1877-78, is a large edifice of Lombardo-Gothic design. There are also chapels for other denominations of Dissenters. The Union Workhouse for the parish of West Ham, the inmates of which generally number between 700 and 800, is situated at Leytonstone, as also is the Bethnal Green Industrial School, which was erected in 1868, and provides a home for some 400 children. Another useful philanthropic institution here is the Children's Home, in Forest Place, established in 1865.

Much of the land in the parish which has not been already swallowed up by the greedy builder is cultivated either as market-gardens or as nurserygrounds for choice flowers and ornamental trees.

CHAPTER LII.

HAINAULT FOREST AND ALDBOROUGH HATCH.

"To Hainault Forest Queen Anne she did ride,

And beheld the beautiful Oak by her side;

And after viewing it from the bottom to top

She said to her Court, 'It is a Fair-lop!'"- OLD SONG.

Situation, Boundaries, and Extent of Hainault Forest-Its Etymology-Its Ownership by the Abbey of Barking-It passes to the Crown— Subsequent Disposal- Is Disafforested-The Hamlet of Barking Side-Census Returns-The Church-Dr. Barnardo's Homes for Friendless Children-The "Maypole" Public-house-Fairlop Oak and Fairlop Fair-Aldborough Hatch. HAINAULT FOREST, as we have stated in a previous chapter, was that portion of the Forest of Waltham which lay (alas! I can no longer write "which lies")

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to the south and east of the River Roding. In former times, as already stated, it extended northward as far as Theydon Bois, embracing Chigwell and Woodford Bridge, its southern entrance being at Aldborough Hatch. The word Hatch, as my

readers are probably aware, was the old Saxon term for a wicket-gate, and it still survives in the butteryhatch of our colleges and old manor-houses. From constant enclosures, however, the area of the forest had been so far diminished, that since the commencement of the present century Chigwell Row and Forest Gate may be said to have formed its northern boundary, whilst it extended from Woodford and Leytonstone in the west nearly to Havering-atte-Bower in the east. According to the survey of the Commissioners of Land Revenue, made in 1793, and the estimate of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, the entire area of Hainault Forest at that time was about 17,000 acres; but by 1851, when it was resolved to "disafforest" and enclose it, these acres had dwindled down to about 4,000, of which nearly 3,000 were comprised in the "King's Woods," or royal forest. Almost the only part which has remained unenclosed since 1853, when the work of reclamation began, is Crabtree Wood, which lies a short distance eastward of Chigwell Row. There are a few other patches adjoining Claybury, and at Hog's Hall, near Barking Side.

Hainault Forest is supposed by some writers to have been named from Hainhault, in Germany, "on account of its having been stocked with deer from that place," and by others that it was so called out of compliment to Philippa of Hainhault, the consort of Edward III. Mr. James Thorne, in his " Environs of London," however, says :-"The name, formerly Hen holt, has been derived from the Anglo-Saxon hean, poor, of little value (having reference to the character of the land, as in Hendon, Henley, &c.), and holt, a wood. Dr. Morris has suggested that it may come from hayn, a cleared and enclosed space, and holt. It is not unlikely, however," adds Mr. Thorne, "looking at the character of the district, that it was originally héan holt, the high wood."

Down to the present century this district was wild and uncultivated, in a great measure covered over with forest trees-chiefly pollard oak and hornbeam-and underwood, and with here and there broad sweeps of turf dotted with golden furze, and purple with broom and heather, affording safe retreats for the gipsy tribes who located themselves in these quarters.

sold, and the manor of Barking alienated, but what was called the "soil of the King's Woods, together with the timber growing thereon," was reserved, as well as the right of "vert and venison.” In 1851 an Act of Parliament was passed empowering the Government, after giving full compensation to the lords of manors, freeholders, and others, in respect to their several rights in the forest, to "destroy or remove the deer, cut down the timber, enclose and appropriate the land, make roads," &c.; and in 1853, as stated above, the work of clearance and reclamation was begun in earnest, Messrs. Charles Gore and Thomas F. Kennedy being then the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. The trees, over 100,000 in number, were laid low by the woodman's axe, and produced nearly £21,000, which went a great way towards paying the preliminary expenses of the proceedings. The Crown had obtained, either by allotment or purchase, some 2,000 acres and the whole of the timber; and the remainder was appropriated to the several parishes and lords of manors. Crown lands were thoroughly drained and fenced, and now form a compact property, known as the Crown Farm. What was once Hainault Forest has thus become-from a wild and desolate, but beautiful, waste-a broad expanse of productive, fertile land, the property being cut up and divided by roads, and for the most part put under cultivation as farms. But the rights of the British public were ignored, no village Hampden having up here, as at Loughton, come forward to assert and vindicate them.

The

On the south-west side of this district, which now figures on the map simply as Hainault-or Henhault-is the straggling hamlet of Barking Side. The village consists of a few small houses and labourers' cottages by the roadside, a church, a public-house or two, and a charitable institution. It lies some two miles south from Chigwell Row, and three miles north from Ilford station on the Great Eastern Railway, and it was formed into an ecclesiastical district in 1841, out of Great Ilford and the civil parish of Barking. Its area is some 2,500 acres; whilst its inhabitants, principally employed in agricultural pursuits, number nearly 3,000, or about double of those enumerated in the census of 1871.

The name of Barking Side would seem at first very inappropriate to a place which lies in the opposite direction of Barking from Ilford; but it

The portion of Hainault Forest lying within the manors of Barking and Dagenham belonged to the Abbey of Barking, and at the Dissolution it passed to the Crown. From the time of Charles I., how-must be remembered that the name was given with ever, different portions of the forest have been

"Etymology of Local Names," p. 55.

reference, not to that place, though it may have been the Eald Ford, but to the Forest, which was older still.

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