and is called Arragon Tower, in which Mr. G. W. Chinery resides. The original house was large, but possessed no features of peculiar interest. It was evidently a Tudor structure (a mantelpiece in it indisputably belonged to that period,) renovated in the time of William and Mary. In an apartment which was used as a cellar was a carved door of considerable antiquity, and several vacant niches with an ecclesiastical look about them, similar to those existing in the Vicarage. A large garden adjoined the house, in which was a magnificent walnut tree, which, when cut down, was sold for about 8ol. The royal arms of England were placed either in the hall or over the entrance door.

An account of Orleans House and York House, parcels of the manor, will be found in the second Part of this volume.*

* Ironside, in describing the Manor house has inadvertently introduced several facts which belong to Orleans House.

CHAPTER II.

THE CHURCH.

CONVENTUAL ESTABLISHMENT AT TWICKENHAM-PATRONAGE OF THE LIVING-VALUE OF THE VICARAGE-THE PARISH CHURCH -THE OLD CHURCH FALLS DOWN IN 1713-THE NEW EDIFICE SUBSCRIPTION DEED AND FACULTY FOR REBUILDING -FORMS USED BY THE CHURCHWARDENS FOR THE CONVEYANCE OF Pews-RestoratION OF THE CHURCH IN 1859 -THE BISHOP'S FACULTY-MEMORIAL WINDOWS, &c. &c.— DECORATION OF THE CHURCH IN 1872-COMMUNION PLATEBELLS ADDITIONS MADE TO THE CHURCHYARD-GRAVEYARDS IN LONDON ROAD, 1782, AND ROYAL OAK LANE, 1837-NEW PAROCHIAL CEMETERY ON WHITTON COMMON, 1867.

TWICKENHAM was probably a place of no importance before the church was built and the religious house founded. The exact date of these events cannot be ascertained. That there was a religious house here, Ironside is confident, from the fact that in his day three large crosses remained in the garden-wall belonging to the vicarage house, near the corner of it; "marks which," he says, "are still in Catholic countries the characteristics of such sort of buildings, and the vicarage house itself has several marks still visible about it to show that it was once a part of the residence of the monks." The most obvious of these are the niches referred to above other signs have doubtless been obliterated in

the necessary alterations of later times, and the "three large crosses are now nowhere to be found.*

The church of Twickenham was of old appropriated to the Abbey of S. Valery (or Waleric,) in Picardy, a religious establishment founded by Clothaire, King of the Franks, and a vicarage was endowed, of which the abbot and monks became patrons, the right being confirmed to them by Henry III. They presented to it in virtue of their cell at Takeley in Essex, a manor which had been given to them soon after the Conquest by either William the Conqueror or Henry I., the prior and brethren there being their proctorsgeneral in England. In 1337, during the wars with France, the estates of the alien priories were confiscated by Edward III., and let out with all their lands and tenements on lease for three and twenty years. This sovereign appears to have presented three times to the living of Twickenham. Possession was

restored to the priory in 1361, but Richard II. sequestrated the estates a second time, and, becoming consequently patron of the living, exercised the right of presentation six times, until William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, having founded his college near that city, obtained from the king the rectory and parish church, and the advowson of the vicarage" to be made part of the endowment and possessions of the said college, whereby the warden, fellows, and scholars thereof became proprietors of the said Rectory and patrons of the vicarage." This continued until the general suppression of monasteries by Henry VIII., when the rectory and

In the view of the church in Ironside's history these crosses appear to be on the churchyard wall and not on that of the vicarage.

advowson of the vicarage came to the Crown (the date of the surrender is 1544) as did those of Harmondsworth, Heston, Isleworth, and Hampton, by exchange with the said college for the lordship and manor of Harmondsworth. Edward VI., in the first year of his reign, gave this parsonage, with others, to the dean and canons of his free chapel in the castle of Windsor, in recompense for certain lands which they had already released and assigned to King Henry VIII., by means whereof they became patrons of this vicarage, and have continued so ever since. The lessees have been the same as those of Isleworth. The church was taxed in 1327 at seventeen marks. In 1650, the great tithes were valued at 106/. per annum; in 1800, at 300l. when the reserved rent was 35. 12s. 4 d.*

The vicarage is rated in the King's Book at 11. per annum; its reputed value in 1800 was 300/., out of which the vicar paid his curate 40%. It follows, therefore, that at this date the greater tithes (which

* Mr. Aungier in an appendix to his History of Isleworth (p. 456) quotes the results of a survey of the manors and rectories of Isleworth and Twickenham, as parts of the possessions of the late Dean and Chapter of Windsor, taken in 1649, "by virtue of a Commission granted for abolishing Deanes, Deanes and Chapters, Canons, Prebends, etc."

"All that gleabe land being meadowe ground lying and being in the
Parrish of Twickenham commonly called Lynn Mead, conteyning by
estimacion nyne acres more or lesse, the common field of Twicktenham
on the south, and the newe ryver on the north worth per annum...
"Paid out of this 18 to the poore of the parrish £1 2s. for severing
of the gleabe from being Lamas ground.

£18

"The value of the gleabe and tythes of Twicktenham are, per annum "The Viccarridge of Twickenham is worth per annum

"All these tythes arriseinge, comeinge or groweinge in the parrish of Twickenham are, per annum.

£92

£110

£70

"Mr. Thomas Willis is Minister there

"The Chancell is in noe good repaire."

are impropriate) and the vicarial tithes were of about equal value. The Living is estimated now at Sool., with a house of residence, subject to the deduction of 50%. to the Vicar of Whitton and the salaries of assisting clergy. Ironside says that there is no copy of the endowment, nor any terrier except a very imperfect one, which was in the possession of Stephen Cole, Esq. The living has never been augmented by Queen Anne's Bounty.

The Parish Church is dedicated to Saint Mary the Virgin. The tower is the sole remnant of the original edifice, the date of the erection of which can only be a matter of conjecture.

Ironside says that a pointed arch was to be seen in the vestry, which, in his day, was under the tower, and (quoting Dr. Ducarel as an authority, who says that "the pointed arch was not introduced until nearly the end of the twelfth century,") he infers that the church and cell could not have been built earlier than A. D. 1200, or between that year and 1453, "probably when our affairs in Normandy were in the most flourishing condition." With so wide a margin as two centuries and a half the inference is of no value. The style of the church as exemplified by the tower must have belonged to the age of William of Wykeham, and as the Vicarages of Twickenham and Isleworth were given by the Crown to that prelate, we may conclude that the parish church was rebuilt under his superintendence. Its date, in that case, would be about the middle of the fourteenth century. The ground-plan of the church comprised at that period a nave (with or without aisles)