Bayswater.] ANCIENT CONDUITS. 183 thoroughfares which lie to the north of Westbourne help to elucidate the question :-"The Dean and Grove and south of the Great Western Railway. A large portion of the riding ground, however, was still kept laid down in turf-rather of a coarse kind, it must be owned; and some hedges were preserved, over which dashing young ladies would ride their chargers as lately as the year 1852. But in the course of the next five or six years the green sward, and the green trees, and the green hedges were all swept away, and on the spot selected by the "Di Vernons" and " pretty horse-breakers" for their trial-jumps now stands St. Stephen's Church. Portobello Farm was marked in the maps of the neighbourhood as lately as 1830: it was named by its then owner at the time of the capture of that city by Admiral Vernon. It then stood in the midst of open fields, in which the cows and sheep grazed and pigs were fed. In what is now Portobello Road, skirting the eastern end of Ladbroke Square, stands a convent of the Little Sisters of the Poor. The "sisters" themselves feed off the scraps left by the paupers whom they support by going round to the doors of London houses for broken victuals. Upwards of a hundred poor persons are daily supported by the "sisters" in this benevolent manner. The head-quarters of this charity are at Hammersmith, where the chief institution will be described in its proper place. There was a pretty walk this way across to Kensal Green till about 1850-60. The splendid new town of Bayswater, close by, which has joined North Kensington and Shepherd's Bush on to London, had no existence during the first few years of Queen Victoria, when "Hopwood's Nursery Ground" and the Victoria Gardens --so famed for running-matches and other sporting meetings-faced the dull brick wall which effectually shut out the green glades and leafy avenues of Kensington Gardens from the view of passengers along the Bayswater Road. Bayswater is a vague name for the district extending from the Gravel Pits to the north-west corner of Hyde Park. Lord Chesterfield, in one of his poems, has praised the healthiness of the situation, though, probably, he was too fond of the town to walk often so far in the direction of the open country. The whole district of streets, squares, terraces, and crescents sprung into existence in the course of about ten years-between 1839 and 1849. Bayswater was noted of old for its springs, reservoirs, and conduits, supplying the greater part of the City of London with water. With regard to the origin of the name of Bayswater, the following particulars from the disclosures made in a trial at Westminster, as suminarised by a writer in the first volume of Notes and Queries, Chapter of Westminster are possessed of the manor of Westbourne Green, in the parish of Paddington, parcel of the possessions of the extinct Abbey of Westminster. It must have belonged to the Abbey when Domesday was compiled; for, although neither Westbourne nor Knightsbridge (also a manor of the same house) is specially named in that survey, yet we know, from a later record of the time of Edward I., that both of those manors were members, or constituent hamlets, of the ville of Westminster, which is mentioned in Domesday among the lands of the Abbey. The most considerable tenant under the abbot in this ville was Bainiardus, probably the same Norman associate of the Conqueror who is called Baignardus and Bainardus in other parts of the survey, and who gave his name to Baynard's Castle. The descent of the land held by him under the abbot cannot be clearly traced, but his name long remained attached to part of it; and as late as the year 1653 a parliamentary grant of the Abbey or Chapter lands to Foxcrafte and another, describes 'the common field at Paddington' as being 'near to a place commonly called Baynard's Watering.' In 1720, the lands of the Dean and Chapter in the same common field are described, in a terrier of the Chapter, to be in the occupation of Alexander Bond, of Bear's Watering, in the same parish of Paddington. The common field referred to is the well-known piece of garden-ground lying between Craven Hill and the Uxbridge Road, called also Bayswater Field. We may, therefore, fairly conclude that this portion of ground, always remarkable for its springs of excellent water, once supplied water to Baynard, his household, or his cattle; that the memory of his name was preserved in the neighbourhood for six centuries; and that his 'watering-place' now figures on the outside of certain omnibuses, in the streets of London, under the modern name of 'Bayswater.'" The running streams and gravelly soil of this neighbourhood were at one time highly favourable for the growth of watercress, of which, as lately as the year 1825, there were several cultivators here, as in other places in the vicinity of London. The cultivation of watercress is said to have been first attempted, at the commencement of the present century, by a Mr. Bradbury, near Gravesend. Gerarde, the herbalist, says that eating watercresses restores the "wonted bloom to the cheeks of young ladies." Perhaps that is one reason why that plant is so popular. On a slanting grassy bank, about a hundred yards from the back of the line of dwelling-houses now bearing the name of Craven Hill, stood, down of this conduit as it appeared in the year 1798, to about the year 1820, an ancient stone-built of which a copy is given on page 186. The conduit-house, whence the water-supply was con- aqueduct itself was "round, and cased thick with veyed by pipes underground into the City. Con- stone, and in the upper spiral part they lapped duit Passage and Spring Street, both near at hand, over each other, tile-like, and were fastened tothence derive their designation. The conduit was gether with iron cramps to the brickwork, thick constructed and kept up by the Corporation of within. It was of a regular circumference, from London, "to preserve a large spring of pure water, the pediment or base about eight feet, and then which rose at the spot, and was formerly conveyed spread up to the point, and was capped with a by leaden pipes (cast in Holland) to Cheapside ball. Its height, about twenty feet, had four airand Cornhill." "It was," says a writer in the lets, resembling windows, with a door next the City Press, "one of the most ancient springs in garden, plated with iron plates, over which, in the vicinity of London, and, being situate in a an oblong square, was cut, 'REP. ANNO 1632'; manor once belonging to the Sanford family, and in another part were the City arms, with the date, subsequently to the Earl of Craven, was granted 1782." The water, we are told, was constantly to the citizens by one Gilbert Sanford in the issuing from under the door, through a wooden twenty-first year of the reign of Henry III., A.D. pipe, at the rate of thirty gallons an hour, and 1236." Some reference is made to it in Lysons' took its course under the bridge into Kensington "Environs of London," where it is stated that the Gardens. When this water was let to the prowater, "conveyed by brick drains, supplies the prietors of Chelsea Waterworks, a stipulation was houses in and about Bond Street, which stand made that the basin therein should be kept full. upon the City lands." Lysons further states that This spring also supplied the basin in Hyde "the springs at this place lie near the surface, | Park, whence, as we have already seen, it was conand the water is very fine." One of the principal veyed by a water-wheel, "at Hyde Park wall, reservoirs here, of which the Serpentine received the overplus, was situated where Trinity Church now stands, at the corner of Gloucester Gardens, Bishop's Road, not far from the "Royal Oak" tavern. In the Saturday Magazine for May 18th, 1844, there is an illustration of the Conduit-head at Bayswater, and in the article which accompanies it, the writer thus observes :-"The sources of the various conduits of London, formerly kept with so much care, have for the most part entirely disappeared. That at Paddington, however, still exists, though probably not in its original form; and Mr. Matthews says that, up to a recent period, it afforded a plentiful supply of water to some houses in Oxford Street. The conduit, or spring, is situate in a garden about half a mile to the west of the Edgware Road, and at the same distance from Bayswater, within two hundred or three nundred yards of the Grand Junction Water Company's reservoirs. It is covered by a circular building in good condition, and some of the pipes continue in a sound state, although several centuries have elapsed since they were laid down. From the same source, about a century ago, the palace at Kensington received a part of its supply, which was effected by the aid of a water-wheel placed at Bayswater Bridge; but on the establishment of the Chelsea Waterworks, it became useless, and was removed." There is also in the illustrated edition of Pennant's "London," in the British Museum, a print near Knightsbridge chapel," on to the Thames at Pimlico. It also took a subterraneous course into the City, "whose name and arms it bore," and whose property it was, and to whom now, no doubt, the land belongs all round about whereupon it was built. The water-course to the City was formerly denoted by stones above ground, laid along through the fields; and in the burying-ground of St. George, Hanover Square, which abuts upon the Bayswater Road, was once a brick well and several stones, marked with the City arms, and the date of 1773. There was also a well against the shop, 254, Oxford Street, with the City arms, inscribed "1772." In the centre of the "conduitfield" there was a very curious antique stone, much mutilated, which pointed out the rise of the spring. There were also two other mark-stones, almost hid in the earth, near to the conduit. When the Craven Hill estate was parcelled out for building purposes, the stone conduit-house was pulled down, and the stream was led either into the main sewer or into the river Serpentine, which rises much farther up in a north-easterly direction, and now rushes, occasionally with great impetus, under the centre of the roadway in Kensington Garden Terrace, and, crossing the Bayswater Road, enters Kensington Gardens where the fountains are. Apropos of the ancient streams in this locality, it may be added that it is said there was in the olden days very good fishing in the trout stream which ran from Notting Hill Manor towards Hay Bayswater.] SIR JOHN HILL'S PHYSIC GARDEN. 185 (as stated above) by Queen Anne, as a nursery for her son, the little Duke of Gloucester, before she engaged Campden House, where we have already seen her. Craven Hill is now called Craven Road, the inequality of it having been levelled by filling up the low ground where a small brook once crossed Hill, Berkeley Square, taking its course through Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, which was built on the high banks of the said stream, where it ceased to blend with the Tye. We know that as early as the reign of Henry III. there were six fountains in this locality from which water was supplied to the City by means of pipes. In Lambert's "London and its Environs," pub-it from north to south. The houses in Craven lished in 1805, we read :—" Bayswater is a hamlet to Paddington, about a mile from London, on the Uxbridge Road. Its public tea-gardens formerly belonged to the celebrated Sir John Hill, who here cultivated the medicinal plants from which he prepared his essences, tinctures, &c." Sir John Hill was the son of a clergyman, born about 1716, and bred as an apothecary. He was employed by Lord Petre and the Duke of Richmond in the arrangement of their botanic gardens in Essex and Sussex; and by their assistance he executed a scheme of travelling over several parts of the kingdom, to collect the most rare plants, accounts of which he published by subscription. But this proved a failure, and showed that he was in advance of his time. His "Vegetable System" extends over twenty-six folio volumes! and for this he was rewarded by a Swedish order of knighthood from the king of that country. It appears that, for a time at least, Sir John Hill, though little better than a charlatan and an empiric, enjoyed the reputation of a great and learned botanist. He was at one time a second-rate actor, and he made an unsuccessful attempt to obtain admission into the Royal Society. Garrick's epigram on him is well known, and has often been quoted :— "For physic and farces his equal there scarce is; His farces are physic; his physic a farce is.” Among the medicines produced by Sir John Hill were his "Water-dock Essence" and his "Balm of Honey." These gardens are now covered by the long range of mansions called Lancaster Gate. They were originally known as the "Physic Garden," and were opened as a place of amusement towards the close of the last century. They were still in existence as gardens as late as 1854, though no longer frequented by pleasure-seekers of the upper classes. It is not a little singular that the gardens at Bayswater are not even mentioned by name, in the article on "Old Suburban Tea Gardens," in Chambers' "Book of Days." Faulkner, writing in 1820, says that within the last few years Bayswater has increased to a "popular neighbourhood." Craven House, which gave its name to Craven Hill, above mentioned, became the residence of Lord Craven's family some time before 1700, on their removal from Drury Lane. It was borrowed Road and Craven Hill Gardens stand on the site of a field which was given about the year 1720 in exchange for the "Pest-field," near Golden Square, already mentioned; and it may be the reverse of comforting to the inhabitants to know that, under an old agreement between Lord Craven and the parochial authorities, the plot of ground in question may be taken for the purpose of a burialground, in case London should ever again be visited with the plague; unless, indeed, this liability has been done away with by the Act which enforces extra-mural interments. This land was not used during the cholera of 1849; and at the present time, as we have shown above, a grand London square, called Craven Gardens, alone indicates the site of the Pest-house fields. The property, which belonged in former times to one Jane Upton, and was called Upton Farm, was purchased by the trustees of this charity-estate for £1,570. In 1821 the Toxophilite Society rented about four acres of ground here, between Sussex Gardens and the Bayswater Road, just opposite the point where Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens meet; they formed then part of quite a rural district, the ground shelving down somewhat steeply on the west to a little brook. A pavilion was erected here for the use of the members, and we are told that "there was space for three pairs of targets, with a range of about 200 yards." The Society held these grounds until 1834, when they removed to their present gardens in the Regent's Park. The exact site of these grounds is preserved in the name of the Archery Tavern in Bathurst Street, leading to Sussex Square. In the fields a little to the north of Craven Hill, towards Westbourne Green, was the cottage (see page 147) where the Princess of Wales used to throw off the restraints of royal etiquette in the company of her intimate friends. The district lying between Kensington Gardens and Paddington, a little to the north of Bayswater, was known, till the reign of George IV., as Westbourne Green, and was quite a leafy retreat at the time of that king's accession. That portion of the district lying to the north of Westbourne Grove and Bishop's Road will be best dealt with in our chapter on Paddington; but with regard to West |