Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/205

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10 s. viii. AUG. si, loo?.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


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"The Two Mentors,' and of 'The School for Widows,' a novel in 3 vol. And the writer of this memoir believes of 'Letters to a Young Prince,' under the fictitious signature of a Man of Kent. She had formed a very elegant and curious collec- tion of shells. She had long suffered a painful and lingering illness : and in the early stages of it re- tained her literary perseverance. She had been, for many years of her life, the friend and companion of two of the sorrowing daughters of Richardson, the ever memorable author of ' Clarissa,' both of whom she outlived. The writer of this article became acquainted with her above twenty years back, by means of Mr. Edward Bridgen (an eminent merchant of London, and a friend of Dr. Benj. Franklin), who had married the youngest daughter of Richardson." Of the ' Letters to a Young Prince ' I find no mention in Halkett and Laing.

WILLIAM E. A. AXON. Manchester.

THE KING'S OLD BABGEHOTTSE. A short paper of mine with the above title has been accepted for The Home Counties Magazine, but as it cannot appear for several months, the editor kindly allows me to anticipate its publication with a few notes on the subject.

As long ago as 1899 I made the discovery in the registers of Lambeth Parish Church that some of the quondam inmates of the King's Prison of the Fleet, during a range of years closely corresponding to the period between the destruction of the old prison on the Ludgate Circus site by the Fire of London, 4 Sept., 1666, and its re-erection and the return of the prisoners, 21 Jan., 1670-71 (see London Gazette, No. 541), were detained in " Ye Old Barghouse." This building was probably used to supple- ment the accommodation of " Caron House," South Lambeth, to which, as Seymour and other topographers inform us, the prisoners were committed, and which was made over by Lord Chancellor Clarendon to Sir Jeremy Whichcote, the Warden of the Fleet, for that purpose.

There were several bargehouses along the Lambeth shore, but the bargehouse par excellence, and the one likeliest to have sheltered the king's prisoners, was, I think, " the King's Old Bargehouse," that stood at the junction of Broad Wall and Upper Ground Street, close by the new Post Office premises. The late Sir Walter Besant, who expressed a lively interest in my dis- covery, concurred in this opinion, and I have arrayed sufficient evidence to support, I think, the conclusion that the " Barge- house," though now in the parish of Christ Church, representing the old liberty of Paris Garden, formerly included in the parish of Southwark, was built on a piece of land pertaining to the Prince's Manor of Kenning-


ton, and was therefore properly noticed in the Lambeth registers.

I hope, however, to pursue further my investigations of this subject, having been promised by Mr. Charles Greenwood (Regis- trar of the new Manorial Society, and steward of the copyhold portion of the old manor of Paris Gardens) a sight of some of the early Court Rolls, &c. Meanwhile I should be obliged if any of your readers could locate " Slutts Well," mentioned in 1652 as a boundary of " Mill Bank," which extended from the tenements adjoining to " ye Bargehouse," and was contiguous to " the lands of Mr. Brooker on the N.E." This Mr. Brooker was probably the same as Thomas Browker, son and heir of Hugh Browker, who in 1602 purchased the free- hold of the demesne land of the manor of Paris Garden.

Could the surname Browker have been a variant of Brounker ? Lord Jermyn's mother, buried 1693, was Rebecca, Lady Brounker. Was her husband Henry, Vis- count Brounker, who in 334 and 34-5 Charles II. was Cofferer and Keeper of the Great Wardrobe ? In 1660 the Paris Garden Manor House and grounds were conveyed by William Angel to Hugh Jermyn of Lombard Street. I know not whether this William Angel was related to Robert Angel, Serjeant-Purveyor of the King's Household temp. Car. II. ETHEL LEGA-WEEKES.

LONDON AND BIRMINGHAM RAILWAY : UNROOFED CARRIAGES. It is just seventy years since this railway (now called the London and North- Western) was opened as far as Box Moor, and an advertisement in The Parthenon of 5 Aug., 1837, showing that only three trains daily left Euston, is of interest. Here are some details as to carriages :

" Second Class Coaches carry eight passengers inside, and are covered, but without lining, cushions, or divisions, and the seats are not numbered.

"Third Class Coaches carry four passengers on each seat, and are without covering."

It should be observed that the word " covered " meant that the carriages were roofed, to distinguish those from the ordinary third-class ones, which were open at sides and top in fact, no better than cattle- trucks. So slowly do some railways move in the matter of alteration of terms, that within the last twenty years I have seen advertisements of excursion trains to sea- side resorts which contained, at the end of the announcement, the words " Covered carriages." E. E. NEWTON.

7, Achilles Road, West End, Hamostead, N.W.