BAYSWATER AND ITS ORIGIN.

A piece of topographical history was disclosed at the recent trial of a cause at Westminster, which it may be worth while to record among your “Notes.”  The Dean and 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, though neither Westbourne nor Knightsbridge (also a manor of the same house) is specially named in that survey, yet we know, from a later record, viz. a Quo Warranto in 22 Edward I., that both of those manors were members, or constituent hamlets, of the vill of Westminster, which is mentioned in Domesday among the lands of the Abbey.  The most considerable tenant under the abbot in this vill 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 of 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 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 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 green omnibuses in the streets of London, under the name of Bayswater.

E.S.

* * * * *

Eva, daughter of Dermot MACMURROUGH.

Being a subscriber to Mr. O’Donovan’s new translation of The Annals of the Four Masters, I beg to inform your correspondent, “A HAPLESS HUNTER” (No. 6, p. 92.), that the copy which I possess begins with the year 1172; consequently, it is hopeless to refer to the years 1135 and 1169.  In 1173 the death of Mulmurry Mac-Murrough is recorded; as also of Dermot O’Kaelly, from whom the family name of Kelly is derived; but I do not find any notice of the daughter of Dermot MacMurrough.

J.I.

Oxford.