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Richard Whasshe, probably son of the above, Canal, a remnant of which, however, yet and complaint was made of him to Lord keeps its course alongside the iron way. Burghley, High Steward of the Queen's And Jenny's Whim Bridge," the frail manors of Westminster, that he had sublet, timber structure which had carried the byand allowed to be enclosed, land that had road between Neyt Manor House and Ebury been common at Lammastide. Like com- Farm, has given place to the ponderous iron plaint was at the same time made in respect Ebury Bridge, now spanning both railway of 108 acres at "the Neat," in the tenancy and canal. Pimlico, here on either side, of Linde and Turner.* Here it may be does not invite residence; yet in summersaid that the extent of Eia south of the time, at least, the green foliage of young Knightsbridge Road being, as I calculate, trees planted round the vicarage and schools 608 acres, if Ebury Farm contained 430 of St. Michael's, Chester Square, which now acres, there remained 178 acres which then cover the site of Ebury Farm, relieves the or later may have formed the bailiwick of sterility of noisy commercial streets; Ebury Neat. Now it so happens that this measure- Square, of small size, close by, also affords ment-178 acres-corresponds remarkably shady seats to toilers; and Avery Farm well with the area which, as above indicated, Row yet recalls the past. appears naturally to form the division of Neyte or Neat.

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In 1676 Eybury, or the larger portion of it, passed to the Grosvenor family by the marriage of Sir Richard Grosvenor, a young Cheshire baronet, with Mary the child heiress-she was but eleven years old -of Alexander Davis, who had died owner of Eybury Farm in 1665. The plan of 1675, which has been noticed, shows that then Edward Boynton was tenant, and we are puzzled in reading that the proprietress was "Mrs. Mary Dammison," who, if "Dammison" be not a mistake for Davis, may have had the lease. The house was of considerable size, if we may credit the little roughly sketched elevation of "Lordship House,' which, indeed, appears to be of three stories; farm-buildings were grouped around; there were gardens and a large orchard. This farmstead lay along the "Road from Chelsy to Goring House," then standing where is now Buckingham Palace. In the plan of 1723 the place is marked as "The Manor of Ebury"; on Rocque's map of 1746 the name is Avery Farm," possibly a Frenchman's mistake; but both forms, Ebury and Avery, are yet found on the spot. In Bowles's map of 1787 a row of houses occupies the site; in Horwood's fine map of 1795 the Chelsea Road has become Belgrave Place," thus indicating the spread of London, while Avery Farm Row " is a memento of passing rurality. Gradually the Chelsea Waterworks became developed, and the Canal was made to terminate in a large basin where is now Victoria Railway Station; for later inventions have hustled aside older ones, and the Brighton Railway has superseded the watercourse later known as the Grosvenor

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* Stow's 'Survey,' Strype's ed., Book VI. 78.

The site of Ebury Farm is assured, but who will define the limits of Ebury manor if a division of the original Eia ?* The great manor, if the assumption be correct that it extended northward to the Oxford Road, had the extent, according to my computation on the map, of 1,090 acres. This area was intersected by the Knightsbridge or Brentford Road, 482 acres lying north and 608 south. The southern moiety was certainly the manor of Ebury, enclosing the moated manor house of Neyte. The northern moiety contained the manor of Hyde, and the question arises, Was it all Hyde? It is the existence of Hyde which makes it difficult to accept the judgment of Sir Henry Ellis that Eybury was Eia. It does not seem that topographers have ever much troubled themselves about the limits of Hyde, and people generally have been content to consider the manor identical with Hyde Park as far westward as the Westbourne stream, now merged in the Serpentine; while as for the area between Park Lane and the former course of the Tyburn stream, the hazy impression is perhaps that it too is Ebury, inasmuch as the Grosvenor estate lies-though not without interruption-both south and north of the intersecting road. I must leave the question open, merely remarking that manors are not prone to cross main roads, and that the shape of Ebury manor is decidedly awkward on the map if it takes in Berkeley and Grosvenor Squares. Park Lane was, as the name indicates, a mere

* I would here correct the date 1102 (10 S. x. 321) as that of Mandeville's grant of Ese or Eia to the Abbey.. It was taken from Davis, who seems to have misinterpreted Widmore. The grant made in the time of Abbot Gilbert Crispin was confirmed by the Conqueror; therefore the date fell during the interval 1085-7.

NOTES AND QUERIES.

In view of this discussion and of assertions to England as security for the cost of an made in a recent issue of The Nineteenth auxiliary force furnished by England. "The Century, it may be well to place a portion cautionary towns remained in English of the will upon record. It is dated 20 Aug., possession for more than thirty years, being 1827:restored to the States-General by James 1. "My family were of the Episcopal Church, the in 1616 (Rymer, xv. 801-2; xvi. 786-7). established religion of Ireland, in which I was born We may with great probability look to this and brought up with great care and attention; and connexion, lasting so long, for the origin from the religious impressions which I there received, I am, under the guidance of a divine provi- of the London place-name. In what way? dence, indebted for my future conduct and success Some one who had held office at The Brill in life. My father was a farmer in the country, during the English occupation may have built with a large family. His name was William. My in the London suburb a house to which he mother's name was Elizabeth (her maiden name was Peoples). They were both descended from a gave the name as a reminder of an episode mixture of English and Scotch families who had in his life. The tavern shown in a print settled in Ireland after the conquest of that country. of the last quarter of the eighteenth century I was born on the first day of November, Old Style, might be of Elizabethan date. When houses in the year seventeen hundred and fifty-two, at the came to be built here they may have taken place called Fanat [now Fanad, about 12 miles from from the house or tavern the names of Londonderry], in the county of Donegal, Ireland, and was sent by my family at the early age of four Brill Place, Brill Row, Brill Terrace, afterteen years to Philadelphia, for the purpose of being wards known, collectively, as The Brill. brought up to mercantile pursuits, where I arrived in the month of April, 1766."

and his father's connexion with Scotch Patterson was through a family which "had settled in Ireland after the Conquest.'

R. C. ARCHIBALD.

Brown University, Providence, R.L.

This is, of course, mere conjecture, but it may indicate the direction in which to look for the solution of a curious problem in the topography of London.

ALFRED MARKS.

A POEM ATTRIBUTED TO BONEFONS. A literary problem which I brought forward in N. & Q.' as long ago as 1900 (9 S. vi. 244) has lately received solution elsewhere. In The American Journal of Philology, No. 114 THE BRILL, SOMERS TOWN.-It is a little Flower surprising that no one seems to have sug- Smith contributes an article On the Source (April-June, 1908), Mr. Kirby gested what appears to be the obvious deriva- of Ben Jonson's Song, "Still to be Neat," tion of this London place-name. Stukeley and finally elucidates the question of origin. in his 'Itinerarium' traces the name to The Latin poem is in the Anthologia Burgh Hill. He thought that he found Latina'; the MS. in which it has survived here a camp of Julius Cæsar. But from is the Codex Vossianus (Q. 86, Leyden). Burgh Hill we should get Brill (as in the name It was first published by Joseph Scaliger in of a place in Bucks), not The Brill. From Walford's 'Old and New London' we learn Roville, 1572, p. 208. From this, or from · Publii Virgilii Maronis Appendix,' Lyons, that some one, presumably in despair, has Pithou's Epigrammata et Poemata Vetera, suggested that the name was given to a Paris, 1590, or from the versions printed tavern here by a lover of the fish, the brill. in the appendix to some early editions of A correspondent at 5 S. ix. 146 suggested Petronius, Jonson took it. The author is that the name came from the ship The unknown. Readers of N. & Q.' who are Brill" which brought over William III. The correspondent was getting warm,' as the children say in the game of seeking a hidden object: why did he not get a little nearer ? The ship was named after a town CURIOUS HERIOTS.-In the Court Rolls of of Holland, known officially as Brielle, the Curry Rivell, Somerset, 1348-9, the following popular name being Den Briel, always in heriots frequently occur: half a horse, English The Brill. The town is but little half an ox, and three parts of a cow. known to-day, but it made a great noise presume the explanation is that the tenement in the world three hundred years ago. Its had been divided, and that each tenant was capture by "the Beggars of the Sea" in liable for his portion of the ancient due, 1572 was the first important incident in the which would be rendered by a money paystruggle between Holland and Spain-ament. There also occurs as heriot two acres struggle in which Elizabeth took part. In of corn, which I think is unusual. 1585 Flushing and The Brill were made over

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interested in the question should consult Mr. Smith's exhaustive and scholarly article. PERCY SIMPSON.

NATHL. J. HONE.

I

tion was a reproduction of what appeared p. 148) her father is described as on the former one. Who was this Pierre- Lincoln." The arms quartered by the point or Pierrepont, and why was the refuge called after him? ROBERT PIERPOINT.