382
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. VIL MAY is, 1901.
tion the Abbess of Barking held someJand
in the manor of which her predecessor had
been mistress, on the same footing as several
other freeholders whom I could name.
In the absence, therefore, of evidence to the contrary, I take it as an undoubted fact that the Abbess of Barking lost possession of the manor of Tyburn not long after the Conquest. The exact date I am unable to state, but the cession probably took place when Henry I. afforested the estates of the abbey. Stephen, who was always a friend of the abbey, restored these estates ; but the Tyburn manor appears to have remained in the hands of the Crown, as it formed one of a group of manors which included Prittiwell, Margaretting, and Wool- verston in Essex, Medmenham in Bucks, and one or two others, which were granted by King Henry II. to the family of San- ford* by the serjeanty of acting as cham- berlain to the queen on the occasion of her coronation (Morant's ' Essex,' i. 167, 168). Two members of this family, Adam and Jordan de Sanford, founded, in honour of St. Lawrence, a priory of Black Canons at Blake- more, in Essex, at the beginning of the reign of King John ; and it was doubtless on this account that the church of Tyburn was appropriated by the Bishop of London, William de Sancta Maria, to that establish- ment. In 1234 Otho FitzWilliam leased to Brother Robert de Sanford, Master of the Knights Templars in England, the manor of Lileston with its appurtenances, a grant which was confirmed five years later ('Feet of Fines for London and Middlesex,' ed. Hardy and Page, i. 25). t Robert de Sanford, who was probably a member of the family which held Tyburn, added largely to the possessions of his order, for we find from the 'Feet of Fines' that he acquired land and other property not only in Cranford, Hen- dori, Finchley, and Hampstead, but also in Tyburn ; and I think it not unlikely that the last-named property, which would, of course, be merged in the manor of Lileston, may have constituted the estate which was subsequently granted by the Prior of the Hospitallers to John and Joan Blennerhasset, and which now forms the Portman estate. |
- This name is variously spelt Saunford, Sand-
ford, Sampford, and Samford.
t See my paper on 'The Manor of Lisson,' 9 th S. i. 181.
J In connexion with this grant. MR. LOFTIE cites L. Larking, ' Hospitallers,' Cam. Soc., 1857. I have carefully gone through this book, but have failed to find any reference whatever to the transaction in question. The fact that Tyburn is not mentioned in it, whilst the lands at Cranford, Hendon and Hampstead are included in the "bona quondam
The Hospitallers, after the fall of the Tem-
plars, were granted the possessions of the
latter order ; and as no mention of any part
of Tyburn is made in the schedule of the
property belonging to the Knights of St. John
at the dissolution, this conjecture (and I
admit it is only a conjecture) seems plausible,
and it would further account for the inter-
section of the Tyburn manor which is recog-
nized as a difficulty by MR. RUTTON. The
last of the Sanfords who held the Tyburn
manor, Gilbert, was a man of some distinction.
From the Patent Rolls, 20 Richard II., we
learn that in 1235 he officiated in his heredi-
tary office of chamberlain to the queen at
the coronation of Eleanor of Provence, the
queen of Henry III. Although he received
no writ of summons to Parliament, he seems
to have held baronial rank, as his descendants,
the Earls of Oxford, assumed the title of
Baron Sanford ; and in 1626 it was resolved
by the House of Lords that this barony,
together with those of Bolebec and Badles-
rnere, was in abeyance between the heirs
general of John de Vere, seventh Earl of
Oxford (Nicolas, ' Historic Peerage,' ed. by
Courthope, 1857, p. 63). But Gilbert de
Sanford's chief claim to distinction arises
from the fact that it was through his public
spirit that water was first supplied to the
citizens of London from sources beyond the
City limits. Mr. J. G. Waller, in his paper on
' The Tybourne and the Westbourne,' in the
Transactions of the London and Middlesex
Archaeological Society, vi. 256, has, by a
curious oversight, stated that "as early as
21 Henry III. liberty was granted to Gilbert
Sandford to convey water from Tyburn by
pipes of lead to the City." This reverses the
real state of the case. Gilbert de Sanford
was not the grantee, but the grantor of this
privilege to the citizens of London by virtue
of his position as lord of the manor from
which the water was conveyed. It may be
useful here to quote the words of Stow.
After writing that the sources which had
hitherto supplied the City had proved in-
sufficient, the chronicler goes on to say :
" They were forced to seeke sweete waters abroad, whereof some at the request of King Henry the Third, in the 21. yeareof his raigne (1236),were for the profite of the Citty, and good of the whole realme, thether repayring, to wit, for the poore to dritike, and the rich to dresse their meate, granted to the Cittizens, and their successors by one Gilbert Sanforde, with liberty to con uay water from the Towneof Teybome, by pipes of leade into their Citty." 'Survey,' ed. 1603, p. 17.
On the following page Stow again says :
Templi " (p. 95), lends weight to the suggestion in
the text.
