122
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. ix. FEB. 15, 1902.
Isle of Dogs, and the story was probably
invented in order to account for the name of
the locality. This name does not occur earlier
than the time of Elizabeth. The Chapel
House was converted into a farmhouse some
time in the sixteenth century, and it figures
in Norden's map of Middlesex, 1593, as the
" Isle of Doges Ferme." When Lysons wrote,
the old chapel was the only dwelling-place
upon the marsh. It exhibited no remains of
antiquity, except in the lower parts of the
walls, which were full of small stones and
flints. A Gothic window was removed about
1792. When Mr. Cowper wrote in 1853 the
condition of the Chapel House was much the
same as when Lysons's description was writ-
ten. Two or three additional tenements had
been erected on the west side of the farm-
house, but they were mean and inconvenient.
The trees had been nearly all removed. The
ground in the vicinity showed traces in every
direction of having, at some remote period,
been occupied with buildings, &c., but more
especially to the south-west, from the Chapel
House to the river. On the formation of the
Mill wall Dock, in 1867-8, all traces of the
Chapel House were swept away, its site being
absorbed in the new docks (Walford's 'Greater
London,' i. 537).
This chapel, which was dedicated to St. Mary, was thought by Mr. Cowper to have been connected with, or dependent on, the Abbey of St. Mary of Graces, near the Tower of London. I venture to think that it was originally attached to the manor house of Pontefract, of which the foundations are mentioned by Strype and Maitland, and of which traces were visible up to fifty years ago. The Abbey of St. Mary does not seem to have been possessed of any property in Stepney Marsh till the end of the fifteenth century, when the manor of Pontefract appa- rently lapsed to the Crown. On this point, however, the evidence is not satisfactory.
The first owner of the manor of whom we have any knowledge was a certain John de Castello, otherwise known as John Attecastle. In the year 1302, 31 Edward I., the manor was purchased from John de Castello and Joan his wife by John Abel and Margery his wife.* John Abel, although he has not obtained the honour of a niche in Messrs. Stephen and Lee's Valhalla, was a personage of considerable importance in his time. He was a trusted official of King Edward I, and during the reign of that monarch and of his successor his name repeatedly occurs in the Patent Rolls as a Commissioner of Oyer and
AiV J 9 alen< ? ar of Feet of Fines f r London and
Middlesex,' ed. Hardy and Page, i. 72.
Ter miner. He was also an escheator south of
Trent, and steward to Queen Margaret. On
8 March, 1311/12, 5 Edward II., on the promo-
tion of Walter de Norwych to be Chief Baron
of the Exchequer, John Abel was appointed a
Baron of that Court in his place. In 1317 he
was appointed envoy to the King of France
('Cal. Close Rolls, Edward II., 1313-18,' pp.553,
622). He had a son named Walter ($., p. 98),
who seems to have died in the lifetime of his
father, as on John Abel's death in 1323 it
appears from his Inquisition post mortem that
he left only three daughters, coheirs. The
manor of " Ponf ray t super Thamis'," of which
he died seised, consisted of eighty acres of
arable, a windmill, &c. (Escheat. 16 Ed-
ward II., No. 41). He was also in possession
of other manors, including West Tilbury, in
Essex. The manor of Pontefract was divided
into three portions, one of which was in-
herited by each daughter. Of these daughters,
Joan married Sir William Vaughan, Margaret
married Walter Heryng, and of the third I
have no record, unless it were Katherine,
the wife of John Chicche, who in 1333,
7 Edward III., levied a fine with William Vaughan and his wife for a third part of this manor.* Sir William Vaughan seems to have been succeeded by his son Sir Thomas Vaughan, who died seised of ** Pomfreyth maner' ut de maner' de Storteford " in 1362 (Escheat. 36 Edward III., part 2, No. 64). Sir Thomas Vaughan left a son Hamon, who died without issue, and after his death and that of Margaret Heryng, who died in 1369, seised of a third part of the manor (Escheat. 43 Edward III., part 1, No. 53), the property seems to have split up into severalties, which were divided among the families of Strange, Molyneux, Mitton, Bokilton, and Falk. We find from the inquisitions that "Ricardus Mutton, chivaler," and Margaret his wife were seised of " sexta pars duarum partium manerii Pountfreit" (Escheat. 8 Henry V., No. 8), and that " Philip' Bokilton, ar'," was seised of exactly the same amount (Escheat.
8 Henry V., No. 48). Katherine, the daughter and heir of Philip Bokilton, married John Falk. Margery, the widow of Sir Baldwin Strange, held at her death, in 1432, a third part of the manor of "Pountfreit in Ste- pheneth Marsh," and was succeeded by her daughter and heir Elizabeth, who at the age of fourteen was already the wife of Robert Molyneux (Escheat. 10 Henry VI., No. 10). From the Feet of Fines it seems that half the manor came into the possession of John Harpur, as in 1422, 1 Henry VI., John Falk
- ibid., p. 111.