interest beyond tea-gardens and road-side inns; and therefore we welcome our return at St. Pancras into a region of history, where the memorials of past celebrities abound. In fact, it must be owned that the whole of the district through which we have travelled since we quitted Kensington, and crossed the Uxbridge Road, is extremely void of interest, as, indeed, is nearly the whole of the north-western district of London, a geographical entity which we owe to Sir Rowland Hill and the authorities of the General Post-Office. St. Pancras, after whom this district is named, was a young Phrygian nobleman who suffered martyrdom at Rome under the Emperor Diocletian for his adherence to the Christian faith; he became a favourite saint in England. The Priory of which we shall speak when we come to Euston Square; and the ancient or Old St. Pancras, in St. Pancras Road. Of the other churches in England dedicated to this saint, we may mention one in the City-St. Pancras, Soper Lane, now incorporated with St. Mary-le-Bow; Pancransweek, Devon; Widdecome-in-the-Moor, Devon; Exeter; Chichester; Coldred, in Kent; Alton Pancras, Dorset; Arlington, Sussex; and Wroot, in Lincolnshire. In consequence of the early age at which he suffered for the faith, St. Pancras was subsequently regarded as the patron saint of children. "There was then," as Chambers remarks in his "Book of Days," "a certain fitness in dedicating to him the first church in a country which owed its conversion to three children "-alluding, of course, to the fair humorous description of a journey hither, by way children whom Gregory saw in the streets of of Islington, in which the author thus speaks of Rome, the sight of whom had moved the Pope to the name of the place :-" From hence [i.e., from send St. Augustine hither. "But there was also Islington] I parted with reluctance to Pancras, as another and closer link which connected the first it is written, or Pancridge, as it is pronounced; but church built in England by St. Augustine with which should be both pronounced and written PanSt. Pancras, for," adds Mr. Chambers, "the much- grace. This emendation I will venture meo arbitrio: loved monastery on the Coelian Mount, which nav, in the Greek language, signifies all; which, Gregory had founded, and of which Augustine was added to the English word grace, maketh all grace, prior, had been erected on the very estate which or Pangrace: and, indeed, this is a very proper had belonged anciently to the family of Pancras." appellation to a place of so much sanctity, as The festival of St. Pancras is kept, in the Roman Pangrace is universally esteemed. However this Catholic Church, on the 12th of May, under which be, if you except the parish church and its fine day his biography will be found in the "Lives of bells, there is little in Pangrace worth the attention the Saints," by Alban Butler, who tells us that he of the curious observer." We fear that the derivasuffered martyrdom at the early age of fourteen, tion proposed for Pancras must be regarded as at Rome, in the year 304. After being beheaded simply absurd. for the faith, he was buried in the cemetery of Calepodius, which subsequently took his name. His relics are spoken of by Gregory the Great. St. Gregory of Tours calls him the Avenger of Perjuries, and tells us that God openly punished false oaths made before his relics. The church at Rome dedicated to the saint, of which we have spoken above, stands on the spot where he is said to have suffered; in this church his body is still kept. "England and Italy, France and Spain abound," adds Alban Butler, "in churches bearing his name, in most of which relics of the saint were kept and shown in the ages before the Reformation." The first church consecrated by St. Augustine at Canterbury is said by Mr. Baring Gould, in his "Lives of the Saints," to have been dedicated to Many of our readers will remember, and others will thank us for reminding them, that the scene of a great part of the Tale of a Tub, by Swift, is laid in the fields about "Pankridge." Totten Court is there represented as a country mansion isolated from all other buildings; it is pretended that a robbery is committed "in the ways over the country," between Kentish Town and Hampstead Heath, and the warrant for the apprehension of the robber is issued by a "Marribone" justice of the peace. Again, we find the name spelt as above by George Wither, in his "Britain's Remembrancer" (1628): "Those who did never travel till of late Half way to Pankridge from the city gate." In proof of the rural character of the district some three centuries ago, it may be well to quote the words of the actor Nash, in his greetings to Kemp in the time of Elizabeth: "As many allhailes to thy person as there be haicockes in July at Pancredge" (sic). St. Pancras. In art, St. Pancras is always represented as a boy, with a sword uplifted in one hand and a palm-branch in the other; and it may be added that the seal of the parish represents the saint with similar emblems. There is a magnificent brass of Prior Nelond, at Cowfold, in Sussex, where St. Pancras is represented with a youthful Even so lately as the commencement of the countenance, holding a book and a palm-branch, reign of George III., fields, with uninterrupted and treading on a strange figure, supposed to be views of the country, led from Bagnigge Wells intended to symbolise his triumphs over the arch-northwards towards St. Pancras, where another enemy of mankind, in allusion to the etymology well and public tea-gardens invited strollers within of the saint's name. The saint figures in Alfred its sanitary premises. It seems strange to learn Tennyson's poem of "Harold," where William that the way between this place and London was Duke of Normandy exclaims particularly unsafe to pedestrians after dark, and that robberies between this spot and Gray's Inn Lane, and also between the latter and the "Jew's Harp" Tavern, of which we have spoken in a previous chapter, were common in the last century. That the name, like most others in bygone days, did not escape corruption, may be seen from the St. Pancras is often said to be the most populous way in which it is written, even towards the close parish in the metropolis, if taken in its full extent of the last century. In Goldsmith's "Citizen of as including "a third of the hamlet of Highgate, the World" (published in 1794), is a semi-with the other hamlets of Battle Bridge, Camden St. Pancras.] POPULATION OF ST. PANCRAS. 327 century, is emphatically described by Norden in his work above mentioned. After noticing the solitary condition of the church, he says: "Yet about the structure have bin manie buildings, now decaied, leaving poore Pancrast without companie or comfort." In some manuscript additions to his work the same writer has the following obser forsaken of all, and true men seldom frequent the same, but upon deveyne occasions, yet it is visayed by thieves, who assemble not there to pray, but to waite for prayer; and many fall into their handes, clothed, that are glad when they are escaped naked. Walk not there too late." Town, Kentish Town, Somers Town, all Tottenham Court Road, and the streets east and north of Cleveland Street and Rathbone Place," besidesif we may trust Lysons-part of a house in Queen Square. Mr. John Timbs, in his "Curiosities of London," speaks of St. Pancras as "the largest parish in Middlesex," being no less than "eighteen miles in circumference;" and he also says it is vations:-"Although this place be, as it were, the most populous parish in the metropolis. Mr. Palmer, however, in his history of the parish, published in 1870, says that "its population is estimated, at the present day, at a little over a quarter of a million, its number being only exceeded of all the metropolitan parishes by the neighbouring one of Marylebone." He adds that it is computed to contain 2,700 square acres of land, and that its circuit is twenty-one miles. From the last report of the vestry, we learn that the area of the parish is 2,672 statute acres. The population in 1881 amounted to 236, 209, and the number of inhabited houses to 24,655; in 1891 the population was 234,437, and the inhabited houses numbered 24,611. There are 278 Parliamentary and municipal boroughs in England and Wales, exclusive of the metropolis, and only some half-dozen of these contain a larger population; and there are a score or so of counties with a less population in each than St. Pancras. There are four ancient prebendal manors in the parish, namely, Pancras; Cantlowes, or Kentish Town; Tothill, or Tottenham Court; and Ruggemure, or Rugmere. The holder of the prebendal stall of St. Pancras in St. Paul's Cathedral was also, ex officio, the "Confessarius" of the Bishop of London. Among those who have held this post may be enumerated the learned Dr. Lancelot Andrews, afterwards Bishop of Winchester-of whom we shall have more to say when we come to his tomb in St. Saviour's, Southwark; Dr. Sherlock, and Archdeacon Paley; and in more modern times, Canon Dale. The church had attached to it about seventy acres of land, which were let in 1641 for £10, and nearly two hundred years later, being leased to a Mr. William Agar, formed the site of Agar Town, as mentioned in the previous chapter. Norden thought the church "not to yield in antiquitie to Paules in London :" in his "Speculum Britanniæ" he describes it as "all alone, utterly forsaken, old, and weather-beaten." As lately as the year 1745, there were only two or three houses near the church, and twenty years later the population of the parish was under six hundred. At the first census taken in the present century it had risen to more than 35,000, and in 1861 it stood at very little under 200,000. There has not, however, been a continuous increase since that time, on account of the extensive clearances made for the termini of the Midland and Great Northern Railways, of which we shall speak presently. Pancras is mentioned in "Domesday Book," where it is stated that "the land of this manor is of one caracute, and employs one plough. On the estate are twenty-four men, who pay a rent of thirty shillings per annum." The next notice which we find of this manor is its sale, on the demise of Lady Ferrers, in 1375, to Sir Robert Knowles; and in 1381 of its reversion, which belonged to the Crown, to the prior of the house of Carthusian Monks of the Holy Salutation. After the dissolution of the monasteries it came into the possession of Lord Somers, in the hands of whose descendants the principal portion of it-Somers Town-now remains. Of the manor of Cantelows, or Kennestoune (now, as we have already seen, called Kentish Town), it is recorded in the above-mentioned survey that it is held by the Canons of St. Paul's, and that it comprises four miles of land. The entry states that "there is plenty of timber in the hedgerows, good pasture for cattle, a running brook, and two 20d. rents. Four villeins, together with seven bordars, hold this land under the Canons of St. Paul's at forty shillings a year rent. In King Edward's time it was raised to sixty shillings." Brewer, in his "London and Middlesex," says: In the reign of Henry IV., Henry Bruges, Garter "When a visitation of the church of Pancras was King-at-Arms, had a mansion in this manor, where made in the year 1251, there were only forty on one occasion he entertained the German Emhouses in the parish." The desolate situation of peror, Sigismund, during his visit to this country. the village, in the latter part of the sixteenth The building, which stood near the old Episcopal Chapel, was said to have been erected by two brothers, Walter and Thomas de Cantelupe, during the reign of King John. According to a survey made during the Commonwealth, this manor contained 210 acres of land. The manor-house was then sold to one Richard Hill, a merchant of London, and the manor to Richard Utber, a draper. At the Restoration they were ejected, and the original lessees reinstated; but again in 1670 the manor changed hands, the father of Alderman Sir Jeffreys Jeffreys (uncle of the notorious Judge Jeffreys) becoming proprietor. By the intermarriage of Earl Camden with a member of that family, it is now the property of that nobleman's descendants. The estate is held subject to a reserved rent of £20, paid annually to the Prebendary of St. Paul's. Formerly the monks of Waltham Abbey held an estate in this manor, called by them Cane Lond, now Caen Wood, valued at thirteen pounds. It is said by antiquaries to be the remains of the ancient forest of Middlesex. Of this part of the manor we shall have to speak when we come to Hampstead. The manor of Tottenham Court, or Totten Hall -in "Domesday" Tothele, where it is valued at £5 a year-was kept in the prebendary's hands till the fourteenth century; but in 1343 John de Caleton was the lessee, and, after the lease had come to the Crown, it was granted in 1661 in satisfaction of a debt, and became the property, shortly after, of the ducal family of Fitzroy, one of whose scions, Lord Southampton, is the present possessor. The manor of Ruggemere is mentioned in the survey of the parish taken in 1251, as shown in the records of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's. "Its exact situation," says Mr. Palmer, "is not now known. Very possibly," he continues, "at the breaking up of the monasteries it reverted to the Crown, and was granted by bluff Harry to some Court favourite. The property of the Bedford family was acquired in a great measure from that monarch's hands. It is, therefore, very probable that the manor of Ruggemere consisted of all that land lying at the south-east of the parish, no portion of that district lying in either of the other manors." The village church stood pretty nearly in the centre of the parish, which, with the lands about Somers Town, included the estates of the Skinners' Company, of the Duke of Bedford, and of Mr. "Councillor" Agar. The land which the parish comprises forms part of what is called the London Basin, the deposits of which are aqueous, and belong to the Eocene period. In a previous chapter we have spoken of the Fleet River, which used to flow through this parish. Hone, in his "Table Book," 1827, thus describes it as winding its sluggish course through Camden Town and St. Pancras in its way to King's Cross : "The River Fleet at its source in a field on the land side of the Hampstead Ponds is merely a sedgy ditchling, scarcely half a step across, and winds its way along, with little increase of depth, by the road from the 'Mother Red Cap' to Kentish Town, beneath which road it passes through the pastures to Camden Town; in one of these pastures the canal running through the tunnel at Pentonville to the City Road is conveyed over it by an arch. From this place its width increases till it reaches towards the west side of the road leading from Pancras workhouse to Kentish Town. In the rear of the houses on that side of the road it becomes a brook, washing the edge of the garden in front of the premises late the stereotype foundry and printing-office of Mr. Andrew Wilson, which stand back from the road; and, cascading down behind the lower road-side houses, it reaches the Elephant and Castle,' in front of which it tunnels to Battle Bridge." Tradition would carry the navigation of the Fleet River far higher up than Holborn Bridge, which has been stated in a previous part* of this work as the utmost limit to which it was navigable, since it relates, say the Brothers Percy, in their "London,” that "an anchor was found in this brook at Pancras wash, where the road branches off to Somers Town." But they do not give a date or other particulars. Down to a very late date, even to the year in which the Metropolitan Railway was constructed, the Fleet River was subject to floods on the occasion of a sudden downfall of rain, when the Hampstead and Highgate ponds would overflow. One of the most considerable overflows occurred in January, 1809. "At this period, when the snow was lying very deep," says a local chronicler, "a rapid thaw came on, and the arches not affording a sufficient passage for the increased current, the whole space between Pancras Church, Somers Town, and the bottom of the hill at Pentonville, was in a short time covered with water. The flood rose to a height of three feet from the middle of the highway; the lower rooms of all the houses within that space were completely inundated, and the inhabitants suffered considerable damage in their goods and furniture, which many of them had not time to remove. Two cart-horses were * See Vol. II., p. 418. St. Pancras.] OVERFLOW OF THE FLEET RIVER. 329 drowned, and for several days persons were the Vestry Hall. The former building was erected obliged to be conveyed to and from their houses, in 1809, at a cost of about £30,000. It has, howand receive their provisions, &c., in at their ever, since then been very much enlarged, and is windows by means of carts." now more than double its original size. It often contains 1,200 inmates, a number equal to the population of many large rural villages. It has not, however, always been well officered. For instance, in 1874, a Parliamentary return stated that out of 407 children admitted into the workhouse during the previous twelvemonth eighty-nine had died, showing a death-rate of 215 per 1,000 per annum ! Again, in 1818, there was a very alarming flood at Battle Bridge, which lies at the southern end of Pancras Road, of which the following account appears in the newspapers of that date :-" In consequence of the quantity of rain that fell on Friday night, the river Fleet overflowed near Battle Bridge, where the water was soon several feet high, and ran into the lower apartments of every house from the Northumberland Arms' tea-gardens to the Small-pox Hospital, Somers Town, being a distance of about a mile. The torrent then forced its way into Field Street and Lyon Place, which are inhabited by poor people, and entered the kitchens, carrying with it everything that came within its reach. In the confusion, many persons in attempting to get through the water fell into the Fleet, but were most providentially saved. In the house of a person named Creek, the water forced itself into a room inhabited by a poor man and his family, and before they could be alarmed, their bed was floating about in near seven feet of water. They were, by the prompt conduct of the neighbours and night officers, got out safe. Damage to the extent of several thousand pounds was occasioned by the catastrophe." Much, however, as we may lament the metamorphosis of a clear running stream into a filthy sewer, the Fleet brook did the Londoner good service. It afforded the best of natural drainage for a large extent north of the metropolis, and its level was so situated as to render it capable of carrying off the contents of a vast number of side drains which ran into it. "There still remain, however," writes Mr. Palmer, "a few yards visible in the parish where the brook runs in its native state. At the back of the Grove, in the Kentish Town Road, is a rill of water, one of the little arms of the Fleet, which is yet clear and untainted. Another arm is at the bottom of the field at the back of the 'Bull and Last' Inn, over which is a little wooden bridge leading to the cemetery." The Elephant and Castle," above referred to, is one of the oldest taverns in the parish of St. Pancras. It is situated in King's Road, near the workhouse, and is said to have derived its name from the discovery of the remains of an elephant which was made in its vicinity more than a century ago. King's Road lies at the back of the Veterinary College, and unites with the St. Pancras Road at the southern end of Great College Street. At the junction of these roads are the Workhouse and The St. Pancras Guardians have wisely severed their pauper children from the associations of the workhouse by establishing their schools in the country at Hanwell. In connection with the workhouse a large infirmary has been erected on Highgate Hill, whither the sick inmates have been removed from their old and ill-ventilated quarters. The Vestry of St. Pancras formerly had no settled place of meeting, but met at various taverns in the parish. The present Vestry Hall was erected in 1847. The architect was Mr. Bond, the then surveyor of the parish, and Mr. Cooper the builder. Mr. Palmer, in his work already referred to, mentions a tradition that the architect, in making the plans for the building, omitted the stairs by which the first-floor was to be reached, and that he afterwards made up the defect by placing the present ugly steps outside. On the north-east side of Pancras Road, near the Vestry Hall, is the old church of St. Pancras. This ancient and diminutive edifice was, with the exception of a chapel of ease at Kentish Town, now St. John the Baptist's, the only ecclesiastical building the parish could boast of till the middle of the last century. It is not known with certainty when the present structure was erected, but its date is fixed about the year 1350; there was, however, a building upon the same spot long before that date; for in the records belonging to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, in which there is noticed a visitation made to this church in the year 1251, it states that "it had a very small tower, a little belfry, a good stone font for baptisms, and a small marble stone to carry the pax." Norden, whose remarks on the condition of the church in the reign of Queen Elizabeth we have quoted above, states that "folks from the hamlet of Kennistonne now and then visit it, but not often, having a chapele of their own. When, however, they have a corpse to be interred, they are forced to leave the same within this forsyken church or churchyard, where it resteth as secure against the day of resurrection as if it laie in stately |