106

_Map of Hampstead facing page 1._

_Map of Marylebone facing page 104._

[Illustration: HAMPSTEAD DISTRICT.

Published by A. & C. Black, London.

By permission of the Hampstead Corporation.]

HAMPSTEAD

The name of this borough is clearly derived from "ham," or "hame," a
home; and "steede," a place, and has consequently the same meaning as
homestead. Park, in a note in his book on Hampstead, says that the "p"
is a modern interpolation, scarcely found before the seventeenth
century, and not in general use until the eighteenth.

HISTORY

Lysons says that the Manor of Hampstead was given in 986 A.D. by King
Ethelred to the church at Westminster, and that this gift was confirmed
by Edward the Confessor; but there is an earlier charter of King Edgar
of uncertain date, probably between 963 and 978. It granted the land at
Hamstede to one Mangoda, and the limits of the grant are thus stated:
"From Sandgate along the road to Foxhanger; from the Hanger west to
Watling Street north along the street to the Cucking Pool; from the
Cucking Pool east to Sandgate."

Professor Hales, who thinks, whether genuine or not, this charter is
certainly of value, interprets Sandgate as North End, Foxhanger as
Haverstock Hill, Watling Street as Edgeware Road, and the Cucking Pool
he concludes was in the marshy ground at the north-west corner of the
parish.

This earlier charter is only interesting because it carries the history
one point further back; the gift to the monks by King Ethelred was in
its consequences far more important. The Bishop of Westminster, who held
the land after the dissolution of the monastery, surrendered it to the
King in 1550, by whom it was given to Sir Thomas Wroth. It remained in
the Wroth family until 1620, when it was acquired by Sir Baptist Hickes,
afterwards Viscount Campden. Hickes' daughter and coheir married Lord
Noel, ancestor of the Earls of Gainsborough, and it was held by the
Gainsboroughs until 1707. In that year it was bought by Sir William
Langhorne, who left it to his nephew. It then went to a Mrs. Margaret
Maryon, later to Mrs. Weller, and about 1780 to Sir Thomas Spencer
Wilson, in right of his wife. Her son, Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson,
succeeded her, and in this line it has remained since 1818.

Besides the Manor of Hampstead there is included in the borough the
ancient Manor of Belsize, or Belses. Sir Roger de Brabazon in 1317 gave
a