and senior person to fill his place. It is to
be gathered that the maidens were bound to celibacy, though no
particular monastic rule seems to have been enjoined. In the ensuing
years there were jealousies between the Bishop of London and the Abbot
of Westminster, who both claimed jurisdiction over the Priory. The Pope,
in 1224, who arbitrated, gave the award in the Abbot's favour, but the
Bishop appealed to the Bishops of Rochester and Prior of Dunstable,
and, as they were on his side, he calmly assumed authority. The Priory
was enriched by various grants and privileges, and its devotees
increased in number. At the dissolution of the monasteries the King gave
it to the Prior of St. John of Jerusalem in exchange for some lands he
wanted. But in 1540 he wrested it from him, and regranted it to Robert,
Earl of Sussex. As has been mentioned above, Kilburn eventually came
into the same holding as Shoot-up-Hill.

A sketch of the Priory as it remained in 1772 is still extant, and shows
a little barn-like building with exterior buttresses and gable-ends.
Needless to say that no trace of it now remains, though its memory is
perpetuated in the names of Priory, Abbots, and Abbey Roads.

When the foundations for the London and North-Western Railway were dug
in 1850 various relics were found--tessellated tiles, human bones, and a
bunch of old-fashioned keys, etc.--which pointed to the fact that the
Priory had stood on that site. This spot is still pointed out not far
from Kilburn Station, close by the place where Priory Road goes over the
railway. It is a most uninteresting spot at present, with dull
respectable middle-class shops leading up to it.

A legend of Kilburn given in Timbs' "Romance of London" may be alluded
to here. It states that at "a place called St. John's Wood, near
Kilburn," there was a stone stained dark-red with the blood of Sir
Gervase de Mertoun, who was slain by his brother, who had become
enamoured of his wife. Gervase, with his dying breath, exclaimed: "This
stone shall be my deathbed!" The brother Stephen suffered remorse for
his crime, and ordered a handsome mausoleum to be erected to his
victim's memory, which was to be built of stone taken from the quarry
where the murder was committed. As the eye of the murderer rested on a
certain stone, blood was seen to issue from it. This completed the
murderer's horror and remorse; he confessed his fault and died shortly
after, leaving his property to Kilburn Pr