BUSHEY ADVOWSON

In 1206-7 16 or 16-18 was described as the land which had belonged to Arnold the saddler, and by the mid-13th century the same property was described as the land of the canons of Merton. Bushey or 'Hertesheved' was originally part of the parish of Watford. Its existence as a separate parish probably dates from about 1166, when an agreement was made between Robert abbot of St. Albans, and Geoffrey de Jarpenville as to the church of Hertesheved otherwise called Bussheye. Geoffrey and his heirs were to have by gift of the abbot the chapel of Hertesheved with the churchyard and lands belonging, and a virgate of land which Earl Geoffrey de Mandeville had given to the same chapel. One half of the tithes from Geoffrey's lands was to go to the chapel of Bushey, and the other half to the church of Watford. Recusants indicted in 1581 and 1582 included Thomas Norwood of Great Stanmore, gentleman, one of the Norwoods of Astwood (Bucks.) and Ashwell (Herts.), whose family also held property in Harrow.

Great Stanmore was a village ten miles from London on the road to Watford. In 1542 Chamber, for consideration of £2400 sterling, surrendered to King Henry property in Essex, London, and Great Stanmer Manor, the last named consisting of ten messuages, a windmill, one hundred acres of land, fifty acres of meadow, one hundred acres of pasture, eighty acres of woodland, one hundred acres of heath and gorse, one hundred shillings rent in Great Stanmore, Little Stanmore, and Harrow, and the advowson of the Church. In 1547 the Manor was granted to Sir Peter Gambo or Gamboa for services in the King's wars, three years later in 1550 the Manor once again become the property of the Crown after Sir Peter was murdered. Queen Elizabeth leased the Manor in turn to various owners and in 1604 the reversion was granted to Sir Thomas Lake a distinguished servant of Queen Elizabeth and James l. The Manor changed hands repeatedly until 1713, when it was passed by marriage into the hands of the Earl of Carnarvon, who in 1719 was created Marquess of Carnarvon and the first Duke of Chandos. In the Doomsday Book of 1086, the manor of Herges (Harrow) was the largest in the county of Middlesex. The manors of Stanmere (Great Stanmore) and Stanmera (Little Stanmore) were also included in William the Conqueror's great survey of England. No trace of the original Norman building remains; the earliest parts of the present church of St Mary date from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Throughout the Middle Ages, Harrow was used an occasional place of residence by the Archbishops on their way to the court of Woodstock, near Oxford. Thomas Becket first visited Harrow in 1143 and commenced his final journey to Canterbury from here in December 1170. Becket's manor house was close to the church; after 1344 the Archbishops moved from Sudbury to Headstone. Nearby Pinner, first mentioned in 1232, had a chapel by 1240, replaced by the present church in 1321. The first Bentley Priory was a religious house founded in the thirteenth century by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Harrow is definitely Saxon in origin. The level above the Tun was the Hundred. After the Conquest this Saxon form of local government was absorbed into the Norman feudal system and continued until the nineteenth century. In 1086 the Hundred of Gore consisted of Harrow (Pinner was a Chapelry of Harrow), Hendon, Kingsbury, Edgware, Little Stanmore and Great Stanmore. Harrow was the largest manor in Middlesex.

The first church at Stanmore Magna (Great Stanmore) was nearly ½ mile to the south of the present church. The old church, dedicated to St. John the Evangelist, was built by Sir John Wolstanholme in 1632, under the direction of Archbishop Laud. St. Mary's was abandoned in 1632 and replaced by a brick church which still stands beside the present church. The brick church, dedicated to Saint John, was consecrated by Laud, Bishop of London, on 17th July 1632. The church of Bushey was always held with the manor till 1543, when it was granted with Bushey Hall to William Milward, from whom it passed with the mill and fishery to Henry Hickman, who died in 1622, when the advowson passed to his son Henry. They were claimed by three different parties,-the crown, the lord of the manor, and the rector. In 1618 it had been surrendered with Bushey Hall to the king for the purpose of confirmation. The king presented in 1662 by reason of a lapse, and in 1676 Henry Hickman sold the advowson to Richard Smith, who presented in 1684 and 1693. He conveyed it in 1700 to his grandson William Smith, who dying unmarried devised it to his stepmother, Grace Smith. Grace, who presented to the rectory in 1739, conveyed it in the same year, under the terms of her stepson William Smith's will, to the rector and scholars of Exeter College, subject to a demise for a term of years to Ebenezer Ibbetson. Catherine Ibbetson and Samuel Ibbetson presented in 1748 for that turn, and the advowson came on the death of James Ibbetson in 1781 to Exeter College, which presented in 1782–85, 1794 and 1797. At some date between 1879 and 1899 the advowson passed to Mrs. Kynaston of Danes Road, St. Leonard, and it is now vested in Sir C. F. Cory-Wright, bart., D.L., J.P.

The first appearance of Independents in Bushey occurs in 1809, when they registered a building belonging to Joseph Keene for religious worship. In accordance with this registration Joseph Keene of Chesham and William Jennings of Kensington, assisted by Robert Capper, lord of the manor, fitted up and opened an outhouse or lumber-room on the premises of Keene on Clayhill. Preachers were supplied by the London Itinerant Society. This meeting place was enlarged in 1812, and in 1814 Mr. Capper erected a chapel and minister's house on his own freehold. There are Congregational and Primitive Methodist chapels, and a Roman Catholic chapel dedicated to the Sacred Heart and St. John the Evangelist.

In 1631 Mrs. Barbara Burnell by her will bequeathed to the Clothworkers' Company, London, £300 to be laid out in the purchase of lands for the performance of divers charitable uses, and among them to pay the annual sum of £4 6s. for distribution of clothing among six poor women of Great Stanmore, Middlesex, one year, and in the next yeare among two poor women inhabiting the parish of Bushey and those of Harrow and Edgware in the county of Middlesex. At the time of the Domesday survey the manor was held by the Earl of Moreton; in the 13th century it passed to St. Alban's Abbey, and subsequently to the priory of St. Bartholomew, Smithfield. It is situated on the road to Watford, 2½ miles from the line of the London and North-Western railway, and includes the district of Stanmore Marsh. The neighbourhood has many seats and mansions: Stanmore Park, once the seate of Lord Castlereagh, with Stanmore Hall, the Warren House, and the Grove. Two gowns are given to two poor women of this parish every alternate year. John Gale, who died in 1695, as appears in the old parish register, 'gave a Haberdine fish (barrelled cod, so called from Aberdeen, which was formerly famous for curing this kind of fish), and half a peck of blue peas to twenty widows and widowers once a year; half a peck loaf, and two pounds of cheese to each person are given instead.' In 1894 this charge was redeemed by the transfer to the official trustees of £100 consols, and by a scheme of 1897 the trustees were authorized to apply the dividends by way of supplementing the income of the charity of George Johnson Reveley mentioned below, or otherwise, at their discretion. In 1708 Mrs. Elizabeth Fuller of Watford Place left (inter alia) '1s. 6d. in twelve wheaten loaves to twelve poor persons of this parish to be delivered upon her tombstone by the churchwardens after morning service on every Sunday for ever.' A sum of £4 is received annually from the trustees of the charity at Watford, and applied in the distribution of bread. The British School is endowed with a sum of £3,027 2s. India 3½ per cent. stock given by deed, 1857, by Stewart Marjoribanks, and with £2,191 London Brighton and South Coast Railway 4½ per cent. debenture stock arising under the will of Arthur Ashfield, 1861. The sums of stock, which are held by the official trustees, produce about £204 a year.

The Reveley Almshouses were founded by George Johnson Reveley, who by his will, proved on 15 February 1877, directed his trustees to expend £1,500 in the erection of ten almshouses, and to invest £10,000 and apply the yearly income in the repair of the same, and in the maintenance and support of the inmates. The site was given in 1878 by Mr. George Edward Lake and Mr. Reginald John Lake. The charity is regulated by a scheme of the Court of Chancery, dated 4 July 1881; and the endowment funds, which are held by the official trustees, are now represented by £430 Midland Railway Company 2½ per cent. debenture stock as a repair fund, £6,459 like stock, and £4,966 3 per cent. perpetual debenture stock of the London and North Western Railway Company, producing an annual income of about £310. In 1883 George Clark by his will bequeathed £300 stock to provide six loaves of the value of 6½d. each, to be given from the church porch every Sunday after morning service to the poor of Bushey proper and Clay Hill, the surplus to be given to the person in charge of the bread. The legacy is represented by £270 consols with the official trustees. In 1894 Miss Mary Smith by will bequeathed to the rector and churchwardens £100 to be invested, and income applied in the purchase of clothing to be distributed among poor people not living in any almshouse. The trust fund consists of £93 os. 6d. consols with the official trustees. The Bushey Congregational Chapel Trust was formerly administered with the Hackney College endowments, but by a scheme of the Charity Commissioners, of 5 January, 1904, was separated therefrom, and the Hertfordshire Congregational Union (incorporated) were constituted the trustees. The trust funds now (1906) consist of £201 10s. 2d. consols, £722 3s. 7d. Cape of Good Hope 3½ per cent. stock, and £204 17s. 5d. New Zealand 3½ per cent. stock; the income, amounting to about £37, is applied for the purposes of the trust.

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