Friday 27 March 2015

HIGHBURY WALK 1835 PART 1

CHAPTER I. 



The origin of the existing appellation of the Parish 
which we have undertaken to perambulate, is lost in Old Copenhagen House, Islington, London.
the distance of that remote period, when some British 
settlers — 'twere hard to say whether of the Celtic or 
the Belgic stock — ^having reared a few huts for their 
abode, and surrounded them with the palisade and 
ditch constituting the fortification of the times, their 
dwelling-place acquired the name of Iseldone. 
Dun, or Dan, it is, indeed, known, was the common 
term for a town and a fortress ; and, at the rude era 
we are contemplating, a due regard to safety rendered 
it essential that the one should ever be the other. 



The meaning of the concluding particle of this name 
iS| therefore, sufficiently apparent ; but we can only 
guess at that of Isel^ or Isen^ which seems to have 
been indifferently prefixed to it. It might be the 
appellation borne by the enterprising Celt, or Belgic 
Briton, firom whose example, or under whose tute- 
lage, the collection of circular log edifices, each roofed 
to a point with reeds, originated : or it might be pe- 
culiarly expressive to the foimders of some local 
feature, the traces of which have been long oblite- 
rated. The late historian of the parish, Mr. Nelson, 
&voured the idea that *' Isen" refers to certain springs 
of water, impregnated with irony supposed to rise in 
the vicinity ; and instanced, in support of it, that, in 
digging a well in the Back Road, '* masses of sul- 
phuret of iron were found imbedded in a hard stratum 
of potters* clay/' and that ''ferruginous substances 
have also been found on digging in various other 
parts of the parish.** But, with deference to Mr. N.'s 
authority, the present author rather subscribes to the 
opinion, that hhel being an old British word, signify- 
ing fofrer, IsELDONB most probably expressed the 
Lower Town or Fort* A reason for preferring this 
reading, too, will shortly appear, when we consider the 
site most likely to have been that of the original 
village. Under the head of etymology we only further 
remark, that the name most conunonly occurs as 
IsELDON, in records since the Conquest, until near the 
end of the sixteenth centuiy ; though, with the licen- 
tious orthography of the olden time, it was occasion- 
ally written IseUon, Eyseldon, Isendon, Isendune, &c. 
Islington, the modem appellative, seems to have 




gradaally obtained from about the year 1650 to 1600; 
and by the year 1650^ the place was seldom^ if ever, 
called by any other name* 

In William the Conqueror's &med Survey, styled 
Domesday-Book, " the most valuable piece of anti- 
quity," says Hume, ** possessed by any nation," we 
find mention once and again of Isbndone, and yet a 
third time of the same spot, spelt Iseldone* But it 
must not be thence supposed, that a district corres- 
ponding in extent with the present parish of Islingrton 
is therein depicted or alluded to. Did the contrary 
not appear from the small quantity of land described, 
(jn all, but five hides, or less than six hundred acres,) 
it would be evident from the distinct mention of 
ToLSNTONE, where other two hides fonned about a 
fifth part of the present manor of Highbury, itself but 
one of the six manors into which modem Islington is 
£nded. But four of the five hides said to be " in 
Isendone** or " Iseldone," are noted as ** demesne of 
the church of St Paul;" and the situation of the 
Prebend manor, still attached to that church, seems 
to show that the ** Lower Town" stood on, or con- 
tiguous to, that part of the parish; though the curtail- 
ment of the manor to one-fourth of the ecclesiastical 
possessions in the record, adds to the difficulty of con- 
jecturing the exact spot. At all events, the occupation 
of some part of this manor, or its immediate vicinity, 
bj the antique ^* Lower Town," would give meaning 
to that appellation as contrasted with ** Tolentone," 
whose site, there is reason to believe, was the 
elevated ground adjoining the woods of Highbury. 
And, perhaps, we should not greatly err, did we place 





** old IsELDONE," in part upon a slip of land, forming 
a portion of the diminished church seigniory, which 
lies along the east side of the track known, time out 
of mind, by the name of the Lower Street, and partly 
along a similar sUp lying westward of the same track. 
Our, British town, and the habitations which, till the 
Coi\aest, succeeded the primeval dwellings on its 
site, would then extend over a sunny slope, stretching 
towards the south and east; a species of locality 
known to have been coveted by our primogenitors for 
their settlements. There are existing portions of the 
Prebend manor, particularly the narrow and mazy 
ways comprehended by Elder Walk and its neigh- 
bourhood, which, as they retain the irregular features 
of the oldest thorough&res in all ancient towns, may 
mark the tracks between even the earliest buildings 
that were there erected. The most ancient parts of 
the City of London itself, contiguous to the Thames, 
once wore much such a labyrinthian and little digni- 
fied appearance, as Elder Walk, and its vicinity, does 
at present. 

The householders in Iseldone at the time of the 
Conqueror's survey, were, it seems, twenty-seven in 
number ; of whom, nine are described as " villanes,*' 
five were " bordars," and thirteen " cottagers." The 
aggregate value of the land is given at ninety-two 
shillings. The greater part was under the plough : 
but we are told that there was " pasture for the cattle 
of the village.** The two half-hides not belonging to 
the canons of St. PauFs, were, the one, ** land of 
Geofiry de Mandeville," and held of him by " Gil- 
bert;'* the other, "land of Derman Limdonensis," 



who held immediately of the King. Tolentone was 
also held of the King^ by '^ Ranulf, brother of Ilger ;" 
andy like Iseldonej comprehended both arable and 
pasture land, valued together at forty shillings. 
There, too, was "pannage" (forest provender) "for 
axty hogs ;*' a &ct from which it appears that tolen- 
tone was then bordered by woods, while the cu'^try 
about Iseldone, though uncultivated, was, no doubt, 
open. We do not hesitate to suppose, that the latter 
was of the description termed " forest*' at that period; 
meaning, not covered with trees, but in a wild state, 
— ^more or less wooded, — unparcelled to individuals, 
and, consequently, the undenied property of the crown, 
according to the feudal notions of the times. Such, 
as observed in the author's " History and Descrip- 
tion of Clerkenwell," was then the state of that parish 
also, though improved into " very pleasant" meadows 
as it approached the metropolis, in order to furnish 
common land for the cattle of the citizens. As regards 
<Aw parish, at the era of the Survey, there can be scarce 
a question that, Iseldone and Tolentone excepted, it 
formed part of the great forest of Middlesex ; and, 
waste or furze-grown where not relieved by small 
clumps of trees or natural pastures, spread into almost 
unmixed woodland as it stretched northwards, and 
united with the wide mass of foliage that covered by 
far the larger portion of the county. 

Somewhat more than a century elapsed from the 
compilation of Domesday-Book to the commencement 
of the reign of Richard I., when the monk, Fitz- 
Stephen, wrote his highly interesting description of 
the London of that date, and introduced a few parti- 



6 GENERAL HISTORICAL VIEW. 

culars, whichi we cannot doubt, bore reference to our 
parish. He speaks mainly, we must suppose, of what 
is now called Clerkenwell, when he describes the 
northern environs of the city as comprising " fields for 
pasture, and open meadows, very pleasant, among 
which the river waters do flow, and the wheels of the 
miUs are turned about with a delightful noise K'' But 
when he treats of the *^ arable lands," which, he ob- 
serves, " are no hungry pieces of gravel ground, but 
like the rich fields of Asia, which bring plentiful com, 
and fill the bams of the owners with a dainty crop of 
the fruits of Ceres," there is equal reason to believe 
that he is alluding to the ancient plough-lands of 
Islington. The cultivation of our tract had been 
greatly extended, of course, by the time of Fitz- 
Stephen ; and when the revolution of another himdred 
years had brought England to the middle of the reign 
of her first Edward, the greater part of this parish, it 
is probable, was under tillage. At least such appears 
to have been the case with the then manor of Berners* 
buiy ; an inquisition of which, taken about the year 
1295, returned nearly the whole as com-land, with a 
very small proportion of meadow. Of the ancient 
empire of the forest, there were, perhaps, by that time, 
remains only in the more northern districts. But 
before the Elizabethan era, the reputation of Islington 
for the varied produce of the dairy, rather than ^* the 
firuits of Ceres," had become decided: and at the 
present period, as for many years past, so much does 
the value of meadow-land excel with us, that we are 

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