KINGSTON HUNDRED
��merit to Mark Snelling, alderman of the City of London and a benefactor of the church and parish, died 1633 (?) ; and two other monuments of about the same period. There are many 18th-century and later monuments.
On the pillar east of the south transept is an ancient painting (probably coeval with the chapel) of a bishop with his pastoral staff, mitre, &c., and holding what may be a comb, which would identify him with St. Blaize the patron of wool-combers.
In the tower is a fine ring of ten bells ; the treble is dated 1748 ; the second 1841, by T. Mears ; the third 1750, by Robert Catlin ; the fourth 1875, by Blews and Son, Birmingham ; fifth, sixth, and seventh 1826, by T. Mears; the eighth is inscribed 'The 8 old bells recast and two new trebles added to make 10 by subscriptions, S. London, S. Belchier, Collectors, 1748' ; the ninth, 1879, was recast by Mears and Stainbank, and the tenor (which weighs 33 cwt.) by Mears, 1850.
The old communion plate, which was a large service dating from 1708 and 1716, has been stolen ; that in use is modern.
The registers date from 1542 and, up to 1812, they comprise twenty volumes as follows : i. mixed baptisms, marriages and burials 1542 to 1556, a well- bound volume on the original paper ; ii. the same, I 560 to 1574 ; iii- mixed, 1574 to 1586, and mar- riages at the end also for 1574, 1575, and 1579 ; iv. 1586 to 1602 ; v. 1603 to 1609 ; vi. July 1620 to August 1621 ; vii. September 1622 to June 1636 ; viii. 1636 to 1653 (in this volume are many notices of banns published on market days and Lord's days) ; is. 1653 to 1665, at the end a list of deaths from the plague 1665 ; the register has been lost or torn out from 1665 to 1668, this book is partly vellum and partly paper ; x. 1668 to 1693 (paper) ; xi. 1693 to 1713 (parchment) contains a list of the burials of Dissenters from 1696 to 1699 ; xii. 1712-13 to 1740, parchment with paper end sheets; xiii. 1741 to 1749, parchment; xiv. baptisms and burials 1749 to '7^9 an( ^ marriages to 1757 ; xv. baptisms and burials 1770 to 1789 ; xvi. the same, 1789 to 1809 ; xvii. the same, 1810 to 1812 ; xviii. marriages 1754 to 1769 ; xix. the same, 1769 to 1807; and xx. the same, 1808 to 1812. The earlier books are of paper and are much torn and worn out, but have been carefully interleaved in recent years in paper volumes.
The churchwardens' accounts of Kingston are pre- served from 1503 to 1538 and recommence 1561. A brief mention may be made here of some of the items affecting the fabric and fittings. 43 * In 1504 and i 505 a mason was paid for building and repairing the steeple, which, from entries in i 508-9, had a weather- cock and gilt cross. In 1523 the second bell was exchanged for a new one, and in 1529 the third bell was recast ; again in 1535 the second and third bells were recast at Reading. In 1553 there were five bells in the steeple, ' a sauns bell and a chyme for the belles." In 1561 another bell was recast at Reading, while in i 566 the fourth bell, which weighed 6 cwt. 42 lb., was recast. The great bell was recast in 1574. There was a clock in 1508. A large payment was made for
��KINGSTON- UPON-THAMES
lead in 1561, evidently for re-roofing. An order was made in 1585 for the removal of the pulpit from the place it ' nowe standeth unto the north-west piller,' and in the same year : ' It is ordered that the seats in the church shall be altered and the parish- ioners to be placed in order in their degrees and callings.'
The chapel of ST. MARY MAGDALENE, attached to the grammar school, and now used as a gymnasium, is a building of much interest. It was founded by the merchant, Edward Lovekyn, in 1309."' He apparently died childless, and his successor, Robert Lovekyn, was excommunicated for neglecting the endowment of the chapel. 538 Robert was succeeded by John, his son, who increased the endowment. 6 ** The chapel came into the hands of the Crown at the Dissolution,' 40 but in 1560 was granted to the gover- nors of the lately revived grammar school,** 1 who have retained it until the present day. If the date of its erection 1351 were not known, it might have been i ascribed to some twenty years later at least. It is a plain rectangular building, 38 ft. by 17 ft. 2 in., with octagonal vices at the eastern angles. The north vice retains many of its steps but has no outlet at the top ; the southern one now has no steps and has an outer doorway inserted in its south side ; both open off the east wall by a pointed doorway and both are of ashlar. The east window has three cinquefoiled pointed lights with two quatrefoils (rather after the ' Perpen- dicular ' style) in the traceried two-centred arch ; the side windows are each of two cinquefoiled lights with a sexfbil over in the two-centred head ; only one (the easternmost) of the three in the north wall is now open, the second being filled in at the glass line, and the third (if a window ever existed in the bay) having lost all its tracery. On the south side the two eastern windows remain, the existence of the westernmost being again doubtful ; the west window is similar to that at the opposite end. All the windows have widely-splayed inner jambs and arches, with the edges moulded as a double ogee-mould or, perhaps more properly, as the sides of two filleted rolls ; themullions inside have two hollow chamfers ; the inner jambs and arches are original, but the external stonework of all the windows is modern excepting the north-east window, which is very much decayed. At the foot of the mullions of the east window were set two image brackets carved with the heads of Edward III and Queen Philippa, but the latter has now disappeared although it was existing in l883, M> its place being occupied by a modern foliated capital. In the south wall, east of the first window, is the piscina, rather tall for its width and rather shallow ; its sill contains an octofoil basin and is somewhat broken ; the upper shelf is also damaged; the head has a cinquefoiled ogee arch.
Between the second and third bays in each side wall is a shallow recess 3 ft. 1 1 in. wide, the use of which is not apparent ; they are too shallow for sedilia but may, in connexion with the original woodwork, have formed the setting for the two most important and western- most seats ; they have a transom moulded and em- battled at the level of the window sills and, at about double the height, a foliated three-centred
��* Surr. Arch. Colt, viii, 68. W Ibid. 256. Ibid. 258.
��489 Add. Chart. 23524-7. 440 Surr. Arch. Cell, viii, 258. Ml Pat. 2 Eliz. pt. xi. See V.C.H. Surr, ii, 1 56 et seq. for the probability of a
5 11
��school having been held in the chantry before its suppression.
441 See illustration to article by Major Heales in the Surr, Arch. Cell, viii, 296.
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