Next to the Abbot of St. Augustine's was the Bridge House, and a little further eastward was the house of the Abbot of Battle, in Sussex, with pleasant gardens, and a clear stream (now a black and fetid sewer) flowing down Mill Lane and turning the abbot's mill at Battle Bridge Stairs.
On this stream were swans, and it flowed under a bridge (over which the road was continued to Bermondsey and Horselydown), from the "Manor of the Maze," the seat of Sir William Burcestre or Bourchier, who died there in 1407,[1] and Sir John Burcestre, who died there in 1466, and was buried at St. Olave's. This manor was afterwards the estate of Sir Roger Copley, of Gatton, Surrey, and came to the family of Weston, of Sutton Place, Surrey, from whom Weston Street derives its name; and the streets called Great and Little Maze Pond still keep in remembrance the ancient name of the manor.
Prom the corner of Bermondsey Street to Horselydown was formerly called Horsleydown Lane, and here, on the west side of Stoney Lane (which, by the way, was once a Etonian road leading to the trajectus, or ferry, over the river to the Tower,—as Stoney Street, in St. Saviour's, was a similar Roman road leading to the ferry to Dowgate), was the mansion of Sir John Pastolfe; not Shakspeare's "lean Jack" Palstaff, but a gallant soldier and man of education (which was rare in his days), who distinguished himself in the reigns of Henry IV., V., and VI., Kings of England. He fought at Agincourt, and elsewhere in Prance, and was governor of Normandy. He
- ↑ In 2 Hen. VI., 1422, Elizabeth, wife of John de Clynton, Knt., died seized of a messuage, &c, as of the manor called "The Mase," in Southwark.
