140 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
In the churchyard several persons of note are interred. To the south
of the church is the tomb of John Henniker, 1749, whose son, Sir John,
afterwards Lord, Henniker, resided in a still-existing house in Stratford
Grove, "Stratford House," which has since been converted into two
shops. Lord Henniker's manor of Chobhams is now covered by the
extensive works of the London and North Eastern Railway.
Also buried in the churchyard, although his monument is no longer
identifiable, is George Edwards, F.R.S., 1773, Librarian to the Royal
College of Physicians, author of the "History of Birds" and of "Gleanings
of Natural History," a friend of Linnreus and a native of Stratford: he
died aged 81 years.
Over the door leading to the vestry are the Royal Arms of William IV.
supported by a modelled lion and unicorn on brackets.
The registers date from 1653 and contain some notable entries. A
very curious entry runs:—
1690. "Aprill 16. peter paine & his wife & his son peter
"and his daugter An & the parson and his Made was Blowne
"up all in one day."
Another which would seem to require explanation is:—
1687. "May 22. Richard Price son of Henry and Isaac"
was baptised.
Taking leave of Mr. Fassam. the visitors next proceeded to Messrs.
Robt. Ingham, Clark and Co.'s factory, erected on the site of Stratford
Langthorne Abbey, where accommodation had been kindly provided in
the firm's beautiful Exhibition Hall for the following account of the
vanished Abbey to be read by the conductor.
STRATFORD LANGTHORNE ABBEY.
Standing as we do to-day, surrounded by factories and railway lines,
it is hard for us to visualise the pleasant landscape of green meadows and
marshland, intersected by waterways, which saw the birth of the long-
since vanished Abbey of Stratford Langthorne in this spot in 1135. Fitz-
Stephen, in the 12th century, describes the scene: "There are
cornfields, pastures, and delightful meadows, intermixed with pleasant
streams, on which stands many a mill, whose clack is so grateful
to the ear." Four centuries later, Camden, writing about the year
1586, describes the Lea at Stratford as "divided into three streams, it
"washes the green meadows and makes them look very charming," and
in 1631 Weever noted here "the remains of a monastery pleasantly
"watered about with several streams and the meadows near the mills
"planted round with willows."
Stratford Langthorne Abbey was founded in 1135 by William da
Montfitchet and his wife Margaret, who endowed it with lands in West
Ham and "the wood of Bocherst" in Woodford (now known as "Monk-
hams"); his son, Gilbert de Montfitchet, added to the endowment the
churches of West Ham and of Leyton, with additional lands, gifts which
were confirmed by a Charter of King Henry II. in 1182. Later des-
cendants of the Montfitchets donated further manors, both in West Ham
and East Ham, so that in time the Abbey possessions included the whole
of the manors granted originally by William the Conqueror to Robert
Gernon and many other properties elsewhere.