Journal of Proceedings. cxlvii
of Beehive, 1686. On the south side is the fine monument of Sir Charles
Montague, Knight, who died at Cranbrook, in 1625, and he is represented
in armour sitting in a tent, with a camp in the background, all richly
coloured. Also one to Sir Orlando Humphreys, 1737, with white marble
bust There are also many memorials to the Fanshaw family of Parsloes
and Jenkins ; and a chapel containing the vault of the Cambell family
of Clay Hall; a fine brass with effigies of John Tedcastle and his wife,
1596 ; a brass figure of a priest, holding a chalice, with the inscription
gone ; and a memorial brass to Christofre Merell, 1593, and his sister
Anne Yardlye, 1579. There is a curious piscina here with embattled top,
and an ancient inscription containing the name of Alfgive, Abbe, sup-
posed to have been removed from the conventual church. In the church-
yard is the punning epitaph on a former churchwarden, 1670—
' Stay neare awhile and his sad fate deplore;
Heare lyes the body of one Thomas More,
His name was More, but now it may be said
He is no More, because that now he's dead,
And in this place doth lye sepulchered.'
This may be perchance the More whose coat of arms was painted in the
hall of Eastbury House.
" Barking Abbey was dedicated to the Virgin, and was founded by
Erkenwald, Bishop of London, about 670, for nuns of the Benedictine
order, and his sister Ethelburga was the first Abbess. At the dissolution
in 1539, it was surrendered to King Henry VIII, by Dorothy Barleigh.
the last Abbess, and was valued at £1,084 6s. 23/4d., out of which a pen-
sion was assigned to her of £133 6s. 8d. The history of this abbey
is interesting, and may be found at great length in various books,
such as Lyson's 'Environs of London,' who obtained the bulk of his
information from Smart Lethieuller's M.S. history of Barking ; but I
may mention that William the Conqueror retired to Barking Abbey
soon after his arrival, and remained there until he had completed the
fortifications of London. There is scarcely a vestige left of the old
abbey buildings ; but the foundations of the conventual church may
still be traced, which were dug out by Smart Lethieuller in 1721.
The length of this church was 170 feet, and the extreme width of the
transepts, 150 feet."
Mr. George Brooke having given the necessary permission, the
members next visited Eastbury House, a well-known Elizabethan dwell-
ing, connected by traditions—altogether unreliable, however.—with the
Gunpowder Plot. Mr. Crouch's notes read here were as follows :—
"This fine and imposing specimen of Elizabethan architecture, built
by Clement Sisley, about 1572, is situated about a mile eastward from
Barking, on the road to Rippleside and Dagenham, and, although much
altered, and even gutted within, has been considered of sufficient impor-
tance in its arrangement and the details of its structure, to have been
most carefully measured, drawn, and engraved in sixteen large plates,
by Mr, Clarke, an architect, in 1834, and published with an historical
description, by Mr. W. H. Black, the eminent archaeologist. It was
selected in 1871-2, by the Royal Institute of British Architects, as a
subject for the Peek prize, and two of the drawings of Mr. Streatfeild
were published by the Institute in their Sessional Papers, so that full
details may readily be obtained by all who are interested in this impos-
ing relic. The material of which the house is built is red brick, of a
texture so firm and fine, that every external ornament and moulding is
cut in it as well as if in masonry, and the jambs, mullions, and transoms
of the windows, string-courses and front porch arc of the same material