Journal of Proceedings. clxxxix
which I now exhibit, was done in 1851 by my old friend Mr. W. H.
King for the Antiquarian Etching Club. A few of the Abbey founda-
tions remain in. situ, under the ground, and many relics have been
unearthed in earlier times. The name is still preserved in the Abbey
Mills and Abbey Creek. The Abbey lands were from the beginning till
1S76 charged with the repairs of Bow Bridge and Chaners Bridge,
and the causey (causeway) on the main road between them ; all of which
had been originally built and endowed by Queen Maude.
The hamlet of Plaistow became a separate parish in 1844 ; and now
has two churches, St. Mary's, 1830, and St. Andrew's, 1870.
The grounds of " The Cedars " (formerly and during the residence here
of Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, known as Upton Lane House) in which we now
stand are in the hamlet of Upton, and the Park around was until lately
known as Upton Park. It contains about eighty acres, and was opened
to the public under the present name of West Ham Park, July 18th,
1874. The present vicar, Canon Scott, who was presented in 1868, was
one of the most active workers in bringing the question of this open
space forward, and was Chairman of the Committee, The Corporation
of London then took it up, and the park was formally opened by the
Lord Mayor, Sir Andrew Lusk, Bart., M.P.
The estate was in 1566 known as Booke Hall, and was conveyed by
that family (in 1666) to Sir Robert Smyth, of Upton, one of whose
descendants lived in Upton House (as it was then called) in 1741. A
few years later it passed to Admiral Elliott, who sold it in August, 1762,
to the well-known botanist and physician, Dr. John Fothergill, F.E.S.
He was a Quaker, the son of John Fothergill, of Wensleydale, Yorkshire.
and was born in 1712. The estate then consisted of house, garden, and about
thirty acres of land; and in " a part of the garden called the Wilderness.
were five large Virginia Cedars, not less than ten inches in diameter, which
were probably some of the first of the kind planted in England," which
must, Mr. Crouch thought, be the very trees under whose shadows they
were then resting. He at once began the planting of exotic trees and
shrubs, which he procured from all parts of the world, numbering at last
about 3,000 distinct species. Adjoining the house he erected greenhouses
nearly 200 feet long, and gathered therein over 3,400 species of rare and
unique exotics. So celebrated, indeed, did Dr. Fothergill's collections
and botanical gardens become, that they were a centre of attraction to
all botanists ; and Sir Joseph Banks, the learned traveller and naturalist,
President of the Royal Society, writes of them thus :—
"At an expence seldom undertaken by an individual, and with an
ardour that was visible in the whole of his conduct, he procured from all
parts of the world a great number of the rarest plants, and protected
them in the amplest buildings which this or any other country has seen.
. . . What an infinite number of plants he obtained by these
means the large collection of drawings he left behind will amply testify ;
and that they were equalled by nothing but royal munificence, at this
time largely bestowed upon the Botanic Gardens at Kew. In my