Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for BAYSWATER

BAYSWATER, a suburb of London, and a chapelry in Paddington parish and Marylebone borough, Middlesex. The suburb adjoins Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, and the Great Western railway, 3e miles W of St. Paul's; and has a.post-office under London W, and a r. station. It was called originally Baynard's water; and it took the first part of its name from Baynard, an associate of William the Conqueror, who held it of Westminster abbey,-and the second part from copious springs which long supplied the greater part of the metropolis with water. The same Baynard gave his name to Baynard Castle, now extinct, and to the ward of Castle-Baynard. The suburb is now a fashionable, richly-built part of London: and contains some fine streets, terraces. crescents, and squares, of recent erection. The extensive tea-gardens belonging to the famous herbalist, Sir John Hill, satirized by Garrick, were here. St. George's burial-ground, fronting Hyde Park, contains the graves of Lawrence. Sterne, Sir Thomas Picton, and Mrs. Radcliffe.—The chapelry bears the name of St. Matthews Bayswater, and was constituted in 1858. Pop., 5,513. Houses, 783. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of London. Value, not reported. Patron, the Rev.Smalley. A United Presbyterian church was built at Westbourne-grove, in 1862, after designs by W. G. Habershow, and consists of naive, aisles, and transept, in the decorated English style, with tower and spire. A lecture-hall was built in the same locality, in 1861, after designs by A. Billing, and exhibits a highly embellished facade of four stories in the Venetian renaissance style. The hall itself is in the rear; measures 70 feet in length, 30 in width, and 27 in height; and is lighted from above.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a suburb of London, and a chapelry"   (ADL Feature Type: "populated places")
Administrative units: Paddington Vest/CP/AP       London AncC       Middlesex AncC
Place: Bayswater

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