On the first Sunday in August the natives, according to ancient custom, still make a pilgrimage to drink its waters; and it is held to be of the greatest importance to certain females to enjoy the beverage when seated in a place called the _saint’s chair_, which the saint, for the accommodation of succeeding generations, obligingly placed immediately contiguous.--Bennet, _Sketches of the Isle of Man_, 1829, p. 65; Waldron, _Description of Isle of Man_, p. 151; Train, _History of the Isle of Man_, 1845, vol. ii. p. 121. MIDDLESEX. Lammas Day is noted in London for an annual rowing match on the Thames, instituted by Thomas Doggett,[76] an actor of celebrity, in honour of the accession of George I. to the throne of England. Doggett was so warmly attached to the Brunswick family that Sir Richard Steele termed him “a Whig up to the head and ears.” In the year after George I. came to the throne, Doggett gave a waterman’s coat and silver badge, to be rowed for by six watermen on the 1st of August. This he not only continued till his death, but he bequeathed a certain sum of money, the interest of which was to be appropriated annually, for ever, to the purchase of a like coat and badge, by six young watermen, whose apprenticeships had expired the year before. This ceremony is performed every year, the competitors setting out, at a signal given, at that time of the tide when the current is strongest against them, and rowing from the old Swan, near London Bridge, to the White Swan at Chelsea.--_Sports, Pastimes, and Customs of London_, 1847, p. 35. [76] He first appeared on the Dublin stage, and afterwards, with Colley Cibber and Robert Wilkes, became joint manager of Drury Lane Theatre. He died in 1721.--Faulkner, _History of Chelsea_, 1829, p. 188. In the parish of St. Luke, Chelsea, were formerly “The Lotts,” Lammas land, for ages appurtenant to the manor of Chelsea. The lord of the manor possessed the right of letting the land on lease for the spring and summer quarters, beginning with March and ending in August, and the inhabitants at large enjoyed the privilege of turning in their cattle from August till February, being the autumn and winter quarters. This state of appropriation continued till the year 1825 or 1826, when the directors of the Kensington Canal Company took possession of them for their own use immediately upon the completion of the canal; they have detained them ever since, and have let them successively to several persons, and received rent for the same. The Chelsea Lammas lands had hitherto been opened on the 12th of August, being the first of the month according to the old style. The graziers, butchers, and others with their cattle, used formerly to assemble in the lane leading to “The Lotts,” on the eve of Lammas, and when the clock had struck twelve they entered the meadow.--Timbs, _Things not Generally Known_, 1856, p. 154. SUSSEX.