“A Chelsea Pensioner having been to visit a poor lame grandchild who was being educated in good and sound learning at the Free School, established by John Lyon, at Harrow-on-the-hill, was so much delighted with his visit, that to celebrate the occasion in a proper manner he drank to the memory of the generous founder a little too often and a little too deep. The ale continued to affect his upper story till he passed the seventh mile stone, (and it must be known that the mile stones on this road were numbered from Harrow, and not as on every other road from London,) mistaking a white line of water, the Paddington Canal, for the road, at this point, he found, when it was too late, that a man was not destined by his Maker to walk on that element; his _corps_ was not found for some days. When it was discovered no one would own it; and what was worse no one would bury it, till at length it became necessary for the civil magistrate to interfere; he sent for the Chelsea clergyman, directed him to read the proper service, and bury the corps where it was lying. Before the clergyman consented to do this, however, he insisted that it should be carried round a certain number of fields which he pointed out. That magic circle constitutes this dry “Chelsea Reach;” and within it, and in consequence of this incident, the Chelsea Rector always claims tithe over it. Beneath the piece of ground not claimed by either parish the corps lies buried.” This, as any story-maker will readily perceive, is a sad hodge-podge. But this is the story for the ignorant, perhaps made by them. The knowing ones have their simple story:— “A certain prebend, of a certain Cathedral, seeing this land without an owner kindly took it under his care. It became his _corps_. He grew birches on it for the boys in his school; and when his occupation was gone, his relatives claimed the land as his freehold.” Whether there is any, and if any, what amount of truth in either of these stories, I must leave the reader to discover. A key, perhaps, may be found to the latter in another story which is told of the purchase of this land of the descendants of Dr. Busby, and by the fact of a Dr. Busby having held the prebendal corps of Boxgrave, which was situated in Westborne _in the County of Sussex_. It would appear that these closes, “containing by estimation fifty acres,” were all that remained in Paddington of the Old Chelsea Manor: but as we have already seen 137¾ acres are now claimed by Chelsea as belonging to that parish. {40} Vol. i. p. 310–11. {43} A New Record Office in being built at the back of the Roll’s Chapel so that it is to be hoped the valuable documents now kept in this stable will soon find a better lodging.