Whether the Great Western-road took a more southerly course previously to “the Hyde Farm” having been converted into Hyde, or “High,” Park, by Henry the eighth, I do not know; but from the facts already advanced, it appears certain that this triangular-shaped parish was at one time a much larger triangle than it now is; the base of which, in all probability, extended from Shepherd’s Rush to Kilbourn Bridge. At the present time the eastern boundary of Paddington parish is formed by the Edgeware-road from where Tybourn-gate stood in 1829, {103a} to where Kilbourn-gate now stands; the southern boundary being marked out by the Uxbridge-road from its junction with the Edgeware-road to the head of the Serpentine, with the exception of that piece of Tybourn-field which was sold for a burying-ground to St. George’s, and which now, with St. George’s-terrace, forms a portion of that parish. Paddington claims a considerable strip of Kensington-gardens, and is bounded west and north-west by an imaginary and irregular line, known only to the authorities and a few parish boys, which runs over and through houses, greenhouses, &c., from the centre of the road opposite Palace-gardens, to Kilbourn-gate. Or, to use the official words of the district surveyor, “Paddington is bounded on the north by the parish of Willesden; on the south by the parish of St. Margaret, Westminster, and St. George, Hanover-square; on the east by the parish of St. Mary-le-bone; and on the west by the parishes of St. Mary Abbots, Kensington, and a detached part of St. Luke, Chelsea.” {103b} In the population-returns for 1831, this area was said to contain 1,220 acres of land. Whether this return was made for the sake of giving round numbers, or whether the parish has extended during this century, I cannot say; but Lysons says that “Paddington contains, according to an actual survey in the possession of William Strong, esq. (a former bishop’s agent), 1197a. 3r. 30p.” In the “Registrar-General’s Report on Cholera in England, 1848–49,” I find the “area in acres” of Paddington put down at 1277. This estimate was given to the Registrar-General by Captain Dawson, R.E. of the Tithe Commission. {104a} Lysons tells us, “the soil in the neighbourhood of the village is principally factitious, having been much enriched by great quantities of manure. On the east of a little brook which runs by Kilbourn and Bayswater, the soil is a thin clay upon a dry bed of gravel; on the west side of this brook a deep clay, the springs lying very far beneath the surface.” In proof of which he states that a well sunk by Mr. Coulson, of Westbourn house, had to be dug 300 feet deep before water was found; the earth of the first 100 feet, he tells us, was a bluish clay, “then, a thin stratum of stone, then, another bed of clay.” In another well, dug in the same neighbourhood, water was found at the depth of 250 feet.