This sum due to the king and paid to him, shows that he still retained some right or other over the lands mentioned. But this inquest does not seem to have given satisfaction to all, for three years after, another was held before the king’s escheator and a jury, concerning the same lands; the return was, however, in the main similar to that of the first inquiry, a fine of ten pounds being thereupon paid to the king. But as early as the reign of Henry I. some lands at Knightsbridge belonging to the Abbey had been aliened from it—one Godwin, a hermit at Kilburn, having given his hermitage there to three nuns; Abbot Herbert not only confirmed the grant, but augmented it with lands at Cnightebriga, {11} and a rent of thirty shillings. The charter states the land to be granted with the consent of the whole “chapter and council,” to the holy virgins of St. John the Baptist, at Kilburn, for the repose of the soul of King Edward, founder of the Abbey, “and for the souls of all their brethren and benefactors.” The next mention of this place occurs in a record dated 1270 (54 Henry III.), when an inquisition was held to ascertain whether two acres of land, &c., at “KINGESGOR between Knytesbrigg and Kensington” were of the ancient demesne of the Crown or of escheat, its extent, value, &c. The jury returned that the land was of the ancient demesne of the Crown, and not of escheat, that it contained three acres, of which the Sheriffs of Middlesex had received the issues, and was worth by the acre twelve-pence per annum, and that such land belonged to the farm of the city of London. Part of the Hamlet of Knightsbridge was within the manor of Eia, the boundaries of which I have described. It included, with others, all the lands now forming the parish of St. George, Hanover-square, and was given to the Abbey, in 1102, by Geoffry de Mandeville, in consideration of the privilege allowed him of the burial of his wife Athelais in the cloisters of the Abbey. In Doomsday Book it answers for ten hides, but was afterwards divided into the three manors of Neyte, Eybury, and Hyde. Neyte is mentioned as early as 1342 in a commission of sewers, and was near the Thames; Hyde, with lands taken from Knightsbridge, afterwards formed Hyde Park. All these manors were enjoyed by the Abbey till the Reformation, and at that tremendous crisis they reverted to the king. In the account rendered to the king by the ministers appointed to receive the revenues of the religious houses on their dissolution, the value of the manor of Knightsbridge and Westbourn is thus given:— £ s. d. Knyghtsbrydge et Westborne Firm’ Terr’ 2 6 8 Knyghtebrydge, Kensyngton, et Firm’ 5 14 11 Westbourne Pquis Cur 0 6 4½ In the “Monasticon Anglicanum,” vol. i., p. 326, it is thus entered:—