The parish church of Kew, that is still a royal chapel, rises from the green, on land presented by Queen Anne to the people, and dedicated in compliment to her to her namesake, the mother of the Virgin. It was completed in 1714, and is a fairly good example of early eighteenth-century ecclesiastical architecture, for though it has been considerably enlarged, the original style has been preserved. The great gallery at the western end was added by George III. for the use of his large family, and a supplementary chancel, with the mortuary chapel in which rest the remains of the Duke of Cambridge, youngest son of that monarch, was completed in 1833. According to popular tradition George III. was married in Kew Church to the beautiful Quakeress Hannah Lightfoot, whom he had wooed {226} and won long before he saw his future consort, who, it is said, insisted on going through the ceremony of wedlock again in the same building, after the story of her husband's relations with her predecessor came to her ears. However that may be, the old place of worship is full of memories of the royal family; in it the blind King George of Hanover, who was born in a house now used as one of the Herbariums of the Botanic Gardens, was baptized, and there, many years later, the Duchess of Teck, who resided for a long time in Cambridge Cottage, still standing on the green, was married to the father of the present Princess of Wales. A stained-glass window commemorates the duchess, and amongst the hatchments on the walls are two unpretending tablets, one in honour of the portrait painter Johann Zoffany, the other of the more famous Thomas Gainsborough, both of whom are buried in the churchyard, the latter, in accordance with his own instructions, near his old friend Joshua Kirby, who was one of his first patrons. [Sidenote: Sheen] Full of interest as is the history of Kew, it is surpassed in fascination by that of the neighbouring royal borough of Richmond, so varied have been the vicissitudes through which it has passed, and so many are the great names associated with it. Originally known as Syenes, and later as Sheen, Richmond was at the time of the Conquest included in the manor of Kingston, when it was but one of many riverside hamlets tenanted chiefly by fishermen. The Anglo-Saxon form of the word Sheen signifies gleaming or beautiful, and certain lovers of {227} Richmond have assumed that it was from the first distinguished above its fellows by its charm, but this is scarcely borne out by evidence, for the name was in use when the sites of the future monasteries, palace, and town were still mere waste lands, often under water, and differing but little if at all from the adjoining districts up and down stream.