The name of Hampstead, originally spelt Hamstede, signifies homestead, and the first settlement on the site of the present suburb is supposed to have been a farm, situated in the district now known as Frognal, round about which a hamlet grew up that was until after the Reformation included in the parish of Hendon. The earliest historical reference to Hamstede occurs in a charter bearing date 978, in which Edward the Peaceable granted the manor to his minister Mangoda, and many theories have been hazarded to explain the difficulty arising from the fact that the king died in 975, the most plausible of which is that the copyist was guilty of a clerical error. In any case, a later charter, issued by Ethelred II. in 986, gave the same manor to the monks of Westminster, a gift confirmed by Edward the Confessor, and retained until the dissolution of the monasteries in the sixteenth century. A touch of romance is given to the laconic description in Doomsday Book of the Hamstede Manor, by the mention of Ranulph Pevrel as holding one hide of land under the abbot, for that villein married the Conqueror's former mistress, the beautiful Ingelrica, and the fact that the lovers were in fairly prosperous circumstances is proved by Ranulph having owned nearly six times as much land as any other dweller on the estate. Incidentally, too, the effect of the Conquest on the value of property is reflected in the sudden decrease in that of the manor of Hamstede, which was worth one hundred shillings under Edward the Confessor, and only fifty under his successor. {4} Unfortunately, next to nothing is known of the history of the little settlement on the hill in Norman and mediæval times, but at the Reformation the manor was included in the newly formed see of Westminster, whose first bishop, Thomas Thirlby, appears to have lost no time in dissipating the episcopal revenues, for much of his property, including that at Hampstead, soon reverted to the Crown. The manor was given in 1550 by Edward VI. to Sir Thomas Wrothe, and after changing hands many times in the succeeding centuries, it became the property about 1780 of Sir Spencer Wilson, to whose great-nephew, Sir Spencer Maryon Wilson, it now (1907) belongs.