The twin towns of Leyton and Leytonstone, the latter not long ago a mere hamlet of the former, are both named after the Lea, and were, half a century ago, charming villages, near to which were many fine old mansions, the homes of wealthy City merchants, who have since deserted them for the more fashionable western suburbs. Some few of these houses, notably those known as Etloe and Rockholt, though turned to other uses, still remain, and near to the latter have been found traces of ancient entrenchments, that have led some authorities to identify the site of Leyton with that of the Roman Durolitum. The churches of both towns are modern, but that of St. Mary at Leyton, in which is buried the celebrated antiquarian John Strype, who was vicar of the parish for sixty-eight years, retains the tower of an earlier building, and contains some interesting seventeenth and eighteenth century monuments, including two to members of the Hickes family, which were recently removed from the chancel and set up at the west end. There are also several noteworthy brasses on the walls with quaint inscriptions, such as that relating to Lady Mary Kingstone, who died in 1577, and a tablet to the memory of the famous printer William Bowyer, who passed away in 1777; and in the churchyard rest many celebrities, of whom the best known outside Leyton are the dramatist David Lewis, and the Master of the Rolls, Sir John Strange, who died, the former in 1700, the latter in 1754. {78} Stratford on the Lea, named after the ancient ford that was in use between it and Bow, the Stratford-atte-Bow of Chaucer, till the river was spanned by the bridge built by Matilda, wife of Henry I., that was taken down as recently as 1839, was originally only an outlying hamlet of West Ham, but it has of late years grown into a densely populated manufacturing centre, well provided with modern places of worship, but retaining, alas, not a trace of the beautiful Cistercian abbey, founded in the twelfth century, that was once the pride of the whole neighbourhood. It is very much the same with Great Ilford, named after a ford over the Roding, which, though not yet so large as Stratford, is already a thriving town, almost its only relic of the past being the hospital, that now belongs, with the estate on which it is built, to the Marquis of Salisbury, originally founded for the use of thirteen lepers who had been in the service of King Stephen, by Adliza, Abbess of Barking, and dedicated to the Virgin Mary and St. Thomas of Canterbury. Little Ilford, on the other hand, on the south-west side of its greater namesake, is still not much more than a village, though from it, too, nearly everything of antiquarian interest has been improved away. The beautiful old church was pulled down some fifty years ago, but, fortunately, in its modern successor are preserved a few of the ancient monuments, amongst which is especially noteworthy