At whatever date Hampstead seceded from Hendon, the chapelry of Kilburn seems to have {6} been from the first included in the new parish, and the history of this chapelry is so typical of ecclesiastical evolution that it deserves relation here. The story goes that the first settler in the wilds of Kilburn was a hermit named Godwin, who some time in the reign of Edward I. built himself a cell on the banks of the little stream, the name of which, signifying the cold brook, is very variously spelt--the usual form being Keybourne, which rose on the west of the Heath, flowed though the district now known as Bayswater, fed the Serpentine, and finally made its way to the Thames, but has long since been degraded into a covered-in sewer. Shut in by a dense forest, of which Caen Wood is a relic, the lovely spot was an ideal retreat for meditation and prayer, but the recluse soon tired of its seclusion. He returned to the world, gave his little property to the all-absorbing Abbey of Westminster, by whose abbot it was a little later bestowed upon three highly born ladies named Christina, Emma, and Gunilda, who, fired with enthusiasm by the example of the saintly Queen Matilda, whose maids of honour they had been, had resolved to devote the rest of their lives to the service of God. Leaving behind them all their wealth, they took up their abode in the remote hut, but they were not left entirely to their own devices, for small as was the community it was raised to the dignity of a sisterhood of the Benedictine order, and a chaplain was soon sent to hold services and superintend the daily routine of the sisters' life. This chaplain was none other than the ex-hermit Godwin, and it is impossible to help {7} wondering whether there may not perhaps have been some secret attachment between him and one of the fair maidens. His readiness to return to a place he had intended to leave for ever is certainly suggestive, but his conduct appears to have been in every way exemplary, and he remained at his post till his death. Meanwhile the three original occupants of the nunnery had been joined by several other ladies, a new chaplain was appointed, the little oratory with which Christina, Emma, and Gunilda had been content was enlarged into a chapel, and a considerable grant of land was bestowed upon the community, which continued to grow until what had been but an insignificant settlement had become an important priory, owning much property in the neighbourhood and elsewhere. Strange to say, however, this prosperity was presently succeeded by a time of great distress, for in 1337 Edward III. granted a special exemption from taxation to the nuns because of their inability to pay their debts. It would, indeed, seem that the sisters had not after all been able to manage their own temporal affairs successfully, but had been too generous to the many pilgrims who claimed their hospitality as a right, but very little is really known of the later history of the