The Manor of St. Giles

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Sir Walter Besant, in The Fascination of London, published in 1903, continues his survey of Holboen with this look at the Manor of St Giles:

In the earliest charters the head of St Giles' Hospital is styled Chaplain, but not Master. The first Master mentioned is in 1212, and after this the title was regularly used. The government was vested in the Master or Warden and other officers, together with a certain number of sound brethren and sisters—and in certain cases lepers themselves—who formed a chapter.

"They assembled in chapter, had a common seal, held courts as lords of the manor." There were also guardians or custodians, who did not reside in the precincts of the hospital, and these seem to have been chosen from the most eminent citizens; they formed no part of the original scheme.

The sisters appear to have been nurses, for there is no mention made of any leprous sister.

The chapel of the hospital appears from King Henry II's charter to have been built on the site of some older parochial church.

The Bull of Pope Alexander mentions that the hospital wall enclosed eight acres. Within this triangular space, which is at present roughly bounded by the High Street, Charing Cross Road, and Shaftesbury Avenue, was one central building or mansion for the lepers, several subordinate buildings, the chapel, and the gate-house.

Whether the number of lepers was reduced when the hospital possessions were curtailed we are not told.

After the hospital buildings fell into the hands of Lord Dudley they underwent many changes.

The principal building he converted into a mansion for his own use; this was the manor-house. It stood between the present Denmark Street and Lloyd's Court, and its site is occupied by a manufactory.

After two years Lord Dudley obtained from the King license to transfer all his newly-gained estates to Sir Wymonde Carew, but there seems reason to suppose that Lord Dudley remained in possession of the manor-house until his attainder in the reign of Queen Mary, because the manor then reverted to the Crown, and was regranted.

Clinch gets out of this difficulty by supposing Lord Dudley to have parted with his estates and retained the manor, but in the deed of license for exchange all his "mansion place and capital house, late the house of the dissolved hospital of St. Giles in the Fields," is especially mentioned. It is possible that Sir Wymonde leased it again to the Dudley family.

Among the many subsequent holders of the manor we find the name of Sir Walter Cope, who bought the Manor of Kensington in 1612, and through whose only child, Isabel, it passed by marriage to Sir Henry Rich, created Earl of Holland. The Manor of St. Giles was in the possession of the Crown again in Charles II's reign, when Alice Leigh, created by him Duchess of Dudley, lived in the manor-house. This Duchess made many gifts to the church, among which was a rectory-house.