At the Annual Parochial Church Meeting on 25th April the accounts for the Hampstead Parochial Charities were presented – as they always are. And as very often happens, someone asked how it came about that the parish owns a piece of land in Buckinghamshire.
Elizabeth Shooter [Shuter] in her will drawn up on 1st November 1727, gave the land about the yearly value of five pounds ten shillings’ the income from which was to pay the rents and profits thereof to Frances Sharpe, a poor woman now in the workhouse of St Dustan[sic] in the West during her natural life and after her decease in trust for maintaining two poor widows of the said parish of Hampstead in the County of Middlesex during their lives to be nominated from time to time as either of them shall die by the Minister of Hampstead for the time being.’
In 1781 the two poor widows were Catherine Owen and Susan Hancock and the records detail each subsequent nomination as well as listing users of the land. In 1811 Elizabeth Webb was served a notice of double rent’ for the year, though there’s no indication of why.
An early tenant was observed to pay the rent, due at Michaelmas usually by Christmas’ – clearly the charity wasn’t a strict landlord in the 18th century
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Although two poor widows are not now nominated by the Vicar of Hampstead the money is still used for the poor of the parish, the aim of the Hampstead Parochial Charities being Relief of need, hardship or distress in the former Metropolitan Borough of Hampstead’ – roughly equivalent to the old parish of Hampstead as it would have been in Elizabeth Shooter’s day. Elizabeth died in 1727 and is buried in the churchyard – Grave XE 089, an impressive red brick tomb not far from the Crypt Room.
A parish outing to Langley Marish has often been proposed but not, so far as I know, ever undertaken.
Judy East
Our Orchard at Langley Marish
Judy East