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Putney in Surrey County England History and GeographyPUTNEY, a parish in the western division of the hundred of BRIXTON, county of SURREY, 4 miles (S.W.) from London, containing 3394 inhabitants. In Domesday-book this place is styled Putelei, and it was subsequently called Puttenheath, or Pottenheath, since contracted into its present name. The village is situated on the southern bank of the Thames, opposite to Fulham, with which it is connected by a wooden bridge. Queen Elizabeth was a frequent visitor here at the house of Mr. Lacy, who also had the honour to entertain James I., a short time before his coronation. During the civil war in the reign of Charles I., a bridge of boats was constructed across the Thames, and forts were built on each side of the river, by order of the Earl of Essex, on the retreat of the royalists to Kingston, after the battle of Brentford; and in 1647, the headquarters of the army under Cromwell were fixed at Putney, while the king was a prisoner at Hampton Court. An ancient ferry over the Thames at this place is mentioned in Domesday-book, as yielding to the lord of the manor of Wimbledon a toll of twenty shillings per annum. In 1729, the bridge was erected in pursuance of an act of parliament, at the expense of £23,975, subscribed by thirty shareholders, who purchased the ferry for £8000. Here was a fishery at the time of the Norman Conquest, and smelts are now caught in great abundance. Putney is within the jurisdiction of the court of requests for the western division of the hundred of Brixton, for the recovery of debts under £5. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the deanery of Croydon, which is within the peculiar jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury, endowed with £600 parliamentary grant, and in the patronage of the Dean and Chapter of Worcester. The church, dedicated to St. Mary, was founded as a chapel of ease to Wimbledon, and was rebuilt about the reign of Henry VII.: it has a handsome stone tower at the west end, and at the east end of the south aisle is a small chantry chapel, erected by Nicholas West, Bishop of Ely, and having the roof adorned with rich tracery, interspsersed with the arms of the founder, who was a native of Putney, and became a favourite of Henry VIII., by whom he was employed in various embassies. In 1684, Thomas Martyn bequeathed lands for the foundation and support of a charity school for twenty boys; and by a decree of the court of Chancery, in 1715, the property was vested in trustees: it produces about £270 per annum, from which the master receives £80 per annum, and the boys are boarded, clothed, and educated. An almshouse for twelve poor women, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, was erected by Sir Abraham Dawes, who, by will in 1639, endowed it with a rent-charge of £40, which, with subsequent benefactions, produces an income of £110 per annum. On Putney heath, to the south of the village, is an obelisk, erected by the corporation of London, with an inscription commemorating an experiment made, in 1776, by David Hartley, Esq., to prove the efficacy of a method of building houses fire-proof, which he had invented, and for which he obtained a grant from parliament of £2500. On the heath also is a semaphore station, forming part of the line of communication between the Admiralty office and Portsmouth. Putney was the birthplace of Bishop West, already mentioned; of Thomas Cromwell, who was made Earl of Essex by Henry VIII., but perished on the scaffold; and of Edward Gibbon, the celebrated author of the 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' born in 1737, and died in London, in 1794. John Toland, a noted freethinking writer, died at Putney in 1722, and was interred in the churchyard; and Robert Wood, Under Secretary of State, who published 'The Ruins of Palmyra,' and other curious archaeological works, was interred in the new burial-ground, in 1771. From Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England 1831, courtesy of Databases 4 Sale |
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