Book Description

Excerpt from Some Account of the Hospital and Parish of St. Giles in the Fields, Middlesex The Parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, of which the following sheets profess to give some account, possesses, as a subject of historical inquiry, more than usual claims to the notice of the Antiquary. The astonishing increase in its buildings and population since the reign of queen Elizabeth, when nearly the whole of it was solitary fields; the high rank and celebrity of numbers of its parishioners, when it came afterwards to be inhabited; the peculiar character of its poor, and a variety of other circumstances, concur to produce that sort of contrast between its antient and present states, which it is pleasing to contemplate: - add to this, the interest excited by its Hospital, (a place once of much consequence, though now almost forgotten, ) and whose records furnish abundant information as to the very early History of St. Giles's and its neighbourhood, and we shall find few parishes more justly entitled to distinction. These considerations, added to a great love for topographical research, induced the late worthy vestry clerk of St. Giles and Bloomsbury, Mr. John Parton, to avail himself of every opportunity afforded him by his official situation, during a number of years, to collect materials for a history of the district. These in time became considerable, and being subsequently increased by the collections and communications of friends, who had engaged in the same pursuit, - he at length thought proper to have the whole arranged and formed into a fair Manuscript, and finally determined to print a suitable abridgement of it in its present form. Two-thirds of the work had been printed off, when death robbed it of the superintending care and abilities of that gentleman; fortunately the continuation of the volume being nearly ready for press, the task of proceeding in it did not require much. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.