Ossulstone

Ossulstone
Geography
Status hundred
1831 area 47,950 acres (194.0 km2)[1]
History
Created in antiquity
Demography
1831 population 1,008,441
1881 population 2,205,806
Subdivisions
Type Divisions / liberties

Ossulstone was an ancient hundred in the south east of the county of Middlesex, England.[2] Its area has been entirely absorbed by the growth of London; and now corresponds to the part of Inner London that is north of the River Thames and, from Outer London, parts of the London boroughs of Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Haringey and Hounslow.

Contents

History

It was named after "Oswald's Stone" or "Oswulf's Stone", an unmarked pre-Roman monolith which was situated at Tyburn (the modern-day junction of the Edgware Road with Bayswater Road). Oswald's Stone was earthed over in 1819, but dug up three years later because of its presumed historical significance. Later in the 19th century it was to be found leaning against Marble Arch following its move. In 1869, shortly after an archaeological journal published an article about it, the stone disappeared and it has not been identified since.[3]

Within Middlesex, it bordered Edmonton hundred to the north and Elthorne and Gore hundreds to west and north. It bordered the Becontree hundred of Essex to the east and had a short boundary with Hertfordshire to the north. It did not include the City of London, which it surrounded to the west, north and east.[4] Additionally, Westminster formed an independent liberty.

Replacement

In the 17th century the hundred was split into four divisions, which replaced the hundred for most administrative purposes. These were:[4]

Division Parishes
Kensington Kensington, St Luke Chelsea, Fulham, Hammersmith, Chiswick, Ealing, Acton
Holborn St Giles in the Fields and St. George's, Bloomsbury, St Andrew, Holborn and St George the Martyr, Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden and Ely Rents, liberty of the Rolls, St Pancras, St John, Hampstead, St Marylebone, Paddington, Savoy
Finsbury St Luke, Glasshouse Yard, St Sepulchre, Clerkenwell, St Mary Islington, St Mary Stoke Newington, The Charterhouse, Finchley, Friern Barnet, Hornsey
Tower Hamlets St Mary Whitechapel, Christchurch Spitalfields, St Leonard Shoreditch, Hoxton, Norton Folgate, St John Hackney, St Matthew Bethnal Green, Mile End Old Town, Mile End New Town, St Mary Stratford Bow, Bromley St Leonard, All Saints Poplar, St Anne Limehouse, Ratcliff, Shadwell, St John Wapping, East Smithfield, St Catherine, Stepney, The liberty of His Majesty's Tower of London
Westminster City: Close of the Collegiate Church of St Peter, St Margaret and St John
Liberty: St Anne, St Clement Danes, St George Hanover Square, St Martin in the Fields, St James, St Mary-le-Strand, St Paul Covent Garden

References

  1. ^ Vision of Britain - Middlesex hundreds 1831 census population. Retrieved on 2008-02-20.
  2. ^ British History Online - Hundreds of Middlesex
  3. ^ Ossulstone Hundred, A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 6: Friern Barnet, Finchley, Hornsey with Highgate (1980), pp. 1-5 accessed: 30 May 2007
  4. ^ a b British History Online - Divisions of Ossulstone hundred

External links