Pimlico and the Manor of Neate

Previous page: The Gunpowder Plot

Immediately next to the Old Palace of Westminster, along the riverside as far as the Horseferry, building has started.

Along the opposite bank, the Archbishop's Palace has had some important additions: Cardinal Morton has built a fine gateway in red brick and stone, and the living apartments have been replaced by new redbrick buildings with larger windows. With the background of trees in the park and along the river-bank, the great house still presents an almost rural appearance.

There is a landing-stage, with many boats and state barges belonging to the Archbishop, for he always crosses over the river in semi-state to go to the Parliament House.

Beyond the houses at the Horseferry, on the Middlesex side, there are some flat meadows intersected by broad ditches, recalling the old marshes, but now we see cattle grazing in parts of them, and other parts are market gardens, to supply the city with vegetables.

This is called the Manor of Neate, [This old English word "Neate" means cattle, cows and oxen; and Tothill Fields and Pimlico had then become pasture and grassfields] and formerly belonged to the Abbey at Westminster, but Edward the Sixth has granted it to Sir Anthony Browne.

Close down to the water's edge are some houses, which are called the Neate houses, where the market gardeners live. They must have been very close to the water, because we hear at a later period that the mother of Mistress Eleanor Gwyn fell from one of the windows of these houses into the water and was drowned.

Next page: Chelsea