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Bowack lived near the Rectory, and not far from him was the Old White Horse Inn, famous for the beauty of its decorative carving. Petyt's school was next to the church. The name was derived from its founder, who built it at his own expense for the education of poor children in the beginning of the eighteenth century.
The church owes its additional name of Abbots to the fact of its having belonged to the Abbot and convent of Abingdon, as set forth in the history of the parish. Bowack says: "It does not appear that this church was ever dedicated to any saint, nor can we find, after a very strict search, by whom it was founded, though we have traced its vicars up to the year 1260."
An outlying piece of land at Kensal Town belonged to Chelsea parish, but is not included in the borough. The population in 1801 was 12,079. Bowack, in an account of Chelsea in 1705, estimates the inhabited houses at 300; they are now computed at 8,641.
Bowack alludes to it thus: "There is also a handsome ancient seat in Fulham Field called No-Man's-Land House, now belonging to Wild, Esq. The piece of ground which it stands on was known as No-Man's-Land." The date 1664 is worked into the iron scroll-work of a gateway.
Church Row is a charming old-fashioned row, and the houses mentioned by Bowack as "very handsome and airy" are probably those still standing. At the end of the row are Sir William Powell's Almshouses, prettily designed with red-tiled roofs, and at one end is a tower surmounted by statues of female characters from the Bible. Directly across the road is the old rectory-house.
But it is most probable it should be of Land Fowle which usually haunt Groves and Clusters of Trees whereof in this Place it seemeth to have been plenty." Bowack also quotes Camden, adding: "In all Probability a Place where all sorts of Water Fowls were bred and preserved for the Diversion of our Saxon Monarchs."
Opposite to the Peterborough monument at the west end is a very large marble monument in memory of Dorothy Clarke, and her second husband. A great marble urn upon it is said by Bowack to have been the work of Grinling Gibbons, and to have cost £300. A memorial window to Archbishop Tait is fixed in the west end of the south aisle.
Bowack, writing in 1705, speaks of the "abundance of shopkeepers and all sorts of artificers" along the high-road, "which makes it appear rather like a part of London than a country village."
In Queen Street, which runs from the church down to the river, there are one or two red-tiled houses, but toward the river end it is squalid and miserable. Bowack says that in his time two rows of buildings ran from the chapel riverwards, and another along the river westward to Chiswick. One of the first two is undoubtedly Queen Street.
After this Bowack describes it as "of brick and handsomely finished; but what it was formerly may be guessed by the old tower now standing, which has some appearance of antiquity, and looks like the architecture of the twelfth or thirteenth centuries."
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