THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

NO. 329.] SATURDAY, AUGUST 30, 1828. [PRICE 2d.




NEW CHURCH, BUILDING AT STAINES.

[Illustration: NEW CHURCH, BUILDING AT STAINES.]


Who has journeyed on the Exeter road without noticing the town of STAINES,
with its host of antiquarian associations--as the _Stana_ (Saxon) or
London Stone,[1] its ancient bridge, for the repair of which three oaks
out of Windsor Forest were granted by the crown in the year 1262, besides
_pontage_ or temporary tolls previous to the year 1600.--Dr. Stukeley's
conjectures respecting the _Via Trinobantica_ passing here--and the _old_
parish church, the situation of which appeared to denote the site of the
more ancient town of Staines. It is here too, that the tourist begins to
imagine himself _in rure_, after he has been whirled through the brick and
mortar avenues of _Kensington_, and _Hammersmith_, and the unsightly
lane-street of _Brentford_,[2] with all its cockney reminiscences of
equestrianism and election squabbles; _Hounslow_ and its by-gone days of
highway notoriety and powder-mill and posting celebrity, and _Bedfont_,
with its yew trees tortured into peacock shapes, and the date 1704. Then,
who does not recollect and venerate the convivial celebrity of this route,
its luxurious inns, and their "thrones of human felicity;" along which
Quin, Dr. Johnson or Shenstone could scarcely have accomplished a stage a
day!