Bedfont, East (St. Mary)

BEDFONT, EAST (St. Mary), a parish, in the union of Staines, hundred of Spelthorne, county of Middlesex, 3¾ miles (W. S. W.) from Hounslow; containing, with the hamlet of Hatton, 982 inhabitants. This is a polling-place for the election of knights of the shire. The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £6. 13. 4.; net income, £288; patron and appropriator, the Bishop of London. Opposite the entrance to the church are two yew-trees, the branches of which, meeting at the top, form an arch, and have been fantastically cut so as to represent two cocks in a fighting attitude; in the thick foliage of one of them appears the date 1704 (an eccentric individual having made a bequest in that year for keeping them thus trimmed), and in that of the other are seen the initials H. I. G. R. T.