1660 – 1685 Charles II
Laws were passed against Dissenters as a result of which John Bunyan was in goal for 12 years.
1662 The King granted a charter to establish the Royal Society of London for Promoting Natural Knowledge encouraging mathematicians, scientists and scholars into new philosophical concepts.
1664 New Amsterdam was seized from the Dutch and renamed New York.
1664 The first land on The Butts was sold for building to William Parish of the Red Lion by James Goldsmith who had inherited Boston Manor. The first houses were built in the 1690s.
The hearth tax returns for the year show there was nearly twice as many households in Old Brentford than in New Brentford but that the population of Old Brentford was poorer as less of them were charged for Hearth tax.
1665 The Plague ravaged many towns up and down the country.
1665-6 Samuel Pepys recorded arriving by boat to go to church where there was a ‘very dull sermon and many Londoners’ and on another occasion that there was plague in the town. There were 103 burials recorded in West or New Brentford during this period when the average was 36.
1666 The Great Fire of London destroyed a large part of the City.
Plague victims were buried in an area marked on maps as Dead Men’s Graves which was to the east of Carville Hall Park.
1666 James Hawley obtained a license to demolish cottages, enlarge the market by more than 2 acres and erect a Market House. An extensive trade developed in sheep and pigs. This market house was demolished in 1850.
1668 The Justices issued a warrant against Richard Whitehead of Old Brentford, a gardener, ‘for speaking of several words concerning the present government’
1669 John Woolrich, a Quaker of Brentford was sent to the New Prison in St John’s Street, Clerkenwell for holding unlawful meetings in his house.
1670 The Manor of Boston was bought by a City Merchant and banker called James Clitherow. He paid £5136.17.4d for the house and estate and then spent £1439. 12.9d demolishing the old manor house and extending the house built in 1623. James’ father had been an MP and Lord Mayor of London and James was a member of the East India Company. His account books show that he loaned money to Charles II, the Duke of Buckingham and other notables of the day. His descendants owned the property until 1923.
1672 Hearth tax returns show 105 premises south of the High Street and 47 on the north. There were less occupants in Old Brentford than the return 8 years earlier. This could be that it was a poor area that had not recovered from the effects of the plague.
1673 The Test Act was passed compelling all holders of office under the Crown to take the Oath of Supremacy and adhere to the Church of England forms of worship.
1674 It is reported that a man was found hanged in Boston woods and the Coroner and the Jury were paid £1.0.8d for burying him. Could this be the source of the name Gallows Bridge more than 100 years later when the Canal was built?
The Justices ordered Sir Joseph Ash baronet to pay to John Pope £6 towards the repair of Brentford Bridge. They also swore in soldiers, issued a warrant to arrest a master for not paying his servants wages and ordered the constable at Hanwell ‘to whipp Mary Biddle for being a common hedge breaker’
1675 The Greenwich Observatory was established with the aim of perfecting navigation and astronomy and establishing the longitude of places around the globe. Sir Christopher Wren rebuilt St Paul’s Cathedral.
1679 The market and the fair extended in to The Butts.
1682 St Lawrence’s Church and other property in the area was badly damaged by floods.
1685 – 1688 James II
1685 The Battle of Sedgemoor took place when the Duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of Charles II tried to take the throne for the Protestants from James II who was Catholic. The Duke of Monmouth was defeated and executed.
The History of Brentford 