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76
ST. JAMES'S DWELLINGS.
This property continues to be well let although necessarily
there have been several changes of tenants during the
year.
A copy of the accounts of the Trust funds will be found
on page 121.
As enquiries are frequently made as to the origin and
cost of these dwellings, the following copy of the statement
deposited in the cavity of the foundation stone is here
reprinted for the information of the Parishioners:—
The funds for the erection of this Building were mainly
derived from the sale of the Burial Ground situate in Hampstead
Road, and formerly belonging to the Parish of St. James, Westminster.
The sale was effected under the provisions of a Special
Act of Parliament obtained by the London and North-Western
Railway Company in the year 1883. The Company sought
power to acquire, on payment of .£'15,000, so much of the Burial
Ground as had not been disposed of under the St. James's Chapel
Act, 1869. The Company were, however, restricted by Parliament
from taking the whole of the ground for the purposes of
their undertaking, and the Trustees of the Burial Ground were
required by the Act of 1883 to convey a specified portion to the
Company for the sum of .£8,000, and the remainder of the ground
without further consideration to the Vestry of St. Pancras
(within which Parish the Burial Ground was situate) to be by
them preserved as an open space. The purchase money was
directed by the Act to be applied to such ecclesiastical, parochial
and other purposes for the benefit of the Parish of St. James as
the Trustees, with the sanction of the Vestry, might direct. The
money was paid into Court by the Railway Company and the
Burial Ground conveyed as to a portion thereof to the Company
and as to the remainder to the Vestry of St. Pancras. After
mature deliberation, the Trustees decided to apply one equal
moiety of the fund to ecclesiastical purposes, and the other moiety
to secular purposes for the benefit of the Parish, and the Vestry