Bexley: The Church, Hall Place and Blendon

372 BEXLET CHURCH. daughter of the English Princess Elizaheth, Queen of Bohemia. When the Princess or Electress Sophia died in 1714, Mr. Winde returned to England, and then he married Lady Austen (the Stawell heiress). She died in 1725, and was buried here on the 1st of December. Her second husband survived until 1742, when he died, having been a Commissioner of the Salt Duties from October 25th, 1727, until his death. The central hatchment upon the west wall was placed in this church hy him in memory of his wife Elizaheth, Lady Austen. It is a grand heraldic study. The quarterings of the ancient family of Winde are impaled with those of the grand old Somersetshire family of Stawell, and the Austen intermarriages are represented on separate shields. The last Austen baronet who resided at Hall Place was the son of this lady (the Stawell heiress) by Sir Eobert the third baronet. He was another Sir Robert, and was M.P.. for New Eomney. He married in 1738 Rachel Dashwood, the sister, and coheiress of Sir Francis Dashwood, Lord Le Despencer. This Sir Eobert Austen, the fourth baronet, died at Bath in 1743, and the jointures charged on the Hall Place estates, together with the legacies left by Sir Eobert's will, seem to have exhausted the revenue, which was administered hy the Court of Chancery for many years. - Sir Eobert, the fourth baronet, had no issue, and hy. his will the fee simple of the estate was entailed upon his wife's brother, who in 1763 became Lord Le Despencer, and who obtained the fee simple of Hall Place in 1773, after the death of the seventh baronet, who was also named Robert., Lord Le Despencer died unmarried in 1781. Then Rachel, Lady Austen, his widowed sister, became the coheir, to his barony of Le Despencer; but his lordship left the. Bexley property to his natural son Francis Dashwood,.. to whose representatives Hall Place still belongs. Rachel, Lady Austen survived until 1788, having been forty-five years, a widow. There are no memorials in this church of her or of her husband, nor of her husband's sisters. Vet we know that three of his sisters were buried here—Mrs. Stawell Austen (the youngest sister), September 28, 1748; Elizaheth in 1755; and Mrs. Ann Austen in 1758. All spinsters were in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries called "mistress." The last-namedlady, Mrs. Aun Austen, gave to this church a brass chandelier, which was hung in the nave, and costly velvet hangings, for the pulpit, embroidered and fringed with, gold. These in 1775 were cut to pieces by thieves, who were disappointed at not finding the church plate.