plan for occupying the magnificent and spacious Site, which 

 offered itself upon the platform of the Manor Shore. But the 

 only prospect of obtaining so valuable an acquisition, lay in the 

 hope of finding a disinterested desire, on the part both of the 

 Crown and of its Lessee, to promote an object of public utility. 

 The Society's request having been considered in that light by 

 Lord Grantham, the Council experienced^ no difficulty in 

 obtaining from his Lordship, a resignation of his interest in 

 this ancient tenure of his family ; and the Treasury also 

 immediately took into its most favourable consideration the 

 petition of the Society, for a grant of the Ruins of St. Mary's 

 Abbey, and three acres of land on the Manor Shore. 



The legal impediments which, in 1826, prevented the 

 Crown from complying with the prayer of that petition, 

 were stated in the last Report; but the attention of the 

 Chancellor of the Exchequer ' having been called to the 

 subject, he was of opinion that they were impediments 

 which ought not to subsist ; and directions were given for 

 drawing up a Bill, to extend to the Country at large the 

 provisions of the Act, which empowered the Crown to make 

 grants of land to Institutions within the Metropolis. The 

 political circumstances which interrupted the proceedings 

 of Parliament, during the spring of 1827, barely allowed 

 time, in the ensuing session, for transacting the public 

 business : nevertheless this Bill, rapidly forwarded by the 

 exertions of the friends to the Society, passed into a law, 

 which has not only enabled the Crown to comply with the 



Viscount Goderich. 



