BURIAL-GROUNDS
_Praises on tombs are trifles vainly spent,
A man’s good name is his best monument._
--EPITAPH IN ST. BOTOLPH, ALDERSGATE.
The disused burial-grounds within the London area must now be counted
among its gardens. There are those who would not have the living
benefit by these hallowed spots set apart for the dead, but the vast
majority of people have welcomed the movement which has led to this
change. In some instances there is no doubt the transformation has been
badly done. Here and there graves have been disturbed and tombstones
heedlessly moved, but on the whole the improvement of the last fifty
years has been immense. It is appalling even to read the accounts of
many of the London graveyards before this reaction set in. The hideous
sights, the foul condition in which God’s acre was often allowed to
remain, as revealed by the inquiry held about 1850, together with the
horrors of body-snatchers, are such a disagreeable contrast to the
orderly graveyards of to-day, that the removal of a few head-stones is
a much lesser evil.
Loudon, in the _Botanical Magazine_, was one of the first to write
about the improvement of public cemeteries, and to point out how they
could be beautified, and the suggestion that the smaller burial-grounds
could be turned into gardens was made as early as 1843 by Sir Edwin
Chadwick. But the closing of them did not come until ten years later,
and it was many years after that, before any attempt was made to turn
them into gardens. By 1877 eight had been transformed, and from that
time onwards, every year something has been done. The Metropolitan
Gardens Association, started by Lord Meath (then Lord Brabazon) in
1882, has done much towards accomplishing this work. One of the
earliest churchyards taken in hand was that of St. Pancras, and joined
to it St. Giles-in-the-Fields. The Act permitting this was in 1875.
Perhaps because it was one of the first, it is also one of the worst in
taste and arrangement. The church of St. Pancras-in-the-Fields is one
of the oldest in Middlesex. “For the antiquity thereof” it “is thought
not to yield to St. Paul’s in London.” In 1593 the houses standing
near this old Norman church were much “decaied, leaving poore Pancras
without companie or comfort.” The bell of St. Pancras Church was said
to be the last tolled in England at the time of the Reformation,
to call people to Mass. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century,
adjoining to the south side of the churchyard, was “a good spaw,
whose water is of a sweet taste,” very clear, and imbued with various
medicinal qualities. These “Pancras Wells” had a large garden, which
extended from the Spa buildings by the churchyard, between the coach
road from Hampstead, and the footpath across the meadows to Gray’s Inn.
As late as 1772 the coach was stopped and robbed at this corner, and
the footpads, armed with cutlasses, made off through the churchyard.
It was of this then lonely, rural churchyard that it was said the dead
would rest “as secure against the day of resurrection as ... in stately
Paules”; but, alas for modern exigencies, the Midland Railway now spans
the sacred ground by a viaduct, and the would-be improvers, in turning
what remained into a garden, have moved the tombstones, levelled the
undulating ground, and heaped the head-stones into terrible rocky
mounds, or pushed them in rows along the wall. Numerous were the
interesting monuments it contained; many a courtly French _emigré_ here
found a resting-place, such as the Comte de Front, on whose tomb was
the line, “A foreign land preserves his ashes with respect.” Although
a monumental tablet put up to record the opening, and the names of the
designers of the garden, proclaims it to be “a boon to the living, a
grace to the dead”; it is doubtful how that respect to the dead was
shown. The lines go on to say it was “not for the culture of health
only, but also of thought.” Surely health and thought could have been
equally well stimulated by making pretty paths, lined with trees and
flowers, wind reverently in and out among the tombs, and up and down
the undulating ground, with seats in shade or sun, arranged with peeps
of the old church; and there might even have been room for the fine
sun-dial (the gift of Baroness Burdett-Coutts) without levelling the
whole area and laying it out with geometrically straight asphalt walks.
The asphalt paths are in themselves a necessity in most cases, as the
expense of keeping gravel in order is too great, and the majority of
the renovated disused burial-grounds suffer from this fact.
Westward from St. Pancras the next large churchyard is that of
Marylebone, and further to the north is St. John’s Wood burial-ground.
Its large trees and shaded walks are familiar to the thousands who go
every year to Lord’s Cricket Ground. Another large one, still more
westward, now used as a garden, is Paddington. The small green patch
round St. Mary’s Church, and a large cemetery beyond, together make
over 4 acres. All round London these spaces are being used, and in
most cases little has been done to upset the ground--among the more
prominent are St. George’s, Hanover Square, in Bayswater; St. John’s,
Waterloo Road; Brixton Parish Church, with a row of yew trees; Fulham
Parish Church, with Irish yews, and tall, closely clipped hollies;
St. Mary’s, Upper Street, Islington, and many others. Some are large
spaces, such as St. John-at-Hackney, which covers 3 acres, and in it
stands the tower of the old church, the present very large church which
dominates it being in the Georgian style of 1797.
Stepney is the largest of all these disused churchyards, and covers
7 acres. It was opened as a public garden in 1887. The beautiful old
Perpendicular church of St. Dunstan, with its carved gargoyles and fine
old tower, which escaped the fire that destroyed the roof, stands on
a low level, with the large square stone graves, of which there are a
great quantity, on higher mounds round it. The central path, the old
approach to the church, has trees on either side, and runs straight
across the graveyard, and is as peaceful-looking as the walk in many
a country churchyard. The way the laying out as a garden has been
carried out is unfortunate in many respects. The number of the big,
stone, box-like monuments made it difficult to carry intersecting
paths across between them, so a plan hardly to be commended has been
followed, of half burying a number of these, and planting bushes in the
earth thus thrown about, and putting the necessary frames for raising
plants in the centre. To place the frames against the wall, and make a
raised path or terrace among the tombs, and not to have banked them up
with a kind of rockery of broken pieces, might have been more fitting.
The part of the ground which is less crowded is well planted. Birch and
alder (_Alnus cordifolia_) are doing well, and a nice clump of gorse
flourishes.
One of the best-arranged of these old East End graveyards is that of
St. George’s-in-the-East, near Ratcliffe Highway. It is kept up by the
Borough of Stepney, having been put in order under the direction of the
rector, Rev. C. H. Turner (now Bishop of Islington), at the expense of
Mr. A. G. Crowder, in 1866. The tombstones have for the most part been
placed against the wall, or left standing if out of the way, as in the
case of the one to the Marr family, whose murder caused horror in 1811.
In the centre stands the obelisk monument to Mrs. Raine, a benefactress
of the parish, who died in 1725. The whole of the ground is laid out
with great taste and simplicity, and is thoroughly well cared for.
The flowers seem to flourish particularly well, and the borders in
summer are redolent with the scent of old clove carnations, which are
actually raised and kept from year to year on the premises. A small
green-house supplies the needs of the flower-beds, The superintendence
of the garden is left to Miss Kate Hall, who takes charge of the
Borough of Stepney Museum in Whitechapel Road, and also of the charming
little nature-study museum in the St. George’s Churchyard Garden. What
formerly was the mortuary has been turned to good account, and hundreds
of children in the borough benefit by Miss Hall’s instruction. Aquaria
both for fresh-water fish and shells, and salt-water collections,
with a lobster, starfish, sea anemones, and growing sea weeds are to
be seen, and moths, butterflies, dragon-flies, pass through all their
stages, while toads, frogs, and salamanders and such-like are a great
delight. The hedgehog spends his summer in the garden, and hibernates
comfortably in the museum. The bees at work in the glass hive are
another source of instruction. Outside the museum a special plot is
tended by the pupils, who are allowed in turn to work, dig, and prune,
and who obtain, under the eye of their sympathetic teacher, most
creditable results. The charm of this East End garden, and the special
educational uses it has been put to, shows what can be achieved, and
sets a good example to others, where similar opportunities exist. A
less promising neighbourhood for gardening could hardly be imagined,
which surely shows that no one need be disheartened.
Some of the burial-grounds were in such a shocking state before they
were taken in hand, that very few of the head-stones remained in their
right places, and many had gone altogether, while some even reappeared
as paving-stones in the district. Spa Fields, Clerkenwell, had a very
chequered history. The site was first a tea garden, near the famous
Sadler’s Wells. For a few years, from 1770, its “little Pantheon” and
pretty garden, with a pond or “canal” stocked with fish, and alcoves
for tea drinkers, was thronged by the middle class, small tradesmen,
and apprentices, while the more fashionable world flocked to Ranelagh
or Almack’s. It was the sort of place in which John Gilpin and his
spouse might have amused themselves, on a less important holiday than
their wedding anniversary. Twenty years later the scene had changed.
The rotunda was turned into a chapel, by the Countess of Huntingdon,
who took up her residence in a jessamine-covered house that had
been a tavern, near to it. The gardens had already been turned into
a private burial-ground, which soon became notorious for the evil
condition in which it was kept. There every single gravestone had
disappeared long before it was converted into the neat little garden,
the delight of poor Clerkenwell children. The rotunda was at length
pulled down, and in 1888 a new church was erected on the site. The
same disgraceful story of neglect and repulsive overcrowding, can be
told of the Victoria Park Cemetery, although the ground had not such a
strange early history. It was one of those private cemeteries which the
legislation with regard to other burial-places did not touch. It was
never consecrated, and abuses of every kind were connected with it. It
is a space of 9½ acres in a crowded district between Bethnal Green and
Bow, a little to the south of Victoria Park. After various difficulties
in raising funds and so forth, it was laid out by the Metropolitan
Gardens Association, opened to the public in 1894, and is kept up by
the London County Council, and is an extremely popular recreation
ground, under the name of “Meath Gardens.”
One of the quiet spots near the City is Bunhill Fields. This has for
over two hundred years been the Nonconformist burial-ground. The
land was enclosed by a brick wall, by the City of London in 1665 for
interments “in that dreadful year of Pestilence. However, it not
being made use of on that occasion,” a man called “Tindal took a
lease thereof, and converted it into a burial-ground for the use of
Dissenters.” As late as 1756 it appears to have been known as “Tindal’s
Burial-ground.” The name Bunhill Fields was given to that part of
Finsbury Fields, on to which quantities of bones were taken from St.
Paul’s in 1549. It is said “above a thousand cartloads of human bones”
were deposited there. No wonder the ghastly name of “bone hill,”
corrupted into Bunhill, has clung to the place. At the present time the
gravestones here are undisturbed, and more respect has been shown to
them than to the bones in the sixteenth century. Asphalt paths meander
through a forest of monuments, and a few seats are placed in the shade
of some of the trees. Those who live in this poor and busy district no
doubt make much use of these places of rest, but the visitor is only
brought to this depressing, gloomy spot on a pilgrimage to the tomb of
John Bunyan. He rests near the centre of the ground, under a modern
effigy. Not far off is the tomb of Dr. Isaac Watts, whose hymns are
repeated wherever the British tongue is spoken, and near him lies the
author of “Robinson Crusoe,” Daniel Defoe. This quaint old enclosure
opens off the City Road, opposite Wesley’s Chapel, and on the western
side it is skirted by Bunhill Row. But a few yards distant is another
graveyard of very different aspect, as it contains only one stone,
and that a very small one, with the name of George Fox, who died in
1690. The other graves in this, the “Friends’ Burial-ground,” never
having been marked in any way, it has the appearance of a dismal little
garden, like the approach or “gravel sweep” to a suburban villa. But it
is neatly kept.
Of all the churchyards, that of St. Paul’s is best known, and least
like the ordinary idea of one. But this was not always so. It was
for centuries an actual burying-place. When the foundations of the
present cathedral were dug, after the Great Fire, a series of early
burials were disclosed. There were Saxon coffins, and below them
British graves, where wooden and ivory pins were found, which fastened
the woollen shrouds of those who rested there, and below that again,
between twenty and thirty feet deep, were Roman remains, with fragments
of pottery, rings, beads, and such-like.
The original churchyard was very much larger, as the present houses in
“St. Paul’s Churchyard” are actually on part of the ground included in
it. It extended from Old Change in Cheapside to Paternoster Row, and on
the south to Carter Lane, and the whole was surrounded by a wall built
in 1109, with the principal gateway opening into “Ludgate Street.” This
wall seems to have been unfinished, or else part of it became ruinous
in course of time, and the churchyard became the resort of thieves
and ruffians. To remedy this state of things, the wall was completed
and fortified early in the fourteenth century. It had six gates, and
remained like this until the Great Fire, although long before that date
houses had been built against the wall both within and without. Round
here were collected the shops of the most famous booksellers, such as
John Day, who came here in 1575.
[Illustration: ST. PAUL’S CHURCHYARD]
On the north side was a plot of ground known as Pardon’s Churchyard,
and here was built a cloister in Henry V.’s time, decorated with
paintings to illustrate Lidgate’s translation of “The Dance of Death.”
Here, too, was a chapel and charnel-house, and the whole was
pulled down by order of the Protector Somerset, who used some of the
material in building Somerset House. It was on that occasion that the
cartloads of bones were removed to Finsbury Fields. There, covered
with earth, they made a solid, conspicuous hill on which windmills
were erected. It was part of this same ground which has already been
referred to as Bunhill Fields. Great as was the damage done by the
Fire, perhaps no site has been so completely altered as that of St.
Paul’s. The modern cathedral, dearly loved by all Londoners, stands at
quite a different angle from the old one, the western limit of which is
marked by the statue of Queen Anne. Nestling close to the south-west
corner of the great Gothic cathedral with its lofty spire, was the
parish church of St. Gregory, and the crypt was the parish church
of St. Faith’s. Both these parishes were allocated a portion of the
churchyard for their burials.
To the north-east of the cathedral stood Paul’s Cross, the out-door
pulpit whence many notable sermons were preached. It is described
by Stowe. “About the middest of this Churchyard is a pulpit-crosse
of timber, mounted upon steps of stone, and covered with Lead, in
which are Sermons preached by learned Divines, every Sunday in the
fore-noone. The very antiquity of which Crosse is to me unknowne.” The
earliest scene he records as taking place at this “crosse,” was when
Henry III., in 1259, commanded the Mayor to cause “every stripling of
twelve years of age and upward to assemble there,” to swear “to be
true to the King and his heires, Kings of England.” In later times,
the most distinguished preachers of the day were summoned to preach
before the Court and the Mayor, Aldermen and citizens, and the
political significance of such harangues may well be imagined. It was
here Papal Bulls were promulgated; here Tyndal’s translation of the
New Testament was publicly burnt; here Queen Elizabeth listened to a
sermon of thanksgiving on the defeat of the Armada--only to mention a
few of the associations that cling round the spot, which, until within
the last fifty years, was marked by an old elm tree which kept its
memory green. Now it is treated with scant respect. There is, indeed,
a little wooden notice-board, like a giant flower-label, stuck into
the ground by an iron support, which records the fact that here stood
Paul’s Cross, destroyed by the Fire of 1666. The notice is not so large
or conspicuous as the one a few feet from it, beseeching the kindly
friends of the pigeons not to feed them on the flower-beds! It is to be
hoped that before long the bequest of £5000 of the late H. C. Richards,
for the re-erection of the Cross, may be embodied in some visible form.
What a picture such recollections call up!--the excited crowds with
all the colour of Tudor costumes, the eager, fanatical faces of the
“defenders of the Faith,” the sad and despondent faces of the intensely
serious Reformers, as they see the blue smoke curl upwards, and the
flames consume the sacred volumes.
Picture the churchyard once more in still earlier times, when strange,
fantastic customs clung round the cathedral services. One of the most
original seems to have arisen from the tenure of land in Essex granted
to Sir William Baud by the Dean and Chapter. The twenty-two acres of
land were held on the condition that “hee would (for ever) upon the
Feast day of the Conversion of Paul in Winter give unto them a good
Doe, seasonable and sweete, and upon the Feast of the Commemoration of
St. Paul in Summer, a good Buck, and offer the same at the high Altar,
the same to bee spent amongst the Canons residents.” On the appointed
days the keeper who had brought the deer carried it through the
procession to the high altar. There the head was severed, and the body
sent off to be cooked, while the horns, stuck on a spear, were carried
round the cathedral. The procession consisted of the Dean and Chapter
in their copes--special ones for the two occasions--one embroidered
with does, the other with bucks, the gift of the Baud family, and on
their heads garlands of roses. Having performed the ceremony within the
church, the whole procession issued out of the west door, and there
the keeper blew a blast upon his horn, and when he had “blowed the
death of the Bucke,” the “Horners that were about the City presently
answered him in like manner.” The Dean and Chapter paid the blowers of
horns fourpence each and their dinner, while the man who brought the
venison got five shillings and his food and lodgings, and a “loafe of
bread, having the picture of Saint Paul upon it,” to take away with
him. What a strange picture of mediæval life and half-pagan rites! yet
all conducted with perfect good faith, in all seriousness. It is just
one of the great charms of knowing London and its traditions, that one
is able to clear away in imagination the growth of centuries, and throw
back one’s mind to the past--to stand at the top of Ludgate Hill and to
remove Wren’s building and to see the Gothic pinnacles; to blot out the
garden and fountain and modern seats, and see Paul’s Cross; on the left
to see the arches of the cloisters, and on the right the high wall and
timbered houses; then to open the western door and see this strange
procession issue forth, with the antlers borne aloft, and hear the
bugle-blast and answering notes.
Surely no place can be more crowded with memories than busy, “roaring
London,” and nowhere are the past and present so unexpectedly brought
together. The City is full of surprises to those who have leisure to
wander among its narrow, crowded streets. The quiet little graveyards
afford many of these telling contrasts. Suddenly, in the busiest
thoroughfares, where a constant stream of men are walking by every
weekday, come these quiet little back-waters. In many cases the
churches themselves have vanished, or only remain in part. St. Mary’s
Staining is one of these, so hidden away that one might walk along
Fenchurch Street hundreds of times and never find it. The approach
is by a very narrow alley, at the end of which is this quiet little
graveyard, where, among other worthies, reposes Sir Arthur Savage,
knighted at Cadiz in 1596. The church, all except the tower, was
destroyed in the Great Fire, and never rebuilt. The picturesque old
tower stands in the centre of this little plot, which now forms the
garden of the Clothworkers’ Company, whose hall opens on to one side of
it.
Another church which perished in the Fire and was never rebuilt is St.
Olave’s, Hart Street, but its churchyard remains, and a few large tombs
stand in a small garden with seats, where at all times of the year some
weary wayfarers are resting.
Another such graveyard where the burnt church was not restored is at
the corner of Wood Street and Cheapside. The old tree inside the closed
railings may have inspired the lark to carol so joyously as to call up
the “vision of poor Susan.”
St. Botolph’s, Aldersgate, has one of the largest churchyards in the
City, but it really consists of four pieces of land thrown into one
in 1892, by a scheme under the London Parochial Charities, which
contributed part of the purchase-money of some of the land, and gives
£150 a year for the upkeep--£100 being paid to them by the General Post
Office, which has the right of light over the whole space. One-half
of the churchyard is St. Botolph’s, and the rest is made up of the
burial-grounds of St. Leonard, Foster Lane, and Christ Church, Newgate
Street, and a strip of land which might have been built on, but which,
under the revised scheme in 1900, became permanently part of this open
space. The garden is carefully laid out; there are nice plane trees
and a little fountain, regular paths and numerous seats. A sheltered
gallery runs along one side, and in it are tablets to commemorate deeds
of heroism in humble life--Londoners who lost their lives in saving
the lives of others. The church of St. Botolph was one which escaped
the Fire, but had fallen into such disrepair that it was rebuilt, by
Act of Parliament, in 1754. The Act specially stipulates that none of
the gravestones were to be removed, but where some of them are, now
that it is a trim garden, it would be hard to say. Being not far from
the General Post Office, this garden is so much used by its officials
during the middle of the day, it has earned the name of the “Postman’s
Park.”
[Illustration: SUN-DIAL, ST. BOTOLPH’S]
Another much-frequented but much smaller churchyard is that of St.
Katharine Coleman. Suddenly, in a corner of crowded Fenchurch Street,
comes this retired shade. The church, with its old high pews, and tiny
graveyard, devoid of monuments, is a peaceful oasis. These surprises
in the densest parts of the City are very refreshing, and they are too
numerous to mention each individually. Most of them now are neatly
kept, though some look dreary enough. None of them recall the neglect
of half a century ago. St. Olave’s, Hart Street, in Seething Lane, is
perhaps among the most gloomy. It is the church Pepys speaks of so
often as “our owne church,” and was one of the churches that escaped
the Fire. The archway with the skulls over it, leads from Seething
Lane to the dismal-looking churchyard. Nothing is done to alter or
brighten this place of many memories. One shudders to think of what it
must have been like when Pepys crossed it for the first time after the
Great Plague, when he went to the memorial service for King Charles
I., on 30th January 1666. No wonder he says it “frighted me indeed to
go through the church more than I thought it could have done, to see
so many graves lie so high upon the churchyard, where people have been
buried of the Plague. I was much troubled about it, and do not think
to go through it again a good while.” The parish registers show that
no less than 326 were interred in this very small place, during the
previous six months, so Pepys’ feelings were well justified. The old
church has a special interest to lovers of gardens, as in it is the
tomb of William Turner, the author of the first English Herbal.
In more than one City churchyard a portion of the old wall
makes its appearance. There is St. Alphage, London Wall, and
Allhallows-in-the-Wall, where the little gardens by the wall have
been formed with a view to preserving it. The most picturesque is St.
Giles’s, Cripplegate, where Milton is buried. The graveyard is large,
and the ground rises above the footpath, which was made across it some
thirty years ago, to a bastion of the wall, of rough stones and flint,
which is in its old state, although part of the wall was rebuilt in
1803. There has been no attempt here to make it a resting-place for the
living, although it is used as a thoroughfare.
[Illustration: THE BANK GARDEN]
Few people who have not entered the Bank of England would suspect it
of enclosing an extremely pretty garden. There the inner courtyard
possesses tall lime trees, gay rhododendrons, and a cool splashing
fountain, with ferns and iris glistening in the spray. It is quite
one of the most delightfully fresh and peaceful corners on a hot
summer’s day, and carries one in imagination to Italy. Yet this is
but another of the many old City churchyards. The parish of St.
Christopher-le-Stocks was absorbed, with five other parishes, into
St. Margaret’s, Lothbury, in 1781. Some of the tombs, and pictures of
Moses and Aaron, were removed from it, and are still to be seen in St.
Margaret’s, which is crowded with monuments from all six churches.
The Bank was already in possession of most of the land within the
parish, and by the Act of Parliament of 1781, the church and churchyard
became part of the Bank premises, which cover nearly three acres. The
church site was built over, but the graveyard became the garden. This
enclosure at first was a simple grass plot, as shown in an engraving
dated 1790. The lime trees may have been planted soon after, as they
appear as large trees sixty years later, and are spoken of in 1855
as two of the finest lime trees in London. The fountain was put up in
1852 by Mr. Thomas Hankey, then the governor. The water for it came
from the tanks belonging to the Bank, supplied by an artesian well 330
feet deep, said to be very pure, and free from lime. Perhaps that is
why the rhododendrons look so flourishing. Most of the Bank, as is well
known, was the work of the architect Sir John Soane, but some of the
portions built by Sir Robert Taylor, before his death in 1788, when
Soane was appointed to succeed him, are to be seen in the garden court.
It is said that the last person buried there was a Bank clerk named
Jenkins, who was 7½ feet in height. He was allowed to rest there, as he
feared he might be disinterred on account of his gigantic proportions.
Very different is the churchyard of St. Martin’s, on Ludgate Hill. It
belongs to Stationers’ Hall, and although it boasts of one fine plane
tree, is an untidy, grimy, dingy little square. By permission of all
the necessary authorities, the coffins (480 in number) were removed and
reverently buried in Brookwood Cemetery in 1893, a careful register
of all the names and dates, that could be deciphered, being kept.
This having been done, the earth was merely left in an irregular heap
round the tree, and no attempt has been made to improve in any way the
forsaken appearance of the place.
This sketch does not aim at being a guide-book, and it would only be
tedious to enumerate the many churchyards, without as well as within
the City, which of late years have been made worthy “gardens of sleep.”
St. Luke’s, Old Street; St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch; St. Anne’s, Soho;
St. Sepulchre, Holborn, and many others in every part of the town, from
being dreary and untidy, have become orderly and well kept; and instead
of being unwholesome and unsightly, have become attractive harbours of
refuge in the sea of streets and houses.