In looking one day at Rocque’s plan of London (1742-5) I noticed how many burial-grounds and churchyards were marked upon it which no longer existed. I made a table of them, and traced their destiny, and the result of this research was printed in the First Annual Report of the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association, which was issued in 1884. I then went further, and commenced to draw up a list of all the burying-places, of which I could find any record, still existing, or that had ever existed

Every chronicler of London history who can lay claim to be called an antiquarian, from Fitzstephen, Stow, and Pennant, to the Rev. W. J. Loftie and Sir Walter Besant, has tried to gather up the fragmentary evidence which from time to time has come to light, and to form some picture of the condition of London in the earliest times. Many have gone in largely for invention, and have weaved what they supposed to be circumstantial stories from discoveries of the most trivial kind, but these fictions

Fitzstephen’s statement that “there are in London and the suburbs 13 churches belonging to convents, besides 126 lesser parish churches,” is not a very satisfactory one, as he does not proceed to name these several churches, or to tell his readers with what establishments they were connected. However, he was probably under the mark in putting the first figure at thirteen, for even in his time, and certainly very little later, there were many more than thirteen monastic and conventual buildings i

There is one burial-ground in London which has received a large share of attention, and which has really been thought worthy of lengthy and detailed notices in histories of the metropolis—I mean St. Paul’s Churchyard. The words convey a very distinct meaning to us now. They suggest Messrs. Hitchcock and Williams, and a number of other firms with large premises, a constant stream of vans, carts, omnibuses, cabs, and bicycles passing between Ludgate Hill and Cheapside or Cannon Street, and a neat

I have already referred, in Chapter I., to the different areas occupied by the City of London at different periods. But the City, as we know it now, averages, roughly speaking, a mile and a half from east to west and three-quarters of a mile from north to south. It includes a considerable space outside the old wall, and the boundary line is very irregular, except on the southern side, where is the “silent highway.” It is governed by the Corporation, and its ancient wards are represented by Alder

There are few spots in England more peaceful, more suggestive, and more hallowed than our village churchyards, when they are treated with that reverence which is their due. I have many in my mind now, but I will try to think of one only “where the churchyard, grey with stone and green with turf, holds its century of dead,” where “side by side, the poor man and the son of pride, lie calm and still.” The church is grey and ivy-grown. Its broad tower, that has weathered many a storm, is half hidden

Considering that we have records of the visitation of London by direful plagues and pestilences at frequent intervals during ten centuries, and that these visitations always led to a mortality far in excess of the ordinary one, it is not to be wondered at that from time to time special burial-places had to be provided to meet the special need. In 664, during the time of the Saxon Heptarchy, London was “ravaged by the plague,” and from that date forward it returned again and again, causing the ki

“Methodism was only to be detected as you detect curious larvæ, by diligent search in dirty corners.”— George Eliot. Foremost amongst the burial-grounds devoted especially to Dissenters is Bunhill Fields,—not the New Bunhill Fields in Newington, nor Little Bunhill Fields in Islington, nor the City Bunhill Ground in Golden Lane, not the Quakers’ ground in Bunhill Row—but the real, genuine, original Bunhill Fields, City Road. The land on the north side of the City and south of Old Street was vario

It is only natural that in London, to which so many from other countries have fled, and where so many foreigners have lived, worked, and died, there should be evidences left of their places of interment. Solitary cases of their burial among Englishmen are, of course, to be met with everywhere, and there are many such in the London graveyards. In Rotherhithe Churchyard is a well-known tombstone erected to the memory of Prince Lee-boo of the Pelew Islands, who died in 1784; in St. Ann’s, Soho, the

When the Greyfriars, or Christ’s Hospital, was set aside for “poor children,” and Bridewell for “the correction of vagabonds,” St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in the City and St. Thomas’s in Southwark were devoted to the care of the “wounded, maimed, sick, and diseased”; and in these four benevolent institutions, which owe so much to the short-lived but truly pious King Edward VI., there was provision made for the burial of the dead. It must be remembered that the quadrangle of Christ’s Hospital, whi

There are two chief senses in which the word “private” may be taken. It denotes what belongs to a particular person, family, or institution apart from the general public—thus we say a “private chapel,” a “private drive,” and so on. It also means that which has been set into being by a private individual, and which is, therefore, a private speculation. Into these two classes I can divide the graveyards which are to be dealt with in this chapter. The Romans preserved the right of erecting tombs in

By the commencement of the present century the minds of thoughtful men on the Continent, in America, and in England, began to be exercised about the overcrowded state of the graveyards in the towns, and their very unwholesome effect upon those who lived near them. We owe the agitation which finally led to the closing of the London graveyards mainly to the untiring zeal of a surgeon of Drury Lane, George Alfred Walker. His work lay amongst the poor of that district, and he was led to believe that

“Some young children sported among the tombs, and hid from each other, with laughing faces. They had an infant with them, and had laid it down asleep upon a child’s grave, in a little bed of leaves.... Nell drew near and asked them whose grave it was. The child answered that that was not its name; it was a garden—his brother’s. It was greener, he said, than all the other gardens, and the birds loved it better because he had been used to feed them.”— From the “Old Curiosity Shop ,” Dickens . The

Besides the churchyards of Tooting, Plumstead, Lee, and Eltham, that are still available for interments, and some others, such as Charlton and Fulham, where burials in existing graves or vaults are sanctioned on application to the Home Secretary, ten burial-grounds, which can hardly be called cemeteries, are still being used in London. These are the South Street or Garratt’s Lane ground at Wandsworth, consecrated in 1808, where widows, widowers, and parents of deceased persons already interred t

I acknowledge a hesitation in writing this chapter, because there are many people who feel very strongly upon the subject of the disposal of the dead, and whose feelings I wish in no way to appear to treat with anything but the greatest consideration. The custom of burying the body has been in practice in England ever since Christianity was established here, and so completely did burial take the place of burning that the latter expedient has never been formally forbidden, or, until 1884, even re

Burial-grounds within the Metropolitan Area, which still exist, wholly or in part. Abridged from the Return prepared for the London County Council in the Spring of 1895, and corrected up to date. 1. St. John’s Churchyard. —1½ acres in extent. It is full of tombstones, but very neatly kept, and although not handed over to any public authority, nor provided with seats, the gates are usually open. 2. Burial-ground in Holly Lane. —1¼ acres. This is still used for interments, and new graves are occas

Burial-grounds in London which have been entirely demolished for New Streets, Railway Lines, Public Buildings, Private Houses, &c. Name of Churchyard or Burial-ground. What occupies the Site....

Churches and Chapels with Vaults under them that have been used for Interments, but with no Graveyards attached. Some vaults, such as those under the Guildhall Chapel, the Rolls Chapel, and the notorious Elton Chapel, Clements Lane, have disappeared with the buildings; and it must be remembered that the City churches that have lost their churchyards have vaults underneath them, and so have other buildings, such as the Charterhouse Chapel and cloisters, the burial-ground there being of much later

Steps to be taken for laying out and throwing open to the Public a Disused Churchyard or Burial-ground, and for its Maintenance by the London County Council, or the Local Authority. ( Reprinted from the Annual Report of the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association, 83, Lancaster Gate, W. ) 1. Decide how much assistance is to be sought from the London County Council, or the Local Authority, that is the Vestry or District Board, if in London, or the Urban or Rural Sanitary Authority, if in the prov

| A.D. 1884. | 47 & 48 Vict. [Ch. 72.] An Act for preventing the erection of Buildings on Disused Burial grounds. [14th August, 1884.] Whereas an Act was passed in the session of Parliament holden in the fifteenth and sixteenth years of Her Majesty, chapter eighty-five, to amend the laws concerning the burial of the dead in the metropolis, and an Act was passed in the session holden in the sixteenth and seventeenth years of Her Majesty, chapter one hundred and thirty-four, “to amend the