OLD ST. PANCRAS CHURCH.
Your correspondent Stephen (Vol. ii., p. 407.) asks for information respecting the "Gospel Oak Tree at Kentish Town." Permit me to connect with it another Query relative to the foundation of the old St. Pancras Church, as the period of its erection has hitherto baffled research. From the subjoined extracts, it appears to be of considerable antiquity. The first extract is from a MS. volume which I purchased at the sale of the library of the Rev. H.F. Lyte (Lot 2578.), entitled,—
"Spicilegium: or A Brief Account of Matters relating to the ecclesiastical Politie of the British Church, compiled from Histories, Councils, Canons, and Acts of Parliament," A.D. 1674.
It was apparently written for publication, but is without name or initials. At p. 21. the writer, after giving an account of the foundation of the cathedral church of Canterbury, goes on to say,—
"Without the walls, betwixt the Cathedral and St. Martin's Church, stood an idol temple, which, with the leave and goodwill of King Ethelbert, St. Augustine purged, and then consecrated it to the memory of St. Pancras the martyr, and after prevailed with the king to found a monastery there for the monks, in honour of the two prime apostles, St. Peter and Paul, appointing it to be the burial-place of the Kentish Kings, as also for his successors in that see. The like to this was Pancras Church, near London, otherwise called Kentish Church, which some ignorantly imagine was the mother of St. Paul's Church in London. I rather think it might be the burying-place belonging to the church of St. Paul, before Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury, obtained leave of the Pope to bury in cities. And in imitation of that at Canterbury, this near London was dedicated to St. Pancras and called Kentish Church."
Connected with the Query of Stephen, it is worthy of notice that St. Augustine held a conference with the Cambrian bishops at a place called by Bede, Augustine's Ac, or Oak, on the borders of the Weccii and West Saxons, probably near Austcliffe, in Gloucestershire (Bede's Eccles. Hist. lib. ii. c. 2.).
Norden, who wrote in the reign of Elizabeth, in his Speculum Britainniæ, says that—
"The church of St. Pancras standeth all alone, as utterly forsaken, old and weather-beaten, which, for the antiquitie thereof, is thought not to yield to Paule's of London."
which idea is repeated by Weever. And in the year 1749, some unknown poet, soliloquising upon the top of Primrose Hill, bursts out into the following rapturous musing at the sight of "the old weather-beaten church" in the distance.—
"The rev'rend spire of ancient Pancras view,
To ancient Pancras pay the rev'rence due;
Christ's sacred altar there, first Britain saw,
And gaz'd, and worshipp'd, with an holy awe,
Whilst pitying heav'n diffus'd a saving ray,
And heathen darkness changed to Christian day."
Gentleman's Mag., xiv. 276.
Perhaps some of the gentlemen now engaged in compiling historical notices of the parish of St. Pancras will be able to dispel the Cimmerian darkness which at present envelopes the consecration of the old church.
The late Mr. Smith, author of Nollekins and his Times, made some collections towards a History of St. Pancras. Query, What has become of them?
J. Yeowell.
Hoxton.
Old St. Pancras Church (Vol. ii., p. 464.)—In a note in Croker's edition of Boswell's Johnson (8vo. 1848, p. 840.), Mr. Markland says, that the reason assigned by your correspondent, and in the text of Boswell, for the preference given by the Roman Catholics to this place of burial, rests, as he had learned from unquestionable authority, upon no foundation; "that mere prejudice exists amongst the Roman Catholics in favour of this church, as is the case with respect to other places of burial in various parts of the kingdom." Mr. Markland derived his information from the late Dr. Bramston, Mr. Charles Butler, and Mr. Gage Rokewoode.
S.D.