S. EAST S. WEST
VIEW OF THE CRYPT ON THE SITE OF THE LATE
COLLEGE OF St. MARTIN LE GRAND.
Discovered in clearing for the New Post Office
THE CRYPT OF ST. MARTIN LE GRAND IN 1818.
Recent discoveries have shown that the priory cloister of the Augustine Friars was immediately to the north-east of the Dutch Church in Austin Friars. St. James’s Priory, the Hermitage in the Wall, had a graveyard under the wall, on the other side of which was, and is, the churchyard of St. Giles’, Cripplegate. Huge warehouses and offices now cover its site. The burial-ground of the Priory of St. Thomas Acon, in Ironmonger Lane, where pilgrims were buried who died on their visits to the chapel in honour of Becket, has also disappeared; but that of the priory of St. Augustine Papey survives in the little churchyard of St. Martin Outwich, in Camomile Street, which was presented to the parish by Robert Hyde in 1538, while the nuns of St. Helen’s were probably buried in what is now St. Helen’s Churchyard, Bishopsgate Street, which used to be, according to Stow, much larger.
No trace is left of the burial-places of the monks of Elsing Spital, the Crutched Friars, the White Friars, or the Black Friars, or of that of the splendid priory and sanctuary of St. Martin le Grand; they have gone with the buildings, of which only slight traces remain here and there, such as the porch of St. Alphege, London Wall, which belonged to Elsing Spital Priory. Probably they all had burying-grounds within their precincts. The crypt of St. Martin’s was opened out in 1818, and a very perfect stone coffin found in it, when the present Post Office Buildings in Foster Lane were erected. The churches themselves were always much resorted to as places of interment by those who were not connected with the priories, especially the four magnificent churches, all of which are now gone, of the Greyfriars, the Whitefriars, the Blackfriars, and the Augustine Friars. The Dutch church is the successor to the nave of the last named. The site of the Greyfriars’ church is occupied by the present church and churchyard of Christ Church, Newgate Street. Here were buried Margaret, second wife of Edward I., Isabella, Widow of Edward II., Joan Makepeace, wife of David Bruce, King of Scotland, and Isabella, wife of Lord Fitzwalter, the Queen of Man, besides the hearts of Edward II. and Queen Eleanor, the wife of Henry III., and, according to Weever, the bodies of “four duchesses, four countesses, one duke, twenty-eight barons, and some thirty-five knights,” in all “six hundred and sixty-three persons of quality.” Malcolm states that ten tombs and 140 gravestones (the fine monuments at the east end of the church) were destroyed and sold, in 1545, by Sir Martin Bowes, Lord Mayor, for fifty pounds.
I have given a list of the principal convents and priories outside the city. The site of St. Katharine’s is buried in the Dock, and that of St. John the Baptist’s, Holywell (by Curtain Road, Shoreditch), has also gone. The churchyards of St. Mary, Bromley, and St. Saviour, Southwark, are the survivals of the conventual burying-places; the cemetery of the nuns at Bromley was on the south side of the church, and upon its site Sir John Jacob built the Manor House, the bones being put under the house. But about two hundred years later (1813) the greater part of this site was again added to the churchyard, and re-consecrated. The burial-ground of Westminster Convent, with the Abbot’s garden, have given place to the district and market of Covent Garden. The houses in White Lion Street and Spital Square are on the site of the cemetery or garth of St. Mary Spital. Here, after it ceased to be used for interments and before it was built upon, Spital Square was an open plot of ground with a pulpit in it and a house for the accommodation of the Lord Mayor and Corporation when they came on their annual visit to hear the “Spital Sermon.” Of the priory church of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, in Clerkenwell, very few traces remain. The beautiful old crypt, lately cleared of coffins and restored, is older than the priory church (which was built over it), and dates from 1080 or 1090. The truly magnificent church was consecrated in 1185, the present structure occupying merely the site of the choir, the nave having probably extended the length of St. John’s Square, and, together with the other buildings of the priory, it was pulled down at the Dissolution. The exact site of the cloisters and burial-ground is unknown. The present churchyard of St. John’s is a small, narrow one at the eastern end, from which steps lead down into the ancient crypt. Here, between the years 1738 and 1853, about 325 bodies were buried, or rather the coffins were stacked, for they were above the floor. In 1893 a faculty was procured for their removal, and all the remains were reverently conveyed to Woking, a vellum document recording the fact being placed in the vestry of the church. The crypt is open to the public on the first Saturday in each month. Its complete restoration is still in hand. I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. H. W. Fincham for the picture of St. John’s Crypt, and also for that of the garden in Benjamin Street, E.C.
The Nuns’ burial-ground at Clerkenwell, and part of the beautiful cloister, existed until about one hundred years ago in the garden of the Duke of Newcastle’s house, and its site is now occupied by the houses on the west side of St. James’s Walk, a little north-east of St. James’s Church. The Convent of St. Mary Rounceval was superseded by Northumberland House, subsequently pulled down when Northumberland Avenue was made; and the churchyard of Holy Trinity, Minories (now merely a part of the road) may be a relic of the Nunnery of the Minoresses of St. Clare. The Priory Church of St. Mary Overie (over the ferry) was purchased from the king by the parish in 1539, and has since been the parish Church of St. Saviour, Southwark, henceforth to be the Cathedral of South London.
CRYPT OF ST. JOHN’S, CLERKENWELL.
In the Crace Collection at the British Museum there is a plan, made by William Newton, purporting to show London in Elizabeth’s time, in picture form. He marks the priories with their burial-grounds, but I doubt if it is very trustworthy. In Van den Wyngaerde’s beautiful view (1550), reproduced by the Topographical Society in 1881, and the original of which is in the Bodleian Library, several of the conventual churches appear, not the least interesting being that of “S. Maria Spital.”
The Cistercian abbey of St. Mary of Grace and the Carthusian priory of the Salutation were built on plague burial-grounds. (See [Chapter VI].) The former has disappeared under the site of the Royal Mint, the latter survives in the Charterhouse. Probably they were very insanitary, but such, according to Dean Farrar, was the case with all the conventual establishments, and much accommodation was provided for sick monks.