Neither the graveyard of the Knights Templars, the great rivals of the Knights Hospitallers at Clerkenwell, nor the garth of the Abbey of St. Peter, have had a record so varied as that which clings round St. Paul’s Churchyard. The Temple Church, especially the round portion of it, is most ancient and interesting, but it has been much injured by the modern representatives of the Templars who have denuded the walls of many rich old monuments. The part of the churchyard which is immediately round the church is closed and turfed and has some fine old stone coffins in it. The northern part is paved and gravelled and is added to the public thoroughfare, the chief object in it of general interest being the grave and monument of Oliver Goldsmith.
We go on, along the Strand, past Charing Cross, until we reach the “minster in the west,” or the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, which was built in the Island of Thorney. It is probable that the whole space now occupied by the Abbey and St. Margaret’s and their churchyards was at one time used for interments. At present the Abbey Churchyard and that of St. Margaret’s (where at times a fair used to be held) are in one. They are neatly turfed and open to the public, and they form a simple but suitable base for the glorious old buildings which rise from them. On the south side of the Abbey are the large and small cloisters, with their grass plots and their ancient stones, while, according to Brayley, a part of Covent Garden Market is on the site of what used to be the burial-ground of the Westminster Convent. Portions of the cloisters are among the most ancient and interesting corners of the Abbey buildings, and the sight of them carries us back in thought to the days of the abbots and monks, who used to pace to and fro under the vaulted roof.
It is not, however, the burial-places outside the Abbey, but the church itself, round which the most thrilling associations gather. Here again the story has been often repeated, and if there are any of my readers (though I doubt if there can be one) who do not know what venerable tombs are contained there, they would do well to visit the Abbey, and not to rest until they have been carefully shown the treasures in Henry VII.’s Chapel. Beaumont sang—
“Think how many royal bones
Sleep within these heaps of stones....
Here’s an acre sown indeed
With the richest, royallist seed.”
From the shrine of Edward the Confessor and the tomb of Edward III. to the tablet in memory of Charles Dickens and the stone over the grave of Charles Darwin, they are one and all of the deepest interest, and it is perfectly needless for me to refer to the monuments here. Every Englishman is—or should be—proud of these relics, of the beautiful Chapel, the Poets’ Corner, and the hallowed nave and aisles.
GREAT CLOISTER, WESTMINSTER.