GROUND PLAN OF ST. BENET FINK IN 1834.
Of the City churchyards which have been completely annihilated, apart from other kinds of burial-grounds within this area, there must have been at least forty. And this destruction has been due to the dissolution of the priories, the formation of new streets, and the invasion of the railways. Norden mentions three churches in Farringdon Ward Within which have gone—St. Nicholas in the Fleshshambles (which was in Newgate Street), St. Ewans (south of Newgate Street), and St. Genyn within St. Martin le Grand. When Queen Victoria Street was made the churchyards of St. Mary Mounthaw, St. Nicholas Olave, and St. Mary Magdalen, Knightrider Street, disappeared; that of St. Michael, Crooked Lane, a plot of land given by one Robert Marsh and consecrated in 1392, was sacrificed for King William Street; and that of St. Benet, Paul’s Wharf (now the Welsh Church), where Inigo Jones was buried, for St. Benet’s Hill. A complete list of them will be found in the Appendix. Cannon Street Station of the South Eastern Railway covers the churchyard of St. Mary Bothaw; and for Cannon Street Station of the District Railway that of St. John’s, Cloak Lane, was destroyed, the human remains being “dug up, sifted, put in chests with charcoal, nailed down, put one on the top of the other in a brick vault and sealed up for ever, or rather till some others in time come to turn them out again.” Part of the General Post Office is on the churchyard of St. Leonard, Foster Lane; the Mercer’s Hall is on that of St. Thomas Acons, where the pilgrims were buried; the Mansion House Station is on that of Holy Trinity the Less; and the Mansion House itself is on that of St. Mary Woolchurch Haw, in which a balance used to stand “for the weighing of wool.”
THE CHURCHYARD OF ST. BENET, PAUL’S WHARF, 1838.
Most of the existing churchyards have but few tombstones left in them, several have none at all. But some of them can still boast of fine trees, which add much to the interest and picturesque appearance of the City streets, and I hope it may be a long time before those in Stationers’ Hall Court, under which there were vaults belonging to St. Martin’s, Ludgate, and in the churchyards of St. Peter Cheap, Wood Street, and St. Dunstan in the East, cease to grow and flourish.
We want to see all of these little churchyards opened to the public and provided with seats. The Metropolitan Public Gardens Association is always ready to put them in order, but it is difficult to secure their maintenance. The parish funds which might be available for such a purpose have been so cut down and diverted by the Charity Commissioners that it is, in many cases, impossible for any provision to be made for the upkeep of the churchyard, small though the cost may be. But I trust that this difficulty may be, before long, removed, and then we may expect a great improvement in the condition of the City churchyards which have all been closed for burials for upwards of forty years, and which are so singularly well suited for conversion into “outdoor sitting-rooms” for those who can take a few moments of rest from their work in the surrounding offices and warehouses. And they are worthy of the utmost respect, for they contain the ashes of some of the noblest citizens of London, some of its greatest benefactors and its hardest workers, those who have helped, stone by stone, to raise the great city to the height to which it has attained in its influence in the world.
In 1668 the Lord Mayor “issued out a Precept, commanding, amongst other wholesome orders ... that the Inhabitants, Householders, and others concerned, should not throw or suffer any Ashes, Dirt, or other Filth, to be cast out ... before any Church or Churchyard ... upon pain of 20 shillings.” But in 1896 we need visit very few of these same churchyards before we come to one in which rubbish of all kinds is allowed to accumulate and to remain. Yet they are sacred spots, consecrated ecclesiastically and historically, and instead of being permitted to sink into the oblivion of insignificance they should all be made beautiful in memory of the dead and for the benefit of the living, for in them are “the tombs of the wealthy and the humble heaps of the poor.” The Old Society for the Protection of City Churches and Churchyards did something towards their preservation, and lately a new City Church Preservation Society has been formed, the Chairman of Council being Mr. H. C. Richards, M.P., and the Hon. Secretary the Rev. Rowland B. Hill. It has already displayed most praiseworthy activity, and is, at the present time, endeavouring to save the church of St. Mary Woolnoth, in Lombard Street (built by Hawksmoor) from being demolished for a railway station. There is a very small churchyard attached to this church.
And it may be interesting here to give particulars of a case in which the decision arrived at is valuable to those who are fighting the battle of protection. In the Session of 1881 the London School Board, through the Education Department, introduced a Bill, called the Elementary Education Provisional Order Confirmation Bill, for the purpose of acquiring compulsory powers over the burial-ground in Bream’s Buildings, Fetter Lane, belonging to the church of St. Dunstan in the West, and which adjoins the Greystoke Place Board School. The rector and churchwardens, supported by the vestry of the parish, entered an opposition to the Bill, and appeared against it before the Committee of the House of Lords. Their opposition was entirely successful (and it must be remembered that the Disused Burial Grounds Act had not then been passed), and the London School Board was merely given a right of way to the school through the graveyard. The costs of the opposition amounted to £236 12s. 10d., which was charged upon the poor rate. The auditor disallowed the charge, but on appeal to the Local Government Board it was sanctioned.