What may be called the parish churchyards in London, outside the City, number about seventy-two. Of these no less than forty are now being maintained as public gardens, and this does not include the additional parochial graveyards, nor those attached to district churches. A few, such as Streatham and Hampstead, are generally open to the public, but are not provided with seats, and one of the best kept is that of St. Bartholomew’s, Sydenham, which, although not a public garden, is indeed “a thing of beauty.” The old churchyard at Lee is also attractive, and contains tombs and effigies belonging to many families of note, including those of the Ropers, Boones, and Floodyers, and a monument to the memory of Sir Fretful Plagiary, of whom, notwithstanding the uncomfortable name with which he was endowed, his epitaph says, “He science knew, knew manners, knew the age.”
CHAPTER VI
PEST-FIELDS AND PLAGUE-PITS.
“From plague, pestilence, and famine,
Good Lord, deliver us.”
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 kings, the courtiers and the richer citizens to be constantly fleeing for safety into the country, until the final and awful calamity of 1665. According to some authorities the plague has never re-appeared since then, although according to others a few cases occurred annually until the year 1679. But after that time, although there was a division for “the Plague” in the annual Bills of Mortality, there were no entries against it, and after 1703 we cease even to see the word recorded. In early days the visitations were so ordinary that, when mentioned in the histories of London, they are not taken much account of. Here is one record: “The plague making its appearance in France in 1361, the king to guard against the contagion spreading in London, ordered that all cattle for the use of the city should be slaughtered either at Stratford on one side the town, or at Knightsbridge on the other side, to keep the air free from filthy and putrid smells. This regulation was certainly wholesome; but the close dwellings of which the city then consisted, were always fit receptacles for contagious disorders; the plague accordingly came over, and in two days destroyed 1,200 persons.” If an infectious disorder were to carry off 1,200 persons in two days in London now, when the population is counted by millions instead of by thousands, there would be a general panic, a special inquiry, and, perhaps, a Royal Commission.
In 1349 two large tracts of land were set aside for the interment of those who then died of the plague, and as their history is generally well known, I will give Noorthouck’s somewhat concise account: “At length it (a great pestilence) reached London, where the common cemeteries were not capacious enough to receive the vast number of bodies, so that several well-disposed persons were induced to purchase ground to supply that defect. Amongst the rest, Ralph Stratford, Bishop of London, bought a piece of ground, called No-Man’s-Land, which he inclosed with a brick wall, and dedicated to the burial of the dead. Adjoining to this was a place called Spittle Croft, the property of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, containing thirteen acres and a rod of ground, which was purchased for the same use of burying the dead by Sir Walter Manny, and was long remembered by an inscription fixed on a stone cross upon the premises. On this burial-ground the Charterhouse now stands. There was also another piece of ground purchased at the east end of the City, just without the wall, by one John Corey, a clergyman, for the same use; on which spot was afterwards, in this same reign, founded the Abbey of St. Mary of Grace, for Cistercian monks; it is now covered by the victualling-office and adjoining houses. It was asserted that not one in ten escaped this calamity, and that not less than 100,000 persons died in the whole.” The next sentence is characteristic of the way in which, as I have already said, these visitations were treated. “Notwithstanding this sad misfortune, the city soon recovered itself, and advanced greatly in prosperity, as will appear by a charter it obtained in the year 1354, granting the privilege of having gold or silver maces carried before the chief magistrate.” The translation of the Latin inscription on the stone cross on Sir Walter de Manny’s ground is as follows:—
“A great plague raging in the year of our Lord 1349, this burial-ground was consecrated, wherein, and within the bounds of the present monastery, were buried more than 50,000 bodies of the dead, beside many others thenceforward to the present time: whose souls the Lord have mercy upon. Amen.”
The space called No-Man’s-Land was three acres in extent and was afterwards known as the Pardon Churchyard, being used for the interment of executed people and suicides. It was in use long after the Cistercian Monastery was built on the Spittle Croft. Wilderness Row, now merged into Clerkenwell Road, marks its site, while the gardens and courts of the Charterhouse, the Square, the site of a demolished burial-ground for the pensioners (Sutton’s Ground), and the burial-ground which still exists at the north end of the precincts, are all part of the Spittle Croft and of the monastery burial-ground. There have already been attempts to do away with the Charterhouse, to substitute streets and houses for the old buildings, gardens, and courts, but happily it is not so easy as it once was to tamper with land consecrated for burials, even though that land may have been set aside 550 years ago. The “Victualling-office,” which took the place of St. Mary’s Abbey, was where the Royal Mint at present stands, and, if one may trust William Newton’s plan, the abbey graveyard was where the entrance courtyard is now.
The numbers who died in subsequent visitations must have helped not a little to fill the parish churchyards, but it was not until the year of the Great Plague that there seems to have been any very general provision of extra ground, although the pest-house ground in the Irish Field, “nye” Old Street, was consecrated in 1662, especially for the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate.