But the plague of 1665 taxed the resources, the patience, and the energy of the Mayor, magistrates, and citizens of London in a manner that was unprecedented. All through that fatal summer and autumn, and on into the commencement of the following year, did it play havoc with the people. In August and September it was at its height. The exact number of persons who died could not be known, for thousands of deaths were never recorded. Bodies were collected by the dead carts, which were filled and emptied and filled again from sunset to dawn, and no account was kept of the numbers thrown into the pits. At any rate, between August 6th and October 10th, 49,605 deaths were registered in the Bills of Mortality as from the Plague, and Defoe, whose “Journal of the Plague” gives every detail that any one can wish for, considered that during the visitation at least 100,000 must have perished, in addition to those who wandered away with the disease upon them and died in the outlying districts. “The number of those miserable objects was great. The country people would go and dig a hole at a distance from them, and then, with long poles and hooks at the end of them, drag the bodies into these pits, and then throw the earth in from as far as they could cast it, to cover them.” It is pretty certain that many unrecorded burials took place in the fields of Stoke Newington.
London must have been a sad sight. All shows, pleasures and pastimes were stopped; people crowded continually into the churches, where dissenting ministers, notwithstanding the Act of Uniformity which was then in force, occupied the pulpits of deceased or absent vicars, and preached to the most attentive listeners; huge fires were always burning in the streets; children were kept out of the churchyards; the city was cleared of all “hogs, dogs, cats, tame pigeons and conies,” special “dog-killers” being employed; and food and assistance was daily given to the most needy; while those who could afford to do so fled into the country, except a few devoted physicians, justices, and other helpers, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Earl of Craven, Monk (afterwards Duke of Marlborough), and Gilbert Latey and George Whitehead (Quakers).
The plague, introduced from Holland, first broke out in Long Acre, and gradually spread all over London. When it became impossible to bury in the ordinary way, huge pits were dug in the churchyards and bodies were deposited in them without coffins. The chief plague-pit in Aldgate Churchyard was about 40 ft. long, 15 or 16 ft. broad, and 20 ft. deep, and between the 6th and the 20th of September, 1,114 bodies were thrown into it. But it soon became necessary to make new burial-grounds and new pits for the reception of the dead, as the “common graves of every parish” became full.
THE PEST-HOUSES IN TOTHILL FIELDS.
There were pest-houses in the ground to the north of Old Street and in Tothill Fields, Westminster, to which infected persons were taken. They corresponded to the isolation hospitals of to-day. But they could only accommodate, at the most, 300 patients or so, and were wholly inadequate to meet the need. The pest-houses in Old Street, or rather Bath Street, were long ago destroyed; Pest-House Row and Russell Row used to mark their sites. But a portion of the pest-field exists in the garden behind the St. Luke’s Lunatic Asylum, which was used as a burial-ground for the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, until the formation, in 1732, of St. Luke’s parish, when it became the St Luke’s “poor ground.” The pest-houses in Tothill Fields were standing at the beginning of the present century. They were known as the “five houses” or the “seven chimneys,” and were erected in 1642. The Tothill Fields, no longer being needed as a plague burial-ground, were subsequently built upon, but not until they had been used for the burial of 1,200 Scotch military prisoners with their wives. A considerable portion of the fields is, however, still open, and is known as Vincent Square, the playground of the Westminster School boys. Mackenzie Walcott, in his Memorials of Westminster, states that Harding’s stoneyard in Earl Street is the site of the principal plague-pit. This, I believe, is now the yard of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, Waste Paper Department.
Defoe gives a very careful description of some of the plague-pits and burial-grounds which were made in his immediate neighbourhood. He mentions—
1. “A piece of ground beyond Goswell Street, near Mount Mill, ... where abundance were buried promiscuously from the Parishes of Aldersgate, Clerkenwell, and even out of the city. This ground, as I take it, was since made a Physick Garden, and after that has been built upon.” Mount Mill was on the north side of Seward Street.
2. “A piece of ground just over the Black Ditch, as it was then called, at the end of Holloway Lane, in Shoreditch Parish; it has been since made a Yard for keeping Hogs, and for other ordinary Uses, but is quite out of Use for a burying-ground.”
This Holywell Mount burial-ground has been “in use” again since Defoe’s time, and was also used as a plague-pit before 1665. Originally the site of a theatre dating from the time of Shakespeare, and named after the neighbouring Holywell Convent in King John’s Court, it afterwards became a burial-ground, famous as being used for the interment of a great many actors. There is a small part of it left, but at the outside not more than a quarter of an acre. It is behind the church of St. James’, Curtain Road, and is approached by a passage from Holywell Row. A parish room has been built on it, and what remains is used as a timber yard. The piece between the parish room and the church is bare and untidy.