It might be instructive to those who are not well acquainted with South London to take a walk, in imagination, through Long Lane. It begins at St. George the Martyr, Borough, of “Little Dorrit” fame, where the churchyard is a public garden. Close by this, also on the north side of the lane, there used to be a Baptist Chapel in Sheer’s Alley, with a burial-ground. Wilmott’s Buildings occupy the site. Very little beyond is Collier’s Rents. Here is a chapel which used to belong to the Baptists, but is now in the hands of the Congregational Union. Its dreary little graveyard is on the north side, behind a high wall. A little further on, and opposite, is Southwark Chapel (Wesleyan), built in 1808. It also has a graveyard, where the chief ornament is a hen-coop amongst the tumbling tombstones. A short turning to the north, Nelson Street, takes us to the disused burial-ground of Guy’s Hospital; and before we come to the end of the lane there are three more grounds to be seen, that belonging to the Society of Friends, already mentioned in this Chapter, and one that adjoins it and is owned by the trustees of a neighbouring Baptist Chapel, which is very small and has a minister’s vault in the middle. This ground originally belonged to the Independents of Beck Street, and its appellation when closed was the Neckinger Road Chapel burial-ground. Lastly we come to St. Mary Magdalene’s, the parish church of Bermondsey, with a charming churchyard garden which includes a portion of the cemetery of Bermondsey Abbey. And yet Long Lane is only about half a mile in length!
It is a little curious to notice that in the next parish, Rotherhithe, there are no less than five churchyards, but not a single burial-ground belonging to the Dissenters.
When visiting the burial-grounds for the London County Council, I was much struck with three that seemed particularly neglected and untidy. These were the Baptist ground in Mare Street, Hackney, which was being used for the storage of old wood, furniture, and flower-pots; the ground behind the pretentious Congregational Chapel on Stockwell Green, where all kinds of dirty rubbish, paper, iron-building materials, the broken top of a lamp-post, &c., were lying about amongst the sinking graves; and a little ground in Church Street, Deptford, behind a chapel which belongs to a General Baptist (Unitarian) connection, whose creed I do not pretend to understand, but whose railings were so broken that a far larger visitor than I could have followed me through the gaps to behold broken tombstones, collections of unsavoury rubbish, and another specimen of the worn-out top of a lamp-post. There were many other very untidy grounds, such as those by the Wesleyan Chapel in Liverpool Road, King’s Cross, and the Congregational Chapel in Esher Street, Lambeth; but I think the three I have mentioned above would have been—in the Spring of 1895, at any rate—awarded the first, second, and third prizes in a competition for neglect; and in January, 1896, I find these grounds are in much the same condition as they were then.
It is pleasant to turn to some of the chapel grounds which are well kept. The one which adjoins the Congregational Church in High Street, Deptford, is generally neat; so is the graveyard of the City Road Chapel, at any rate at its western end, where John Wesley’s monument stands; and the same may be said of the portions that are left of the grounds adjoining Union Chapel, Streatham Hill, and the New West End Baptist Chapel in King Street, Hammersmith.
WESLEY’S MONUMENT IN THE GRAVEYARD OF THE CITY ROAD CHAPEL.
There was a large burial-ground behind a chapel in Cannon Street Road, E. The building passed into the hands of the Rector of St. George’s in the East, but was afterwards pulled down, and one of Raine’s Foundation Schools was subsequently erected on its site. The burial-ground, in which many Lascars[[6]] were interred, is now in three parts. One is a small playground for the school, the largest part is Messrs. Seaward Brothers’ yard for their carts, and the third piece is a cooper’s yard belonging to Messrs. Hasted and Sons. A similar kind of chapel in Penrose Street, Walworth, known for a time as St. John’s Episcopal Chapel, is now the studio of a scenic artist, while the large burial-ground in the rear is the depôt of the Newington Vestry, and is full of carts, manure, gravel, dust, stones, &c.
[6]. These Lascars used to live in a court near by, and are said to have been locked in at night.
The East London Railway has swallowed up the graveyards by Rose Lane Chapel, Stepney, and the Sabbatarian or Seventh Day Baptists’ Chapel in Mill Yard, by Leman Street; the Medical School of Guy’s Hospital is on the Mazepond Baptist Chapel-ground; the site of one which adjoined the London Road Chapel, S.E., is now occupied by a tailor’s shop, the next house being on the space where the chapel stood, and these two shops are easily picked out in the row as they are higher and newer than their neighbours on either side. A little Baptist graveyard in Dipping Alley, Horselydown, which had a baptistery in it, disappeared very many years ago; the site of the Baptist Chapel and burial-ground in Worship Street, Shoreditch, forms a part of the yard used as the goods depôt of the London and North Western Railway; a similar one in Broad Street, Wapping, is now, I believe, a milkman’s yard, and was for many years previously the parish stoneyard; while the very crowded ground which used to be behind Buckingham Chapel, Palace Street, has a brewery on it. There is a little graveyard in front of Maberley Chapel, Ball’s Pond (now called Earlham Hall), but the three tombstones that are left in it are not only put upon the north wall of the chapel, but have actually been painted with the wall.
I have mentioned that a few of the chapels have been replaced by schools, but I ought also to mention that the graveyards behind Abney Chapel, Stoke Newington, N., Denmark Row Chapel, Coldharbour Lane, S.E., and the chapel in Hanbury Street, Mile End New Town, E., were only closed for a very few years before school buildings were erected on them. A small yard remains of the last named, but practically nothing is left of the others. The site of the graveyard in the rear of the chapel in Gloucester Street, Shoreditch, has, together with that of the chapel itself, been merged into the premises of the Gaslight and Coke Company.