A CORNER OF CHRIST’S HOSPITAL, THE GREYFRIARS’ CLOISTERS.
I think it probable that when St. Bartholomew’s Hospital was far smaller than it is now, burials took place in the cloisters, or rather in the large space in the middle of which the western wing was built. In a very interesting old plan of the precincts, dated 1617, there is not only shown the “Church-yarde for ye poore” in two pieces, about where the west wing is now, but also a large ground which is named Christ Church Churchyard, to the south of this, but north of the City wall. The hospital later on used the Bethlem burial-ground, and the ground set aside eventually as the hospital graveyard (for the interment of unclaimed corpses), is in Seward Street, Goswell Road. This was first used about 1740, and, after being closed for burials, it was let as a carter’s yard and was full of sheds and vans. Through the kindness of the Governors, it fell into the hands of the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association, and it is now a children’s recreation ground maintained by St. Luke’s Vestry. The burial-ground of St. Thomas’s Hospital is at the corner of Mazepond; on part of it St. Olave’s Rectory and Messrs. Bevington’s leather warehouse were built; the remainder is leased to Guy’s Hospital, and contains the treasurer’s stables and an asphalted tennis-court for the use of the students. Guy’s Hospital burial-ground is in Snow’s Fields, Bermondsey, and is now a large builder’s yard, but there is a reasonable hope of its being secured before long as a recreation ground. The “unclaimed corpses” from the London Hospital found their last resting-place very near home. In 1849 the whole of the southern part of the enclosure, quite an acre and a half, was the burial-ground, and here, although it was closed by order in Council in 1854, it appears that burials took place until about 1860, one of the present porters remembering his father acting as gravedigger. The medical school, the chaplain’s house, and the nurse’s home have all been built upon it, and it is sincerely to be hoped that no further encroachments will be permitted. The remaining part is the nurses’ and students’ garden and tennis-court, where they are in the habit of capering about in their short times off duty, and where it sometimes happens that the grass gives way beneath them—an ordinary occurrence when the subsoil is inhabited by coffins!
LONDON HOSPITAL BURIAL-GROUND.
Bridewell also had its burial-ground, where the lazy and evil were interred. It is at the corner of Dorset and Tudor Streets, near the Thames Embankment, and is an untidy yard, boarded off from the street with a high advertisement hoarding, and in the occupation of a builder.
The Bethlem burial-ground had a more interesting history. In 1569 Sir Thomas Roe, or Rowe, Merchant Taylor and Mayor, gave about one acre of land in the Moorfields “for Burial Ease to such parishes in London as wanted convenient ground.” It was especially intended for the parish of St. Botolph’s, Bishopsgate, and was probably used for the interment of lunatics from the neighbouring asylum, besides being used by St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. It was enclosed with a brick wall at the persuasion of “the Lady his Wife,” and she was buried there; and it was the custom upon Whit Sunday for the Lord Mayor and Aldermen to listen to a sermon delivered in this “new churchyard, near Bethlem.” We read that in 1584 “a very good Sermon was preached ... and, by Reason no Plays were the Same Day (i.e., Whit Sunday, as there used to be), all the City was quiet.” But the Churchyard and the Asylum have disappeared, Liverpool Street Station having taken their place, and hundreds of the Great Eastern Railway goods vans daily roll over the mouldering remains of the departed citizens.
CHELSEA HOSPITAL GRAVEYARD.
Very different to the fate of these hospital burial-grounds is that of another one I will mention. Facing Queen’s Road, Chelsea, is the long, narrow graveyard of the Chelsea Hospital. It is neatly kept, with good grass and trees. Here many a venerable pensioner has been laid to rest, and, although it can no longer be used for burials, it still serves to remind the living of their brethren who have gone before them. There are some fine monuments and epitaphs to very long-lived invalids, two aged 112, one 111, one 107, and so on, and it is one of those quiet and quaint corners of London which form so marked a contrast to the noisy streets close by. One pensioner, who died in 1732, named William Hiseman and aged 112, was “a veteran, if ever soldier was.” It is recorded that he took unto himself a wife when he was above 100 years old. There is something very peaceful about these old men’s graves; the grain gathered in by the “Reaper whose name is Death” was fully ripe:—
“It is not quiet, is not ease,