By the year 1877 seven disused burial-grounds in London had been converted into public gardens; those of St. Botolph’s, Bishopsgate, St. George’s in the East, and the Wesleyan graveyard adjoining (forming one ground), the additional ground for St. Martin’s in the Fields in Drury Lane, St. John’s, Waterloo Bridge Road, and St. Pancras’ old churchyard, with the adjoining graveyard belonging to St. Giles’ in the Fields (forming one ground). These may be called the five pioneer gardens. But St. Botolph’s was closed again for several years, and St. Martin’s for a short time, and St. Pancras’ and St. Giles’ had to have much more done to them before they became attractive open spaces, so that the one which really stands out as the recreation ground that has had the longest existence is St. George’s, for this has been in constant use for twenty years. The Rev. Harry Jones, in his books, “East and West London,” and “Fifty Years,” describes the difficulties he went through to get the vestry to agree to the scheme, and to secure a faculty for laying out the ground. He and his co-workers were in the Consistory Court for two days, but they succeeded in the end, the wall between the churchyard and the Nonconformist burial-ground was done away with, and a most valuable new thoroughfare was opened out from Cable Street to St. George’s Street (Ratcliff Highway). Thus a precedent was created, and the way was made easier for others, including the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, to lay out their churchyards. Since that time, 1875, the part adjoining the church has also been opened, the whole ground being about three acres in area, and it is always bright and neat and full of people enjoying the seats, the grass, the flowers, and the air.

CHURCHYARD OF ST. GEORGE’S IN THE EAST.

Mr. Loftie has written: “Of St. George’s in the East there is not much to be said.” He refers to the church, but even this, one of Hawksmoor’s chief works, is rather too lightly disposed of. Of the parish there is indeed much to tell. No other church in London can boast of nineteenth-century riots continued Sunday after Sunday for eighteen months, necessitating the presence of police in the sacred building. No other parish ever contained a Danish and a Swedish church, with the bones of Emmanuel Swedenborg. St. George’s is in touch with all corners of the globe, for the London Docks contain countless stores of treasures from the east and the west, the north and the south. Here several of the chief of those commonly known as the “broad churchmen” of the day have served as curates; and here the famous life of Father Lowder was lived for twenty-four years, while the famous church of St. Peter’s, London Docks, arose in the southern part of the parish,—Father Lowder, of whom the Rev. Harry Jones, in a memorial sermon, has said: “He was simply fearless.... He ever meant what he said, and said what he meant.... The mention of him meets the most sacred moods of the soul.” And the pioneer garden is still unique in being an amalgamation of a churchyard and a dissenting burial-ground. How different it is from what it was once like may be gathered from the following description in Household Words of November 16, 1850: “The graveyard was dank and clayey, and air blew coldly through the masts and rigging of the shipping moored in the Thames and the Docks.” The curate comes to the parish, the curate who eventually built Christ Church, Watney Street, dispirited and discouraged. He had fancied it was to St. George’s, Hanover Square, he was going! And “the occasional funeral duty of the country was changed for the constant day by day, week by week, repetitions of a gorged London graveyard,” to which “the close courts and poverty-stricken streets of his parish sent every year many hundred tenants.” Then the churchyard, like all the others in London, was closed, and became the usual useless cat-walk, with high walls around, and blackening tombstones, until the day when those negotiations began which resulted in the present charming garden. And this is a story which has now been repeated in every division of London.

In the year 1882 the Earl of Meath (then Lord Brabazon) started the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association. It began on this wise. The Kyrle Society and the National Health Society had each an Open Spaces sub-committee, Miss Octavia Hill, of the Kyrle Society, having always been a prominent supporter of the movement for promoting open spaces, “outdoor sitting-rooms” she called them, in poor districts. But the funds of these committees were very small, and the work they could accomplish, except in the matter of influencing public opinion, very limited. They made grants of seats to a few churchyards which were being laid out, and joined in deputations to public bodies respecting open spaces, &c. Lord and Lady Brabazon had laid out the churchyards of St. John, Hoxton, and St. Mary, Haggerston, and had taken much interest in the formation of other grounds, such as the Brewers’ Garden at Stepney, which mainly owed its existence to the Rev. Sydney Vatcher, present vicar of St. Philip’s; and Lord Brabazon felt that there was room and need for a separate association for preserving, acquiring, and laying out open spaces, and for promoting similar objects. He therefore invited representatives of the Kyrle and National Health Societies, and others interested in the matter, to meet him and to discuss the advisability of sinking their own committees in a new and separate body, or rather of amalgamating their efforts in the same direction. The National Health Society only too gladly acquiesced, and from that time forward passed on all work connected with open spaces to the new body, Mr. Ernest Hart, Chairman of their Council, becoming the first vice-chairman of the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association. There are now eighteen. But Miss Octavia Hill held back. And this is the reason why there is still an Open Spaces branch of the Kyrle Society, and why on the title-page of the annual reports of the Gardens Association the words “In connection with the National Health Society,” are always inserted. The following graveyards have been laid out as gardens by the Kyrle Society in London—St. Peter’s, Bethnal Green, E., St. George’s, Bloomsbury, W. C. (the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association giving £100 towards the laying out of each of these), St. George the Martyr, Bloomsbury, W.C., and the burial-ground of St. Nicholas’, Deptford, in Wellington Street, S.E.—four very useful grounds.

CHURCHYARD OF ST. BOTOLPH, ALDGATE.

The new association was formed in November, 1882, and soon flourished amazingly. By the end of 1895 it had carried through upwards of 320 successful undertakings, had 60 other works on hand, and had made offers and attempts, without success, respecting about 200 schemes. But the indirect work of the Association has also been most valuable; the tone of public opinion on the subject of open spaces has entirely changed during the past twelve years, and this is due, in great measure, to the untiring exertions of the Earl of Meath and his co-workers. New Acts of Parliament, including the Disused Burial-grounds Act, have been passed, useful clauses have been inserted in the Open Spaces Acts, and several Bills threatening open spaces have been opposed and extinguished. The Association has worked with the Commons Preservation and Kyrle Societies to forward many most important schemes; it has secured, after much labour, the opening on Saturdays of upwards of 200 Board School playgrounds, and its influence upon the work of the public bodies has been wonderful. It is, for instance, scarcely too much to say that a week seldom goes by without some communication passing between the Association and the London County Council.

But my subject is graveyards only, and the following is a list of those that have been laid out as recreation grounds and opened by the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association since the Spring of 1885:—

1.St. Bartholomew’s Churchyard, Bethnal Green, E.
2.The East London Cemetery, E.
3.Holy Trinity Churchyard, Rotherhithe, S.E.
4.St. Paul’s Churchyard, Shadwell, E.
5.Spa Fields, Clerkenwell, E.C.
6.St. John at Hackney Churchyard, E. (a part).
7.St. Mary le Strand Ground in Russell Court, W.C.
8.St. James’s Churchyard, Bermondsey, S.E.
9.Holy Trinity Churchyard, Mile End, E.
10.St. Martin’s in the Fields Churchyard, W.C.
11.St. George’s Churchyard, Camberwell, S.E.
12.St. Dunstan’s Churchyard, Stepney, E.
13.St. Anne’s Churchyard, Limehouse, E.
14.Trinity Chapel-ground, Poplar, E.
15.St. Alphege Churchyard, Greenwich, S.E.
16.Seward Street Burial-ground, E.C.
17.St. James’s Churchyard, Ratcliff, E.
18.St. Botolph’s Churchyard, Aldgate, E.
19.St. Ann’s Churchyard, Soho, W.
20.Shoreditch Old Ground, Hackney Road, E.
21.Christ Church Churchyard, Spitalfields, E.
22.All Saints’ Churchyard, Poplar, E. (a part).
23.St. Botolph’s Churchyard, Bishopsgate, E.C.
24.St. Katharine Coleman Churchyard, E.C.
25.St. Olave’s Churchyard, Silver Street, E.C.
26.Victoria Park Cemetery, or Meath Gardens, E.
27.Allhallows’ Churchyard, London Wall, E.C.
28.St. Mary’s Churchyard, Bow, E. (a part).
29.St. Peter’s Churchyard, Walworth, S.E.
30.St. Mary’s Churchyard, Woolwich, S.E.[[8]]