BURIAL-GROUNDS 243 



the first to write about the improvement of public 

 cemeteries, and to point out how they could be beauti- 

 fied, and the suggestion that the smaller burial-grounds 

 could be turned into gardens was made as early as i 843 

 by Sir Edwin Chadwick. But the closing of them did 

 not come until ten years later, and it was many years 

 after that, before any attempt was made to turn them 

 into gardens. By 1877 eight had been transformed, 

 and from that time onwards, every year something has 

 been done. The Metropolitan Gardens Association, 

 started by Lord Meath (then Lord Brabazon) in 1882, 

 has done much towards accomplishing this work. One 

 of the earliest churchyards taken in hand was that of St. 

 Pancras, and joined to it St. Giles-in-the-Fields. The 

 Act permitting this was in 1875. Perhaps because it 

 was one of the first, it is also one of the worst in taste 

 and arrangement. The church of St. Pancras-in-the- 

 Fields is one of the oldest in Middlesex. " For the 

 antiquity thereof" it "is thought not to yield to St. 

 Paul's in London." In 1593 the houses standing near 

 this old Norman church were much " decaied, leaving 

 poore Pancras without companie or comfort." The 

 bell of St. Pancras Church was said to be the last tolled 

 in England at the time of the Reformation, to call 

 people to Mass. In the seventeenth and eighteenth 

 century, adjoining to the south side of the churchyard, 

 was " a good spaw, whose water is of a sweet taste," 

 very clear, and imbued with various medicinal qualities. 

 These " Pancras Wells " had a large garden, which 

 extended from the Spa buildings by the churchyard, 

 between the coach road from Hampstead, and the foot- 

 path across the meadows to Gray's Inn. As late as 1772 

 the coach was stopped and robbed at this corner, and 



