250 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 



Of all the churchyards, that of St. Paul's is best 

 known, and least like the ordinary idea of one. But 

 this was not always so. It was for centuries an actual 

 burying-piace. When the foundations of the present 

 cathedral were dug, after the Great Fire, a series of early 

 burials were disclosed. There were Saxon coffins, and 

 below them British graves, where wooden and ivory pins 

 were found, which fastened the woollen shrouds of those 

 who rested there, and below that again, between twenty 

 and thirty feet deep, were Roman remains, with frag- 

 ments of pottery, rings, beads, and such-like. 



The original churchyard was very much larger, as the 

 present houses in " St. Paul's Churchyard " are actually 

 on part of the ground included in it. It extended from 

 Old Change in Cheapside to Paternoster Row, and on 

 the south to Carter Lane, and the whole was surrounded 

 by a wall built in 1 109, with the principal gateway open- 

 ing into " Ludgate Street." This wall seems to have 

 been unfinished, or else part of it became ruinous in 

 course of time, and the churchyard became the resort 

 of thieves and ruffians. To remedy this state of things, 

 the wall was completed and fortified early in the four- 

 teenth century. It had six gates, and remained like this 

 until the Great Fire, although long before that date 

 houses had been built against the wall both within and 

 without. Round here were collected the shops of the 

 most famous booksellers, such as John Day, who came 

 here in 1575. 



On the north side was a plot of ground known as 

 Pardon's Churchyard, and here was built a cloister in 

 Henry V.'s time, decorated with paintings to illus- 

 trate Lidgate's translation of " The Dance of Death." 

 Here, too, was a chapel and charnel-house, and the 



