PARK AND CEMETERY. 
43 
Thus in 1549 certain buildings pertaining to St. 
Paul’s Cathedral were pulled down and “the bones 
of the dead, couched up in a charnel under the 
chapel, were conveyed from thence into Finsbury 
Field, by report of him who paid for the carriage, 
amounting to more than one thousand cartloads, 
and there laid on a moorish ground, which in a 
short time after, being raised by the soilage of the 
city, was able to bear three windmills.” In another 
case, (early in the nineteenth century, ) two church- 
yards of considerable size were totally annihilated 
by the encroachment of buildings, and quantities 
of human remains were used to fill up some old 
reservoirs in the neighborhood, and several cart- 
loads were taken to grade the approach to the en- 
trance to a church in Bethnal Green. In still an- 
other case, as lately as 1879, in the destruction ot 
a graveyard, the human remains were “dug up, 
sifted, put in chests with charcoal, nailed down, 
put one on top of another in a brick vault and 
sealed up forever — or rather till some others in 
time come to turn them out.’’ For the precedents 
all point to the certain mutability of the burial 
places in London. 
* * * 
Close investigation reveals burial places in most 
unexpected places in London, so that one who is 
desirous of showing a proper respect lor the abodes 
of the dead might be prompted to walk everywhere 
on tip toe and speak in whispers. What has been 
since 1780 the garden of the Bank of England is 
an ancient graveyard, (St. Christopher le Stock’s). 
It is alleged that the mould from this ground was 
removed to a new burial ground in Tottenham 
Court Road about the middle of the eighteenth 
century, thereby saving to the new’er cemetery the 
ordinary consecration fee. Somerset House, Strand, 
includes perhaps three burial places within its site; 
vaults under the palace chapel, closed for inter- 
ments in 1777; a cemetery used for the deceased 
Roman Catholics of Queen Henrietta Maria’s 
household early in the seventeenth century; and 
possibly a part of the original churchyard of St. 
Mary le Strand. In a pare of the great courtyard 
in the Tower of London is the churchyard of St. 
Peter’s ad Vincula, which, with the vaults under 
the church, was used for the interment of dis- 
tinguished prisoners; and the headless body of 
many a noble prisoner is buried there. And in 
Newgate prison is a passage ten feet wide and 
eighty-five feet long, which has been used for the 
interment of executed felons. 
* * * 
But possibly the most curious of all these burial 
places in unexpected, out-of-the-way localities, are 
those which were improvised in 1623 under the 
following circumstances: Ninety-five persons lost 
their lives in an accident to the Jesuit Chapel in 
Blackfriars. The authorities appear to have been 
d ized by this sudden and excessive demand upon 
their facilities for disposing of the dead. F'urther- 
more the victims of the accident were undoubtedly 
foreigners, for the heart of England was Protestant 
at the time. At all events it appears to have de- 
volved upon the foreign ambassadors to assist in 
the matter. Twenty bodies were buried upon the 
spot where the accident occurred. These were of 
the poorer victims. P'ifty or more were buried in 
two great pits, “dug, one in the forecourt of the 
French ambassador’s house, eighteen feet by twelve 
feet; the other in the garden behind, twelve feet 
by eight feet. “ The sites of these pits are now 
within the garden of Hundsdon House. Other 
victims were buried “within the Spanish Ambassa- 
dor’s house in Holborn.’’ 
* * * 
To illustrate still further the number of burial 
places in the city, let us consider Long Lane in 
South London. It begins at St. George the Martyr’s, 
Borough, where there is a churchyard about an 
acre in extent, converted in 1882 into a public gar- 
den. Close by, on the north side, is Wilmott’s 
Building, erected upon the site of a burying ground 
attached to a Baptist chapel. A short distance fur- 
ther on is the Chapel Graveyard, Collier’s Rents, 
about 620 square yards in extent, dating from 
1729. Still further on, and on the opposite side, 
is Southwark Wesleyan Chapel graveyard, dating 
from 1808 and about nine hundred square yards in 
extent. Turning to the north. Nelson street would 
soon take the visitor to the disused burial ground 
of Guy’s Hospital, about half an acre, and nearly 
two hundred years old. Next is the Friends’ bury- 
ing ground, a quarter of an acre, established in 
1697. It was closed in 1844, but in i860, when, 
by the opening of a street, another burying ground 
belonging to the Society of Friends was demolished, 
the bodies of the latter were brought here for re- 
interment, so that this is really two burying grounds 
in one — or, as might be said, a composite grave- 
yard. Adjoining it is a burying ground, 220 
square yards in extent, opened about a century 
ago. and belonging to a Baptist congregation. And 
finally there is the churchyard of St. Mary Mag- 
dalene’s Church, Bermondsey, containing the re- 
mains of the ancient cemetery of Bermondsey 
Abbey. This churchyard was enlarged in 1783, 
and again in r8io, but is now maintained as a 
public garden. Yet Long Lane is only about half 
a mile in length. L. Viajero. 
