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 1843 
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 
