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-place. 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 1 n 11 St Pa 1 1 Vs C •. u ;■ i yard *' are actually 
on part of the ground included in it. It extended from 
Old Change in. Cheapside to Paternoster Row, and on 
■ c I Am a-ui the whole was 
• Tbh wall si.■: ms to have 
t -Kv row ruinous in 
‘"tie, churchyard became the resort 
• and ruffians. To remedy this state of things, 
. a vas 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 w en built against the wall both within and 
without. Round here were collected the *hops of the 
most famous - booksellers, such as John Day, who cam 
a*re in i$7$- 
•On the nor tit side was a plot of ground known as 
iv-'P Churchyard, and here was built a eke : .' P* 
Henry s ':me, decorated with paintings *o Plus- 
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Here, too, a chapel and charnel-hot.« mci the 
