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A
Curious Practice
From
the perspective of those whose religious and cultural background is a
Christian one, the funerary customs of our parish churches seem
conventional and familiar enough. Yet members of other faiths may well
regard them as revoltingly bizarre. Jews and Muslims traditionally bury
their dead quickly, usually well outside their community. Hindus adopt
the hygienic practice of cremation. In the Christian tradition, however,
the corpses of the dead have until recently been interred in churchyards
close to the living; the wealthy or distinguished were often buried within
the building itself. Consider
Westminster Abbey from the perspective of a visitor from one of these
other faiths. Here is a sacred building, yet the space beneath it, the
ground around it, even its walls are stuffed with the decaying remains
of human corpses. The Christian obsession with the remains of the dead
is outdone only by the ancient Egyptians or Madagascan ancestor cults.
What is
astonishing is just how long these practices continued, particularly in
the cities of Britain. By
the end of the eighteenth century most of Europe, and the United States,
recognised that the practice of uncontrolled burial in towns and cities
was not just unpleasant but had serious health implications for such
matters as water supply. Yet in London and other major cities these
practices continued until the 1850s, despite the campaigns of men such
as Edwin Chadwick and George Walker.
In one way,
their failure is our gain; had the London churchyards and burial grounds
been closed earlier, very few would remain today. As it is, there are
many still scattered across the city. In 1800 there were around 500 of
them; by 1900 this was down to around 350; a hundred years on many more
have gone, despite supposedly strict rules on such matters. Inevitably
in London there are powerful financial motives to twist the arms of the
authorities, as there were in the nineteenth century when many fine Wren
churches were sold off. Even
today the word ‘simony!’ has been muttered by one city churchman.
Medieval
London
The typical
medieval churchyard was a model of ‘green’ practice. Most people
were buried without coffins, and there was no tradition of gravestones.
After a number of years had passed, the grave could be reopened, any
remaining bones removed to a charnel, and the ground used again. The
only effect would be the slow raising of the ground level as the
centuries passed.
Disruption
could be caused by the outbreak of plague. In severe
outbreaks, plague pits were dug, usually outside the city, such as at
Charterhouse Square, Smithfield. This worked well enough, though of course as
the city spread
the plague pits would end up within it, usually built over.
Apart
from such emergencies burial within the parish was an
entitlement. For some of the very small pre-fire parish
churchyards in London this must have caused problems even when
London was small; things
would get much, much worse.
The
great Plague and Fire
The great
plague of 1665 was a severe test for the London parishes.
At its height, plague pits were dug in areas such as Finsbury,
Houndsditch, Tothill Fields and Knightsbridge. For the most part, however, parishes struggled on with burial
within the parish, resorting to great pits within existing churchyards
such as that at Aldgate described by Daniel Defoe. Pepys commented on
how high the ground had risen in the churchyard of St Olave Hart Street
as a result of the plague.
Before the
fire there were around 109 parish churches within the city alone, each
with its own burial ground. Most were destroyed in the fire, and less
that half were rebuilt. This, however, had little effect on the space
available for burials, as many of the old churchyards, and the spaces
where the churches themselves had stood, were taken over by the new enlarged
parish as additional burial grounds. This can be seen clearly in the
existing grounds of St Laurence Pountney, where the north ground is the
site of the church and the south ground the old churchyard. Where more
than one ground was available to a parish there is evidence that there
was a system of rotation, allowing grounds a period of ‘rest’ before
being reused.
Late
eighteenth/early nineteenth century
The
population of London was by now increasing at an enormous rate, and yet still
the right to burial within the parish remained. The parishes of the city
itself were less affected as the population increases were most felt in
the surrounding parishes: St Giles, St Martin in the Fields, The Strand
parishes, Clerkenwell, St Lukes, Spitalfields, Whitechapel, Stepney,
Southwark. Here matters were rapidly reaching crisis point. As an
example, Holmes suggests the figure of 110,250 burials in a period of
160 years in the half acre of St Anne’s Soho. This would have been by
no means the worst; figures for St Giles, The Green Ground in Portugal
Street, or the Russell Court ground in St Mary le Strand Parish are
incalculable. Most parishes had ‘poor grounds’ where human remains
were dealt with with minimum ceremony, and left underground for the
shortest time possible before being dug up to make room for someone
else.
Non
conformist, Catholic and private grounds
A
tradition of separate grounds for non conformists began with
Bunhill fields. Following this many grounds were opened for various
denominations, such as Methodists and Quakers. Grounds specifically for
Catholics were opened in the early nineteenth century, notably at St
Mary's Finsbury Circus, Cadogan Terrace Chelsea, and the ephemeral
ground at Dog Row Whitechapel. Interestingly, a
lead coffin recently found at Chelsea proved to be 18th century, before the
establishment of the ground, which suggests that some bodies were moved
to more congenial surroundings once the burial grounds had been
established. Many Catholics were happy with burial in older grounds such
as at St Pancras or St Giles, which stretch back before the reformation.
Some
entrepreneurs - often funeral directors - established their own grounds
and vaults at the end of the eighteenth century. While nominally
non-conformist, they were in fact merely a means to make a quick buck by
providing burials on the cheap, no questions asked. The conditions at
sites such as Enon chapel, Spa fields or New Bunhill Ground New
Kent Rd were indescribably dreadful, though Walker tackles the task
of describing them with
morbid relish.
Church vaults
On a number of pages there is a list headed 'possible vaults'.
Churches built in the eighteenth century and early would almost
inevitably have vaults under them. There would also usually be burials
under the floor of the church itself.
This tradition continued into the nineteenth century: many new
churches were built in the 1820s and 1830s, and most would make
provision for vault burial. Why?
During the early 19th
century, burial space was at a premium; the new cemeteries had yet to be
opened, and parish grounds were full to bursting. The new churches were
often built on small sites, hemmed in by buildings, with no room for a
burial ground. Vaults were a solution to the problem.
Vaults also made
an enormous contribution too the finances of the parish. In some cases
the vaults started to fill before the rest of the church was finished,
establishing an income stream very early on in the life of the church.
For all of these reasons I have listed churches that were built or in
use before 1850. Where I have
no evidence at this time of the presence of vaults I have listed them as
‘possible’.
By the 1850s the
vaults were increasingly seen as a health hazard, though the churches
for obvious financial reasons stoutly defended them. During this decade
all church buildings and vaults were closed to further burials, unless
special permission was granted.
Later History
Most of the parish grounds were closed after the passing of the burial
act of 1852 and large cemeteries were opened much further out - even as
far out as Brookwood, Surrey, which was served by its own train service
from the London Necropolis station at Waterloo. Over the next few
years some grounds were built on, while other were simply left to fill
up with rubbish. By the 1880s people such as Arabella Holmes were waking up to the
possibilities of reusing graveyards and burial grounds as public open
spaces, and the remaining grounds were supposedly protected from any
further development by the Disused Burials Act of 1884. However,
grounds continued, and continue, to disappear - the most recent loss in
the City of London being the ground of St Benet Sherehog during the
development of No. 1 Poultry. A surprising number of grounds lost
or curtailed in the nineteenth century became the sites for schools - a
sensible use, perhaps, for redundant church land - and many a London
school playground lies over a burial ground or even a plague pit.
A considerable number
of City grounds were lost in post-war development - Disused Burial
Grounds Act notwithstanding - but many still remain, ranging from dreary
stretches of grass to those few that still have the feel of an ancient
churchyard. Their situation, surrounded by tall office blocks, is not
always conducive to imaginative horticulture. Beyond the city, many grounds,
especially those used for pauper burials are difficult to trace -
therein lies the fun of the chase!
Existing
or lost?
When is a burial ground still a burial ground? City
grounds on this website are divided into 'existing' and 'lost' but the
distinction is not always clear cut. Clearly a ground that is covered
completely by a large office block is 'lost', but what about a site now
paved over, with no indication as to its previous purpose? The burial
ground of St Lawrence Jewry is a case in point. It is not built on, but
now forms part of the pedestrian precinct in front of the Guildhall with
no indication that it was once a burial ground. Even further
complications can arrive when buildings are demolished and a once built
over ground becomes open space again. Lost or existing?
Probably the only true definition of a
lost ground is one that has been emptied of human remains, but that
information is not always available, though interesting evidence comes
from the website of Cherished lands Ltd., exhumation experts, who list
all of the exhumations they have done in London since the sixties.
As it is, visitors to this site should not consider 'existing' and
'lost' as hard and fast definitions.
The aim of this
website
I am attempting to provide a record of
all the burial grounds in London, with current photographs and/or maps
and historical notes and images where possible. Maps used (by kind
permission of the London Topographical society) are mainly extracts from
Rocque's plan that sparked Mrs Holmes's interest over 100 years ago. In
some cases Horwood has been used for greater clarity. Although in
most cases I
have been unable to acquire permission to reproduce early Ordnance Survey
maps, these are easily available in the excellent reprints produced by
Alan Godfrey Maps. (See links.)
The task is a long way
from being complete. I live outside London, and so photographic trips
have to be taken when time is available. Currently, the City itself is fairly
well covered, the suburbs sporadic. In many cases, the entry simply
consists of the brief notes taken from Holmes' appendices.
Clearly at
the present rate the task will take some years, and so I welcome
contributions of current photographs and notes, corrections, and any historical
information, all of which will be acknowledged. Unlike a published
book, a website can be a joint enterprise and have an unlimited number
of authors.
Please note; although this site may be helpful to genealogists, tracing
ancestors is not its primary function and I do not have information
about who is buried where, apart from a handful of celebrity burials. On
my links page I have listed some useful genealogical links.
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