In the following year (1548) the chapel of St. Paul’s charnel house was pulled down and the bones removed into the country and reburied. From a sanitary point of view their removal is to be commended. There is no such excuse, however, for the destruction of the cloister in Pardon churchyard (April, 1549), with its famous picture of the Dance of Death, painted at the expense of John Carpenter, the town clerk of the city, of whom mention has already been made. The fact was that the Protector Somerset required material for building his new palace in the Strand,(1286) to enlarge which he had already pulled down Strand Church, dedicated to Saint Mary and the Holy Innocents.(1287) The destruction of the cloister necessitated a new order of procession on the next Lord Mayor’s Day (24 Oct.), when Sir Rowland Hill paid the customary visit to St. Paul’s, made a circuit of the interior of the cathedral, and said a _De profundis_ at the bishop’s tomb.(1288) (M666) Nor can the civic authorities themselves be altogether acquitted of vandalism. They destroyed the churches of St. Nicholas Shambles and St. Ewin, and sold the plate and windows, but the proceeds were distributed among the poor.(1289) They went further than this. They removed the fine tombs and altars, as well as the choir stalls, from the church of the Grey Friars, where mingled the ashes of some of the noblest and best in the land. There was some excuse, however, for these acts. The house and church of the Grey Friars had been granted to the City at the close of the last reign on the express condition that the churches of St. Nicholas and St. Ewin should be abolished, and that the church of the Grey Friars should be established as a parish church in their place under the name of Christ Church. It was probably in order to render the old monastic church more convenient as a parish church that they removed much of what to the antiquary of to-day would have seemed of priceless value, and at the same time reduced the dimensions of the choir.(1290) (M667)