Gardens -- England -- London; London (England) -- Description and travel; Parks -- England -- London
Few people who have not entered the Bank of England would suspect it
of enclosing an extremely pretty garden. There the inner courtyard
possesses tall lime trees, gay rhododendrons, and a cool splashing
fountain, with ferns and iris glistening in the spray. It is quite
one of the most delightfully fresh and peaceful corners on a hot
summer’s day, and carries one in imagination to Italy. Yet this is
but another of the many old City churchyards. The parish of St.
Christopher-le-Stocks was absorbed, with five other parishes, into
St. Margaret’s, Lothbury, in 1781. Some of the tombs, and pictures of
Moses and Aaron, were removed from it, and are still to be seen in St.
Margaret’s, which is crowded with monuments from all six churches.
The Bank was already in possession of most of the land within the
parish, and by the Act of Parliament of 1781, the church and churchyard
became part of the Bank premises, which cover nearly three acres. The
church site was built over, but the graveyard became the garden. This
enclosure at first was a simple grass plot, as shown in an engraving
dated 1790. The lime trees may have been planted soon after, as they
appear as large trees sixty years later, and are spoken of in 1855
as two of the finest lime trees in London. The fountain was put up in
1852 by Mr. Thomas Hankey, then the governor. The water for it came
from the tanks belonging to the Bank, supplied by an artesian well 330
feet deep, said to be very pure, and free from lime. Perhaps that is
why the rhododendrons look so flourishing. Most of the Bank, as is well
known, was the work of the architect Sir John Soane, but some of the
portions built by Sir Robert Taylor, before his death in 1788, when
Soane was appointed to succeed him, are to be seen in the garden court.
It is said that the last person buried there was a Bank clerk named
Jenkins, who was 7½ feet in height. He was allowed to rest there, as he
feared he might be disinterred on account of his gigantic proportions.
Very different is the churchyard of St. Martin’s, on Ludgate Hill. It
belongs to Stationers’ Hall, and although it boasts of one fine plane
tree, is an untidy, grimy, dingy little square. By permission of all
the necessary authorities, the coffins (480 in number) were removed and
reverently buried in Brookwood Cemetery in 1893, a careful register
of all the names and dates, that could be deciphered, being kept.
This having been done, the earth was merely left in an irregular heap
round the tree, and no attempt has been made to improve in any way the
forsaken appearance of the place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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