The gloomy, ancient church of Allhallows Barking impresses the visitor in an extraordinary way. It is difficult to give an idea of the blighted, solemn desolation of this woe-begone fane. The name of the place in which it stands, “Seething Lane,” seems fitting enough. The neighbouring houses have fallen away from it and have been excavated out of existence by Metropolitan Railways, etc., and, as a last degradation, a house has been built over its porch. One face of it projects along Tower Street on a sort of abject terrace--a squalid, abandoned churchyard, with a few starved trees flourishing their bare branches. The old mould, quite grassless, lies thick. There the gaunt tower, with its meagre, decayed lantern, and its worn, stripped sides, rises blighted by neglect. The two low aisles that range beside the nave have the same piteous air. Not far away is another of these blighted fanes, St. Olave’s, Hart Street, whose dismal entrance gateway is set off with a gruesome representation of skulls and cross-bones elaborately carved, offering with its decayed and rusted iron gate a truly depressing prospect. This seems a souvenir of the Plague time. It is a strange, gruesome feeling, looking through the close railings of the barred gates, into this rueful inclosure. Entering from “Seething Lane,” under a quaint gateway, we pass across the forlorn graveyard. The interior is interesting and original in the shape of its arches and aisles, and well lined with mural tablets. Two are in memory of Samuel Pepys and his wife, with their alabaster busts and inscriptions. It is pleasant to find oneself in company with the piquant and agreeable chronicler. Wandering on, we come to a very effective and picturesque structure--the old Cripplegate Church, which affects one with the strangest feelings of a forlorn kind. Its grim old square tower rises in an abandoned fashion, as though it felt that no one cared for it, that it is but an obsolete survivor amid the lines of new and magnificent warehouses that have been built about it. On its top platform is perched a sort of kiosk-shaped lantern; from within, as I stand below, booms out the solemn melodious bell. Its clock-face is fixed, not at the centre, but at one side, with _bizarre_ effect. The church is hedged round by ancient buildings with projecting framed bow-windows, and the florid gate of its churchyard is set off with a well-carved hour-glass, lying on its side, flanked by a skull and crossbones--grim supporters. This is gruesome enough. On the top of each are two more upright hour-glasses. The church within has been trimmed up, painted and decorated, in an unpleasing modern way. Milton’s tomb, which faces the door, has been “done up handsomely,” with a Gothic canopy, and altogether made smart and pretentious: all round the walls are curious black tablets with florid carvings as black. [Illustration: ALLHALLOWS BARKING.] [Illustration: ST. OLAVE’S, HART STREET.]