The London Burial Grounds: Notes on Their History from the Earliest Times to the Present DayHolmes, Isabella M.
History
The London Burial Grounds: Notes on Their History from the Earliest Times to the Present Day
Holmes, Isabella M.
Cemeteries -- England -- London -- History
The remainder of the Friends’ burial-grounds are intact. The one in
Baker’s Row, Whitechapel (acquired in 1687 and used by the Devonshire
House Division), is now a recreation ground; and the one in Long Lane,
Bermondsey, which was bought in 1697 for £120, has lately been laid out
for the use of the public. In addition to these there are, in London
itself, five little grounds adjoining meeting-houses in High Street,
Deptford, in Brook Street, Ratcliff, in High Street, Wandsworth (given
by Joan Stringer in 1697), by the Creek, Hammersmith, and in Hanover
Street, Peckham Rye. The Society acquired the Ratcliff ground in 1666 or
1667, the land being originally copyhold, but enfranchised in 1734 for
£21. All these grounds are neatly kept; the one in Peckham, which dates
from 1821, is beautiful, and illustrates what can be done with a disused
and closed graveyard, not even visible from the road, when it is treated
with proper care and respect. Many of the burial-grounds just outside
London have been sold with the meeting-houses.
There are not many Roman Catholic burial-grounds in London apart from
those attached to conventual establishments. St. Mary’s Church,
Moorfields, has a very small churchyard and had two additional grounds,
one in Bethnal Green which has disappeared, and one in Wades Place,
Poplar, now used as a school playground. This is the case also with a
Roman Catholic burial-ground in Duncan Terrace, Islington, which has
been asphalted for the use of the boys’ school, some tombstones and a
figure of the Virgin Mary being in an enclosure on the north side. There
is a very large ground dedicated to All Souls, by St. Mary’s Church,
Cadogan Terrace, Chelsea, and a small one by the church in Parker’s Row,
Dockhead, S.E., the garden here, which is now a recreation ground for
the schools or the sisters, having also been used for burials. There is
one in Woolwich, lately encroached upon through the enlargement of the
school, where three lonely-looking graves are in a railed-in enclosure
in the middle of a tar-paved yard; and there is also the ground behind
St. Thomas’s, Fulham, which is still in use.
[Illustration: FRIENDS’ BURIAL-GROUND IN WHITECHAPEL.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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