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
There is no special place at the present time, I believe, where Danes
and Swedes are buried, but their churches, with surrounding graveyards,
were situated close together, in Wellclose and Prince’s Square, E. The
church in Prince’s Square is still the Swedish church of London
(Eleanora), and there is a notice at the corner of a turning on the
south side of Cable Street, St. George’s in the East,—“Till Svenska
Kyrkan.” Here, in a vault, are the remains of Emmanuel Swedenborg
himself, while the garden contains many tombstones, especially an inner
enclosure which was filled first. But the building now situated in
Wellclose Square is no longer the Danish or Mariner’s Church, the site
is occupied by schools and mission buildings in connection with St.
Paul’s, Dock Street, the present seaman’s church. Nor are there any
tombstones in the garden, although it is certain that many Danes and
many sailors were buried under the church, and in a surrounding
graveyard, which was probably an inner enclosure like that in Prince’s
Square. Mention of it is made by Northook in 1773, and by Malcolm in
1803; and there is a picture of the church in Maitland’s “History of
London.” The following account from the “Beauties of London and
Middlesex (1815)” is also of interest:—“At the extremity of this parish
is Wellclose Square, which has also borne the name of Marine Square,
from the number of sea officers who used to reside in it. It is a pretty
little neat square; but its principal ornament is the Danish church in
the centre, in the midst of its churchyard, planted with trees.... This
structure was erected in 1696, at the expense of Christian V., King of
Denmark, as appears by the inscription: ‘Templem Dano Norwegicum
intercessione et munificentia serenissimi Danorum Regis Christiani
Quinti erectum MDCXCVI.’ Gaius Gabriel Cibber was the architect, who
erected a monument within this church to the memory of his wife Jane,
daughter of William Colley, Esq., and mother of Colley Cibber, the
famous dramatist. The architect himself is also buried here.” The
Flemish burial-ground was in the district of St. Olave’s, Southwark. It
adjoined a chapel in Carter Lane, and before its demolition was used as
an additional graveyard by the parishes of St. Olave and St. John,
especially the former. When the railway to Greenwich was made this
ground disappeared, and part of its site forms the approach to London
Bridge Station.
[Illustration: A South View of QUEEN ELIZABETH’S FREE GRAMMAR SCHOOL
in Tooley Street in the Parish of St. Olave, Southwark,
_with a Plan of the adjacent Neighbourhood_
THE FLEMISH BURIAL-GROUND, CARTER LANE, ABOUT 1817.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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