St Pancras Old Churchyard, London

St Pancras Old Churchyard, London

Visited January 2019

I've visited this churchyard previously, but I'm always fascinated by the 'Hardy Tree', surrounded by old gravestones placed there when part of the burial ground was cleared to make way for an extension to St Pancras station (possibly by the author Thomas Hardy, who was working in the churchyard at the time).

This time, I was also able to spot a few stones with skulls on - yay! - and visited the former burial place of Mary Wollstonecraft. She is best known as the author of 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman', a key feminist text published in 1792, and her husband William Godwin. Mary was also the mother of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein. In 1851, following the wishes of Mary Shelley, the remains fo Wollstonecraft and Godwin were removed to the Shelley family tomb in the church of St Peter in Bournemouth. The gravestone in St Pancras OIld Churchyard was restore din 1992, the bicentenary of 'Vindication'.

The Hardy Tree

The gravestone of Mary Wollstonecraft and Willaim Godwin

St Pancras Churchyard

St Pancras Churchyard, London

Visited May 2011

The church of St Pancras is believed to be one of the earliest Christian sites in London. The current church dates from the mid-19th century, but some of the graves in the churchyard are older. The churchyard is to the north of St Pancras station, and still a large, quiet green space. The graves were tidied up earlier this century.

There are a number of graves of interest - the mausoleum of Sir John Soane was the inspiration for the red telephone boxes! 

In the 1860s a large number of graves were excavated due to the building of St Pancras station. Many of the gravestones were piled around a tree in the churchyard, and one of the workers at the time was Thomas Hardy. The tree, still surrounded by gravestones, is now known as the Hardy Tree. Many graves were lost in this clearance, and in a subsequent clearance in the 1870s when part of the churchyard became a park. The Memorial to Lost Graves was erected in 1877 to commemorate these.

The Hardy Tree

the tomb of John Soane (he of the museum in Lincoln's Inn Square)

The Burdett Coutts Memorial to Lost Graves