Lunch with Blake, Bunyan & Defoe

This afternoon I found myself sitting on a bench eating lunch next to the poet John Bunyan. That's the writer of Pilgrim's Progress. Who died in 1688.
I was in Bunhill Fields - a cemetery on the northern edge of the City. It lies in the Finsbury district, between the Northern Line stations of Moorgate and Old Street.

The name is a corruption of "Bone Hill". In 1549 a massive number of bones were moved here from the churchyard of St Paul's Cathedral. Later, from 1657, it became the leading Noncomformist Cemetery. Following the Civil Wars of the 1640's, a number of Protestant sects established themselves. Only Anglicanism was recognised by the state, and followers of these other movements found they could not be buried in Church of England graveyards.
It remained London's principle dissenters' cemetery until 1854, when the laws relating to religion were relaxed. (The Burial Act of 1852 had also come into force). There are an estimated 230,000 inhumations in the Fields, and some 2000 graves are still marked today.

Daniel Defoe (of Robinson Crusoe fame) wrote an account of the Great Plague of 1665 - A Journal of the Plague Year - and he states that Bunhill Fields was used as a plague pit. He claims some stricken individuals, mad with fever, threw themselves into the pits and expired. Defoe himself was later buried here. He was on the run from creditors when he died, so was buried under the name Mr Dubow. The obelisk marking his grave was stolen, and turned up down in Southampton. After a time in Stoke Newington Library, it was returned to Bunhill Fields where it can be seen today. Just next to it is the tombstone of the visionary painter and poet William Blake, along with his wife.

As you can see from the image above, the stone does not mark the actual location of his body.
Just across from the City Road entrance to the Fields is the Chapel and House of the Methodist leader John Wesley. His mother, Susanna, is buried in the Fields. Also here is the poet Robert Southey.
Quakers had there own separate section of the cemetery. George Fox, one of the founders of the Quaker Movement, is buried there.
Some more views of the Fields:

Above is the tomb of Dame Mary Page (d. 1728). She was the wife of shipping magnate Sir Gregory Page. On the opposite side to this inscription is another which states that over 67 months some 240 gallons of water were extracted ("tapp'd") from her. This obviously refers to some medical complaint from which she suffered - and presumably died from - involving retention of water in the body.

Today it is a popular place for City workers to enjoy an alfresco lunch in the finer weather.
Part of the grounds are used by the Honourable Artillery Company, which is based next to the Fields. The HAC is the oldest military company in London - Finsbury Fields used to be used for archery practice from the Tudor period. These grounds saw some of England's first ever cricket matches.

I have had a good long look and cannot find any good ghost stories attached to this cemetery. Quakers and Methodists obviously rest easier in their graves...

Postman's Park

Still in the Smithfield area, just off the street called Little Britain, is Postman's Park. The name derives from the employees of the main City Post Office on nearby St Martin-le-Grand who used to frequent it. Today it has merged with the churchyard of St Botolph-without-Aldersgate. (There are three London churches named after St Botolph - the Saxon patron saint of travellers - all appropriately located by the old gates which led out of the City).
In 1900 the artist George Frederic Watts (1817 - 1904) set up a memorial wall to honour ordinary men, women - and children - who had died sacrificing their lives to save others. The stories are told on hand-painted tiles. There are about 50 or so of them, and they make for poignant reading.

No further tiles were put up after the First World War, but people have been known to this day to put up temporary signs in honour of friends and relatives who have committed similar acts of self-sacrifice. The park featured in Patrick Marber's play Closer - also a film with Clive Owen, Jude Law and Natalie Portman (2004). Portman's character adopts the name Alice Ayres - one of those commemorated on the wall. The real Alice has a street named after her in Southwark.

A sign outside St Botolph's states that the Methodist founder John Wesley preached there. The church as it stands today was built around 1790.

Pye Corner and Cock Lane

Walk northwards up Giltspur Street towards Smithfield and you will come to Pye Corner. It sits at the junction with Cock Lane. High up on the wall is the small statue a plump, golden cherub. This marks the furthest westward extent of the Great Fire of 1666. Popular feeling at the time attributed the fire to Catholics and foreigners - usually Catholic foreigners - but the fact that the conflagration began in Pudding Lane, and ended at Pye Corner, led some to believe that it was all a judgement from God for the city's sin of gluttony - hence the fat little cherub.
An inscription on the wall beneath sets out this information, but goes further to state that here at this corner once stood a tavern called the Fortune of War. This was demolished in 1910. The landlord would show interested customers a room containing benches where dead bodies used to be laid out - each neatly labelled for the individual doctor from St. Bartholomew's Hospital (just across the road) for whom it was intended, to come and inspect it - all courtesy of the body-snatchers. Look to your right as you stand looking up at the statue and you will see a small guard post where a watchman used to keep an eye on the graveyard of the nearby church of St Sepulchre's - to deter the 'Resurrectionists' from raiding that for more cadavers.

You will see the street sign for Cock Lane in the photo at the top of the post - taken by yours truly at Easter, 2015. (No, I'm not quite old enough to have done the cartoon that is immediately above...).
In 1762 this became the scene for one of London's most notorious hauntings - the colourfully titled Scratching Fanny of Cock Lane. The no-longer-there house at No.33 was the setting for this macabre event, which attracted the interest of Dr Samuel Johnson and the Prince of Wales as well as hundreds of intrigued on-lookers.
In a nutshell, a couple moved into the house of a Mr William Parsons - William Kent and his lover Fanny Lynes. They outwardly appeared to be a respectable couple but she was actually the sister of Kent's deceased wife. Kent and Parsons had a falling out over money. Scratching sounds soon started to be heard in the room which Fanny was sharing with Parson's 12 year-old daughter, Elizabeth, whilst Kent was away on business. These were alleged to be from the dead sister - warning Fanny that she would soon also die at Kent's hands. Kent and Fanny moved out, and she did die soon after - from smallpox. The scratching continued - but this time it was the ghost of Fanny herself accusing Kent. Parsons claimed this, and charged visitors to see the room and witness the scratching sounds for themselves. The ghost would answer questions put to it - one knock for Yes, two for No.
Everything changed when the ghost claimed that it would manifest itself at Fanny's burial place - the crypt of St John's in Clerkenwell - on a specified date. Nothing happened. Elizabeth Parsons was found to have been making the noises at Cock Lane with a wooden clapper hidden under her dress. Parsons ended up in jail for the fraud. Many years later, an artist sketching in the crypt of St John's was shown Fanny's coffin. When opened, the body was found to be in a remarkable state of preservation - something that arsenic poisoning can do. Was Kent possibly guilty of murdering his wife and his lover after all?
Two other items of note about Cock Lane:

• John Bunyan - author of The Pilgrim's Progress - died here in 1688, after catching a chill in a heavy downpour.
• The street name is nothing to do with chickens. It is as insalubrious as it sounds. This street was one of the only places in the City where prostitutes were licensed to trade.