Supposedly one of the oldest sites of Christian worship in Europe, dating back to the fourth century, St Pancras Old Church is located five minutes away from St Pancras train station in Somers Town on Pancras Road. The churchyard is a curious place, part park and dotted with ancient trees and interesting tombs with fascinating stories.

The most striking aspect of the churchyard is the famous Hardy tree (pictured, left) – named after the Wessex writer Thomas Hardy – where hundreds of gravestones are piled around an ash tree in a circular pattern with the tree roots intertwined around them. As a young man, Hardy trained as an architect in London, and one of his unenviable tasks was to dig up and relocate body remains in the churchyard to Finchley to make way for the expansion of St Pancras train station. With the remaining gravestones, the young Hardy made a rather artful arrangement of them around a tree in the churchyard.

Also in the churchyard is architect Sir John Soane’s mausoleum (pictured, right) for himself and his wife, Eliza, who died, according to Soane, after the shock of discovering their son’s negative reviews of his father’s work. Soane never forgave his son, and never got over the death of his wife. If the design of the tomb looks familiar, that’s because it was supposedly the inspiration for architect Giles Gilbert Scott’s iconic red phone box.

Though her body has been moved (to Bournemouth), the tomb of Mary Wollstonecraft, feminist and author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, remains. When her daughter, Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, was planning an elopement with poet Percy Shelley, they used to meet at night to discuss their plans at her mother’s grave.

Charles Dickens used to wander around the churchyard, and it’s mentioned in A Tale of Two Cities. It also features on William Blake’s mythical map of London. Somewhat later, in 1968, The Beatles posed for publicity photos in the porch of the church whilst promoting their White Album.

Previously on Barnflakes
William Blake's vision of angels in Peckham
Notes on Gilbert George Scott