Burial Grounds

The land on the south side of Paddington Street was donated by Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer in 1730; the land on the north side was bought later in 1771.

In 1885, the two burial grounds were closed for burials and, in 1857, the Metropolitan Garden Association arranged for the grounds to be opened as a public recreation ground; they opened to the public on 6^th July 1886 by Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll.

The tombstones were removed from the gardens, although remnants of some can still be seen around the perimeter, and the listed Fitzpatrick Mausoleum (1759) in the south garden still remains.

The burial grounds (originally called St George’s Burial Ground) provided additional burial space in the increasingly congested parish supplementing the churchyard around the parish church located at the top of the High Street.

The site remains consecrated and is under Faculty Jurisdiction as well as Planning Control.

Multiple burials (c. 110,000) extend to a depth of 14 metres across the site. Many burials are in brick vaults. Many of these extend under the pavements and road of Paddington Street.

The southern end of the south gardens (now a children’s playground)  contains the bodies of thousands of paupers, as well as former residents of the old Infirmary and later Workhouse.

The burial grounds were ‘hunting’ grounds for the Resurrection Men who would steal corpses for sale to medical students. Many burial plots incorporated ingenious mantraps to deter those who trying to exhume bodies.

The shape of the burial grounds has changed through the centuries and both north and south sites extended into what it is now Paddington Street.

1200 bodies were exhumed in 2012 to enable the demolition of a 1960’s WCC car park and the subsequent construction of ‘The Chilterns’ by Galliard. These bodies were carefull recorded in situ, exhumed and reburied in the East London Cemetery in Plaistow.