The Hardy Tree And Historical Treasures of St Pancras Gardens

An oasis of tranquility amid the hustle and bustle of King’s Cross, St Pancras Gardens are a fantastic spot for a wander.

It is also one of the earliest sites of Christian worship in England and is brimming with hidden historical treasures. One of the most mysterious is the Hardy Tree; a fascinating and eerie historical oddity.

St Pancras Old Church

If, like me, you love poking your head into old churches, then St Pancras Old Church will not disappoint.

The current church is predominantly Victorian, following a restoration in 1847 and has a lovely rustic charm. You feel as if you have just stepped into an old country church.

It is thought by some to have been founded in 314AD when the Romans were camped nearby. There’s no historical evidence for this, however, the altar stone dates from the 6th century AD and Roman tiles are apparently incorporated into the fabric of the medieval church tower.

The church that stood here from the medieval period was used as a barracks in the 1640’s for Parliamentary troops during the civil war. At the same time, the church’s precious silver was hidden, along with the priceless altar stone, to protect them from the troops. They potentially were a little bit over zealous with the hiding however because they were only discovered 200 years later!

The Hardy Tree

At the back of the gardens, behind the church, is one of London’s eeriest secrets. It is an ash tree encircled by neatly placed overlapping gravestones, called the Hardy Tree.

To find out how this unusual monument came to be we have to go back to the 1860’s. The churchyard was once much larger. In the 1860’s the land was being cleared for a new railway line, specifically the Midland Railway into King’s Cross/St Pancras.

The gruesome job of exhuming bodies and clearing gravestones was given to the architect’s apprentice. That apprentice just so happened to be a young Thomas Hardy; the famous Victorian novelist. He had trained as an architect in Dorchester before working for the office of Arthur Blomfield in London.

The story goes that he was horrified by what he saw and even supposedly discovered a corpse with two heads. Anyway, he needed somewhere to put the gravestones and so either placed them around a tree or arranged them and the tree grew up in the middle.

There evidence is very hazy whether it was indeed Hardy himself who placed them there but he was certainly around at the time.

Whether true or just an urban myth, the gravestones, now entangled in the roots of the tree, certainly create an arresting and intriguing image. It is an image of: life amongst death, destruction but also beauty, the uplifting and the macabre. With its contrasts it is very much an image of London itself. It is also of course a very important local story and link to the past.

On the 26th December 2022 the Hardy Tree has very sadly fallen down. It was diseased with a fungus and had been weakened in a storm.

The Walrus Mystery

During excavations for the expansion of St Pancras station in 2003, the archaeologists made a shocking discovery.

In a sealed coffin, with the remains of 8 other human bodies, were the bones of a Pacific walrus! This huge species of walrus can weigh up to two tonnes, with elephant-like tusks. The bones in this case measured 4 metres long so this was no exception.

So how on earth did a huge walrus corpse make its way to an ancient graveyard? There are a couple of theories.

It could be one of the two walruses that were kept at London zoological gardens in Regent’s Park in the mid 19^th century. Records do show that one was dissected by anatomists at the zoo.

Another theory is that it was victim of the lucrative body snatching business of the early 1800s and then dumped with a load of other corpses. This potentially explains the human remains alongside it. It could have also been a victim of the ivory trade.

If you are interested the bones are apparently on display at the London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre in Hackney.

Sir John Soane’s Mausoleum

The architect Sir John Soane (the Bank of England is probably his best known work) is buried here in the family mausoleum.

He initially designed it after his wife’s death in 1815 and joined her in 1837. It is one of only two tombs in London with listed status (the other is Karl Marx’s in Highgate cemetery). Read more about the cemetery and historical Highgate here.

The mausoleum is said to have inspired the design for the red telephone box!

Mary Wollstonecraft’s Grave

Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the founding feminist philosophers and mother of author Mary Shelley, is also buried here.

Shelley would visit her mother’s grave regularly and it was here that she declared her love for Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1814 before they eloped.

It is speculated that the amount of time she spent in the burial ground, during an era when body snatching was rife, inspired the plot to her most famous work: Frankenstein.

Other interesting graves

Johann Christian Bach- the 18th son of Johann Sebastian Bach. (At first we thought it was THE Bach so got a bit over excited).

M L Williams Jones- Charles Dickens’ schoolmaster.

And finally; Chevalier D’eon, full name (deep breath): Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée d’Éon de Beaumont.

They were a French spy who infiltrated the court of Empress Elizabeth of Russia by posing as a woman. The Chevalier D’eon went on to actually live the rest of their life as a woman after this.

Sadly the Chevalier’s body was one of those moved and lost when the railway was carved through the churchyard.

Angela Burdett-Coutts Memorial Sundial

This sundial was placed in the gardens in 1877 to commemorate the dignitaries whose graves were upturned by the railway. It is a brilliant example of the Victorian cult around mourning and memorialising. Another example of this is the Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice in Postman’s Park.

The sundial was paid for by Angela Burdett-Coutts- one of the richest women in Victorian England. You can also read more about her in my Highgate blog here! She even included a statue of her pet collie!

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