The Burdett Coutts Memorial Sundial is a structure built in Old St Pancras churchyard in 1877–79, at the behest of Baroness Burdett-Coutts. The former churchyard included the burial ground for St Giles-in-the-Fields, where many Catholics and French émigrés were buried. The graveyard closed to burials in 1850, but some graves were disturbed by a cutting of the Midland Railway in 1865 as part of the works to construct its terminus at St Pancras railway station. The churchyard was acquired by the parish authorities in 1875 and reopened as a public park in June 1877. The high Victorian Gothic memorial was built from 1877 and unveiled in 1879. The obelisk acts as a memorial to people buried near the church whose graves were disturbed; the names of over 70 of them are listed on the memorial, including the Chevalier d'Éon, Sir John Soane, John Flaxman, Sir John Gurney, and James Leoni.

The monument was designed by George Highton of Brixton. It was manufactured by H Daniel and Co, a firm of masons from Highgate, and includes relief carvings by Signor Facigna. It comprises a tall square tower in a decorated Gothic style, topped by a tall Portland limestone pinnacle bearing a sundial, supported by columns of pink Shap granite and grey Cornish granite to either side of four inscribed marble plaques, each topped by a trefoil Gothic arch around a relief sculpture (busts of two saints, St Giles and St Pancras, and of two allegorical figures depicting a youthful Morning with a cockerel and a more aged Night with a star and a crescent moon). The inscriptions on four marble panels include the Beatitudes from the Gospel of St Matthew, chapter 5, verses 3 to 9, and a religious poem.

The tower stands on a square plinth of Portland stone, which rests on an octagonal base of three steps made from red Mansfield sandstone. The steps are decorated with mosaic panels, mostly stylised flowers. The structure is surrounded by iron railings which create a square enclosure, with a Portland stone animal statue at each of the four corners, two lions and two dogs. The dogs may be modelled on Greyfriars Bobby, or possibly an animal owned by Burdett-Coutts herself. The railings also bear a plaque to Johann Christian Bach, buried in a pauper's grave nearby.

The monument became a Grade II listed building in February 1993, upgraded to Grade II* in September 2016. The garden is itself Grade II listed, and includes the tomb of Sir John Soane. St Pancras Old Church is also Grade II* listed.

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Coordinates: 51°32'07.47"N 0°07'51.08"W

The cemetery alongside London’s St. Pancras Old Church, which is considered by many to be one of England’s oldest places of Christian worship, is the site of a number of fascinating stories - for one, Mary Wollstonecraft and Percy Bysshe Shelley planned their elopement there while visiting Mary’s mother’s grave. But perhaps one of its most striking oddities is the Hardy Tree, an ash tree surrounded by hundreds of weathered gravestones, layered practically on top of one another. How did they come to be arranged in this way?

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In the mid-1860s, Britain’s rail system was experiencing immense growth, and London was outgrowing its existing lines. In order to accommodate the growing population of commuters, an expansion was planned—directly affecting the graveyard at St. Pancras.

In order to make way for the new train line, an architecture firm was contracted to perform the sensitive task of exhuming the remains and reburying them at another site. In the tradition of dumping rather unpleasant work on those lowest on the totem pole, the job was promptly assigned to their young employee, Thomas Hardy, who in the following decades would publish many classic novels such as Far from the Madding Crowd and Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

After the essential duty was completed, there remained hundreds of headstones, along with the question of what to do with them. Hardy’s solution was to place them in a circular pattern around an ash tree in the churchyard in a spot that would not be disturbed by the railway. One can only speculate as to how he arrived at this decision, but over the years the tree has absorbed many of the headstones, life and death melding into one image of grotesque beauty, preserved for centuries.

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Source: atlasobscura

Picture: Paul Hudson

Where the impressive Gothic-style St. Pancras station now sits, there once was a vibrant neighbourhood full of life and activity.

Agar Town was located north of central London on land owned by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, in the parish of St. Pancras.

Before Agar Town began William Agar purchased the lease with 70 acres of land from the St. Pancras estate in 1810.
In 1820 the Regent’s Canal opened, which cut across the land and drew trade and industries to the area that wanted to take advantage of the canal for transportation.
By 1822, William Agar had sold his interest in the southern portion of his estate to the Imperial Gas, Light & Coke Company, which also used the canal to transport  coal for their operations.
In  1841 after William Agar died, his widow began leasing out the land in 1841. However, the Agar family leased the land in very small plots with the term being a relatively short length of just 21-years, inhibiting any high-quality development. So during the next few years the working-class population built their own homes with streets called Canterbury Place, Durham Street, Oxford Crescent. There was no street lighting or cleaning, there was no sewerage, and it quickly became synonymous with mud and disease.

As a result of this development, a Board of Health report said  in 1851 that Agar Town was “one of the most neglected in the metropolis” and a London journalist reported finding it “nestling, as snugly as ever, by the side of the Great Northern Railway [King’s Cross]…built on a swamp, and running down to the canal in every stage of dirt and decay.”

In 1859, the Midland Rail Company purchased 27 acres from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and purchased the rest of Agar Town in 1860.

After unsuccessful petitions against the company’s plans by the St. Pancras Vestry, the Regent’s Canal, and the Imperial Gas Light & Coke Company, the Midland Railway (St. Pancras Branch) Bill was passed by Parliamentary powers and became law in 1866. It gave the company complete power to purchase necessary lands and houses “by compulsion or agreement.”

While the company had to compensate those who had taken out 99-year leases with the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, weekly tenants could be evicted without compensation.
Agar Town was entirely demolished within the space of two months – including its half-finished church – and replaced with railway sidings.

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Coordinates: 51°32'30.76"N 0°07'59.15"W