Bow Churchyard

The Church of St Mary, Stratford Bow became Bromley-by-Bow parish church in its own right in 1719, but had originated in the C14th as a Chapel of Ease to Stepney Parish Church of St Dunstan (q.v.). License to build the Chapel 'in the King's Highway' was granted in 1311 by Edward II and the Bishop of London who was the Episcopal Lord of the Manor of Stepney. The chapel was built in the reign of Edward III (1327-1377) and meant that parishioners in Old Ford and Stratford could avoid having to struggle to church through difficult winter road conditions. They were still obliged to contribute towards the upkeep of the mother church of St Dunstan's and to attend there on holidays but in 1497 this was limited to just the feast of St Dunstan together with payment of an annual 24s for repairs. In June 1648 Parliamentary militia in the Civil War took refuge in the church when surrounded by Royalist cavalry, which was the only engagement of the Civil War in East London. Part of the current building dates from the C15th and C16th, although a fire in April 1747 damaged the tower, destroying the clock. The tower again collapsed in 1829 and was not rebuilt until 1898, and later fell as a result of WWII bombing in May 1941. The parish of Holy Trinity, Mile End merged with that of St Mary in 2006 and its altar cross is now in St Mary.

Until the C18th the church had been ringed with buildings, with tenements and a tavern to the west, a Market Hall and school to the east, which were razed to the ground following an Act of Parliament of 1825 that allowed the burial ground to be expanded and cleared the area west of the church. Near the main western entrance to the churchyard is the memorial to Joseph Dawson (d.1834), with a draped urn and relief portrait. Many burials took place beneath the church, including that of Thomas Jordan (d.1671) whose memorial is on the left wall, and at least four rectors were buried in the chancel, although the tombstone of Thomas White (d.1709) was later moved to the churchyard. The last burial in the churchyard took place in 1854 and it was later re-ordered as a public garden by the MPGA in 1894, laid out by the MPGA's landscape gardener Fanny Wilkinson. She took advice from C R Ashbee of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings to ascertain which of the tombstones should be preserved. In 1911 the eastern section of the burial grounds were laid out by Madeline Agar, who had taken over from Wilkinson as MPGA landscape gardener in 1905, a position she held for almost 25 years. Over that time she became a successful garden designer, writer and teacher, and a fellow of the Institute of Landscape Architects.

A Loos cross brought back from the WWI battlefield was erected as a War Memorial with the names of those from Bromley who died. The churchyard retains the characterful C19th Gothic railings, which were reinstated in 1984, and has a number of chest tombs, monuments and headstones. From the western gate a central York stone path flanked by a number of seats leads to the church entrance. Today the central pathway opens out at a metal pergola with climbers growing over it, with recent planting on either side of the path; to the rear of the church the eastern part of the churchyard provides another garden area. Since 2015 volunteers have been working to improve the garden, clearing and planting in both areas of the churchyard, including 1500 spring bulbs donated by MPGA and Taylors of Spalding.

The statue of William Gladstone by Albert Bruce-Joy at the west end of the churchyard was erected in 1882, funding for which was partly raised by public subscription, although largely through the auspices of Theodore Bryant of Bryant and May, whose match factory was nearby. The statue was daubed in red paint in 1988 in tribute to the Match Girls who reputedly paid for the statue with their blood, although it appears that their blood-letting was connected with their protest at enforced contribution to a drinking fountain erected on Bow Road in 1872.