Seething Lane Gardens

This was the site of the Navy Office founded in 1656, in the garden of which Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) and Sir William Penn reputedly buried their wine and parmesan cheese for safety on 4 September 1666 during the Great Fire and sat here 'discoursing upon the great tragedy' (Cleary). The original building was destroyed by fire in 1673 and a new Navy Office was built in 1682-3 designed by Christopher Wren, itself later demolished in 1788 when warehouses were built for the East and West India Docks Company. In 1910 the Port of London Authority Building was built to replace the East and West India Docks Company warehouses. The PLA moved out in 1971 and its base is now in Gravesend in Kent.

The word 'Seething' may originate from a medieval word 'sifethen' meaning 'full of chaff', so-called after the Corn Market nearby on Fenchurch Street. Muscovy Street refers to the Russian colony in the area in the C16th. Close by is St Olave's Church (q.v.) which served the Navy Office, including Pepys, who was buried there and to whom there is a memorial tablet erected in 1884. A doorway led to the gallery of the church from Seething Lane.

A public garden was created here after WWII in the 1950s, a simple rectangular space bounded by railings and laid out symmetrically with a central path, planted with grass, flower beds, shrubs, a good variety of trees including cypress and robinia. It featured a bronze bust of Pepys by the Anglo-Swedish sculptor Karin Jonzen, erected by the Samuel Pepys Club with funds raised by public subscription; it was presented to the garden in 1983 by the late Frederick Cleary, Chairman of the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association. Either side of the gate were beds of red roses to commemorate the date in 1381 when Sir Robert Knollys was permitted to construct a bridge across Seething Lane (since vanished) for which the City charged him one red rose annually; this is marked by an annual ceremony arranged by the Company of Watermen and Lightermen of the River Thames. 

In 2012 the public gardens were closed when the adjacent 10 Trinity Square was being redeveloped as a luxury Four Seasons Hotel by the China-based Reignwood Group. As part of the scheme, the gardens were also redesigned, and reopened in 2018. The new garden has a mix of raised beds with dramatic planting, an area of lawn and serpentine paths wind through the site. Some of the paving stones depict episodes from Pepys' life such as the parmesan cheese he buried during the Fire of London, and another showing surgeon's forceps used to remove Pepys' bladder stone when he underwent an operation. The bust of Pepys remains in the garden, now set on a new plinth. Pavilions at each end of the garden provide vehicle access for the hotel’s underground car park and the external walls of the southern pavilion are clad in fragrant climbing plants.