St Giles Cripplegate Churchyard *

Barbican: Site on The National Heritage List for England, Parks & Gardens, for Register Entry see https://www.historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list

An early church here was reputedly the resting place for the body of King Edmund the Martyr outside Cripplegate in 1010, although 1090 is given as the date of the first church here. It was founded by Alfune, who assisted Rahere in founding St Bartholomew's Priory and Hospital (q.v.). The entrance gate to the City for which St Giles is named may have had an adjoining hospital for the lame, or been so-called for the many cripples who begged at the gate. St Giles was known for his works of great charity, and apparently gave away not only his considerable fortune but the coat from his back. Guild chapels were added to the church and it was rebuilt in 1390, and again in the C16th following a fire in 1545. There were later additions to the building in the C17th and it was re-faced in ragstone when it was restored in the late C19th. Badly damaged by bombing in World War II that devastated much of this area, the church was later restored by Godfrey Allen and re-opened in 1960 within the new Barbican Estate. The churchyard existed by c.1250; in 1550 a common well in the churchyard is referred to, and in 1662 an extension to the south, known as the Green Ground, was added.

By 1875 the burial ground was being used as public open space, following the 1855 Burial Act as a result of which it ceased to be used as a burials. Like many overcrowded churchyards in London, its closure came as a result of the first Burial Act of 1852 and its subsequent amendments during the 1850s. The Metropolitan Open Spaces Acts of 1877 and 1881 and the Disused Burial Grounds Act of 1884, later extended under the Metropolitan Open Spaces Act of 1887, enabled 'open spaces and burial grounds in the Metropolis for the use of the inhabitants thereof for exercise and recreation'. The burial ground was described by George Godwin in 1838 as 'one of the most ancient and venerable in the City, and abounds too with interesting associations, and mementos of past time' ('Churches of London'). Among well-known people who were buried here were preacher John Fox (1517-1587), who wrote 'Acts and Monuments of the Church'; the historian and map-maker John Speed (1552-1629) and John Milton (d.1608-1674). A statue of Milton by Horace Montford erected in 1904 is found in the church but was once situated north of the church on the line of Fore Street where its pedestal still stands. Oliver Cromwell married Elizabeth Bourch here on 22 August 1622. The register of burials contains numerous actors' names as the church was near the Fortune Theatre in Whitecross Street, which was opened in 1599 by Edward Alleyn, one of the earliest theatres. Also nearby up until 1177 was the only place in England where Jewish people were able to bury their dead, hence the road-name Jewin Street.

The Corporation of London acquired the site in 1965 and part of the site of the large burial ground was paved to create a new public space adjacent to an area of water; north of the church are a series of rectangular and semicircular raised beds in which C18th and C19th gravestones are set horizontally into the tops and there is some planting including willow overhanging the water, and late C19th gas lamps taken from Tower Bridge; Victorian style lamp posts and bollards here were installed in late 1980s. On the south side of the square, small steps lead down through the retaining wall in which old gravestones have been re-set, to the level of the canal from where a small bridge leads into a secluded communal garden that incorporates the excavated footings of a section of the old Roman Wall. The churchyard faces onto the remains of the old London Wall, the ditch now marked by a water-filled extension of the Barbican lake opposite the Barber-Surgeons' Hall Gardens (q.v.). Remains of a Roman bastion shows where the wall turned through 90 degrees at the north-west corner of the fort.

The Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England was established in 1984 and was commonly called English Heritage. In April 2015 it split into 2 separate entities, Historic England (HE), which continues to champion and protect the historic environment, and the English Heritage Trust, whose role is to look after the 400+ historic sites and monuments owned by the state. HE manages the National Heritage List for England (NHLE) that includes over 400,000 items ranging from prehistoric monuments to office blocks, battlefields and parks, which benefit from legal protection.