St Leonard's Churchyard Garden

There has been a church on this site from at least the 1140s when it was granted to the Priory of Holy Trinity, Aldgate thereafter passing into royal control, and then to St Paul's Cathedral and the Archdeacon of London. The birth of English Theatre is said to have originated in Shoreditch when in 1576 James Burbage leased land at 90 Curtain Road on the corner of New Inn Yard and built 'The Theatre', later rebuilt as The Globe by his sons Richard and Cuthbert in 1598. Plays could be performed here since it was outside the City walls, within which the City Authorities had banned dramatic performance. James (d.1597), Richard (d.1619) and Cuthbert were all buried in the churchyard. As a result St Leonard's became known as the Actors' Church. Among other literary and theatrical people buried here were Henry VIII's Jester, Will Somers; Elizabethan actor Fortunatus Green, whose father called Shakespeare an 'upstart crow'; and Elizabeth, daughter of the poet Philip Sidney and herself a poet, 'nothing inferior to her father in poesy' according to Ben Jonson. In 1913 the London Shakespeare League erected a tablet in the north wall of the church dedicated to those buried. Also buried here was Dr James Parkinson (d. 1824) who first described Parkinson's Disease, and who lived nearby at Hoxton Square (q.v.); he was also baptised and married at St Leonard's.

After the Great Fire of 1666 the old church had become dilapidated, literally disintegrating onto the worshipping congregation at times, and a new church was built in 1736-1740 to designs of George Dance the Elder. The Clerk's House was also erected c.1735. In 1817 it was the first church in London to be lit by gaslight. The bells of St Leonard's were the 'bells of Shoreditch' of the nursery rhyme, formerly 12 with a 13th donated by the Haberdashers Company in 1963. The church has been restored a number of times, in 1870 by William Butterfield, again in 1955 following bomb damage in 1944, and further restoration, including restoration of the C19th railings, began in the late 1990s.

The area of the churchyard was extended in 1671 when adjoining land on the east was granted for use as a burial ground as a result of a donation of £100 to the parish by Thomas Austin. It was further extended in 1792 taking land in Austin Street, and again in 1820 with part of the glebe on the south. The churchyard was converted into a public garden in the late C19th when gravestones were cleared although some remain lined up along the back of the church and on the north wall of the Clerk's House. The C18th cast-iron railings and wrought iron gates remained, and the stocks and whipping post under a thatched roof were in the north west corner of the site. A plaque on the railings has the words 'More Light, More Power', which was the motto of Shoreditch Borough Council and referred to its pioneering work in provision of lighting and energy. The garden was laid out with paths, areas of lawn, shrubberies and flower beds, and there are several notable planes in the west end of the site.