Skulferatu #57 - St Paul's Churchyard, London

St Paul’s Churchyard is one of those places in the centre of London where you can escape from the chaos of the busy streets nearby.  A place to relax, contemplate life, or just sit and drink a cup of tea from one of the many nearby cafés.

 

St Paul’s Cathedral

 

Cathedral Dome and St Paul’s Cross

 

Statue of St Thomas à Becket by E Bainbridge Copnall

 

Mausoleum building in the churchyard

 

The churchyard wasn’t always such a relaxing place though.  It was once a place of much hustle and bustle, with markets selling cloth and other goods, booksellers selling books and shops selling music and musical instruments.  Large crowds also gathered there on one occasion to watch the execution of one of the conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot, Father Henry Garnet.  He suffered the rather unpleasant fate of being hung drawn and quartered. 

 

From the mid-15^th Century to around 1635 St Paul’s Cross stood in the churchyard.  This was an open air pulpit and cross from which many sermons were preached and where large crowds gathered to hear them. During the Reformation it became an important place for the government to put forth the religious views that they espoused. 

 

St Paul’s Cross

 

Statue of St Paul

 

Plaque commemorating original St Paul’s Cross

 

The original St Paul’s Cross is long gone, but it is now commemorated by a monument that stands nearby to where it once stood.

 

I left the Skulferatu that accompanied me during my wander around the churchyard in a hollow in a tree near to the St Paul’s Cross monument.

 

Skulferatu #57

 

Skulferatu #57 in hollow in tree near to St Paul’s Cross

 

Skulferatu #57 in hollow in tree near to St Paul’s Cross

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #57

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 51.514174

Longitude -09.097577

 

I used the following sources for information on St Paul’s Churchyard -

 

British History Online

St Paul's: The churchyard | British History Online

 

Wikipedia

Wikipedia - St Paul's Cross

Skulferatu #56 - River Thames Foreshore by Trig Lane Stairs, Paul's Walk, London

 

Many times, as I’ve walked around central London, I have passed stairs leading down into the murky waters of the Thames.  Sometimes, if I’m lucky, the tide is out, and I can take a stroll along the foreshore to do a bit of mudlarking.  I am not a very dedicated mudlarker though, so my collection of items recovered from the mud and sands of the Thames amounts to not much more than a jar full of clay pipe stems and a couple of water worn plastic toys.

 

Trig Lane Stairs lead down to the foreshore from Paul’s Walk, near to the Millennium Bridge.  I have passed these many times, but never ventured down them.  So, while out killing some time before meeting up with a friend, I came across them and decided to go down and have a look around.  The stairs themselves are not for the faint hearted, or doddery old farts like me, as they are quite steep.  However, I managed to get down them without any mishaps.

 

Foreshore of the Thames with the Millennium Bridge in the background

 

View from the foreshore over to the Tate Modern

 

Under the Millennium Bridge

 

I took a little time wandering around the shore which was a mish mash of pebbles, water smoothed bricks, sand and mud.  Amongst all of this were piles and piles of animal bones.  Brown with age and mud I assumed they must hark back to a time when there was a slaughterhouse or butcher’s nearby.  Or maybe just lots of ale houses selling mutton on the bone with the waters of the Thames being an easy place to dispose of all the waste.  Then there were the thousands of clay pipe stems and pieces of the pipe bowls, these being the fag ends of their day.  I collected up a few of these and wondered who the smokers were who had puffed away on the coarse tobacco in them a couple of hundred or so years before.  I suppose it could be anyone from a great literary mind or political thinker to a gin soak.  I ain’t ever going to know, but its fun to imagine the life of the person who had puffed away on it.

 

View from foreshore by Trig Lane Stairs

 

View over the Thames to the Shard

 

As more people began to make their way down the stairs to explore the shore, I found a place to discreetly leave the Skulferatu who had accompanied me down there.  I left it in a small sandy patch, just under the Millennium Bridge.

 

Skulferatu #56

 

Skulferatu #56 in the sand on the shore of the Thames

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #56

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 51.510631

Longitude -0.098475

 

 

Skulferatu #55 - Graveyard at Parish Church of Penpont, Keir and Tynron, Penpont, Dumfries and Galloway

 

Penpont is a small village in Dumfries and Galloway.  It was once an important staging post for travellers, and on the main street it has a tearoom and gallery that is still a popular stopping off point for cyclists, ramblers, locals, and tourists.

 

The man who may have invented the bicycle, Kirkpatrick Macmillan, lived a short distance from Penpont, and Joseph Thomson, the explorer who gave his name to Thomson’s Gazelle, was born in the village.

 

The Parish Church of Penpont, dominates the skyline of the village, and stands on a low hill above the Scaur Water.  It was designed by Charles Howitt and built in 1867 to replace the church that originally stood on the site.  The design of the church is a large cruciform in the Gothic style, with a tall tower and spire in the north-east corner.  It was constructed using local pink sandstone.

 

The Parish Church of Penpont

 

The gravestones in the graveyard date mainly from the 17^th to 18^th centuries, though there were some that dated from the 11^th and 12^th centuries.  These, however, were removed and are now in Dumfries Museum.  Among those buried in the graveyard is John Ross, a soldier who fought at the battle of Waterloo defending the Quarte Bras Farmhouse. 

 

Gravestones in Penpont Churchyard

 

Detail of memorial in Penpont Churchyard

 

Grave of Samuel Hislop

 

Gravestone at Penpont Churchyard

 

Memento Mori – detail from a gravestone

 

Please Do Not Drive Over Graves Thank You

 

Gravestone at Penpont Churchyard

 

Gravestone of Patrick Boyle

 

I left the Skulferatu that accompanied me on my walk in the shelter underneath a table top gravestone.  The engraving on the gravestone was badly worn, but it appeared to be the grave of one Patrick Boyle, who had died in the 1790s.  In the gap underneath there were bits of old, broken pottery, some spiders, and the lower branches of a nearby holly bush.  My Skulferatu joined them there.

 

Skulferatu #55

 

Skulferatu #55 under Patrick Boyle’s gravestone

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #55

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.231176

Longitude -3.811273

 

I used the following sources for information –

 

Scotland’s Churches Trust

Penpont, Keir and Tynron Church

 

Penpont Heritage Centre

Penpont Heritage Centre