So, last weekend Silver & I popped into Old St Pancras churchyard,
which is just behind our flat,
to take some photos of the latest pieces.
to take some photos of the latest pieces.
In the absence of a model, this stone dog kindly obliged.
Silver barked & growled at him for a bit,
but soon calmed down after asserting his dominance!
but soon calmed down after asserting his dominance!
There is a spooky tree in the churchyard called The Hardy Tree.
Here's what the little information panel says:
'The novelist and poet Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928) is best known for his novels set in rural 'Wessex', however before turning to writing full time he studied architecture in London from 1862-67 under Mr Arthur Blomfield, an architect based in Covent Garden.
During the 1860s the Midland Railway line was being built over part of the original St Pancras Churchyard. Blomfield was commissioned by the Bishop of London to supervise the proper exhumation of human remains and dismantling of tombs. He passed this unenviable task onto his protégé Thomas Hardy in c. 1865.
Hardy would have spent many hours in Old St Pancras Churchyard during the construction of the railway, overseeing the careful removal of bodies and tombs from the land on which the railway was being built. The headstones around this Ash tree (Fraxinus excelsior) would have been placed there around this time. Note how the tree has since grown in amongst the stones.
A few years before Hardy's involvement here, Charles Dickens makes reference to Old St Pancras Churchyard in his Tale of Two Cities (1859), as the churchyard in which Roger Cly was buried and where Jerry Cruncher was known to 'fish' (a 19th Century term for tomb robbery and body snatching).'
'The novelist and poet Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928) is best known for his novels set in rural 'Wessex', however before turning to writing full time he studied architecture in London from 1862-67 under Mr Arthur Blomfield, an architect based in Covent Garden.
During the 1860s the Midland Railway line was being built over part of the original St Pancras Churchyard. Blomfield was commissioned by the Bishop of London to supervise the proper exhumation of human remains and dismantling of tombs. He passed this unenviable task onto his protégé Thomas Hardy in c. 1865.
Hardy would have spent many hours in Old St Pancras Churchyard during the construction of the railway, overseeing the careful removal of bodies and tombs from the land on which the railway was being built. The headstones around this Ash tree (Fraxinus excelsior) would have been placed there around this time. Note how the tree has since grown in amongst the stones.
A few years before Hardy's involvement here, Charles Dickens makes reference to Old St Pancras Churchyard in his Tale of Two Cities (1859), as the churchyard in which Roger Cly was buried and where Jerry Cruncher was known to 'fish' (a 19th Century term for tomb robbery and body snatching).'
