The building served the large ancient parish of St Pancras, which stretched from a point a short distance north of Oxford Street, northward to Highgate.
By some traditions, the church has been a site of Christian worship since AD 314, but as with most parish churches, especially the older ones, there is little documentary or archaeological evidence to allow the first use of the site to be dated.[2] Remnants of medieval features in the building and references in the Domesday Book suggest the site was in use during the Anglo-Saxon period.[3]
As early as 1593 the cartographer John Norden had commented in his Speculum Britanniae that the dilapidated St Pancras church looked older than St Paul's Cathedral.[4] By the 18th century there seems to have been a local belief that St Pancras was of very great age, perhaps the oldest church in England.
Roman tradition
Information panels outside the church today state that it "stands on one of Europe’s most ancient sites of Christian worship, possibly dating back to the early 4th century" and has been a "site of prayer and meditation since 314 AD". A vicar of the church claimed (at some point prior to 1870) to have seen a document in the Vatican Library that placed the foundation to the 4th century, during the Roman period.[5][6]
The case for a Roman period establishment was argued by local historian Charles Lee in 1955, who wrote:
There can be little doubt that a Roman encampment was situated opposite the site of St Pancras Church about this period, and that the church is on the site of a Roman Compitum, which served as a centre of public worship and public meeting... It seems probable that the Roman Compitum at St Pancras was adapted to Christian worship shortly after the restoration of religious freedom in 313 (taking its name from the recently-martyred Pancras).[7]
Lee's "Roman encampment" was "Caesar’s Camp at Pancras called the Brill", identified by the antiquary William Stukeley in the 1750s.[8][9] However, some at least of Stukeley's contemporaries could see no trace of this camp, and considered that Stukeley had let his imagination run away with him.[10]
Gillian Tindall has suggested that the lumps and bumps in the fields to the west of the church that Stukeley interpreted as a Roman camp were actually traces of the original medieval village of St Pancras, before the centre of the settlement moved north to the area now known as Kentish Town.[11]
Lee's use of the word compitum, properly a Roman temple or shrine situated at a crossroads, indicates his indebtedness to the work of Montagu Sharpe (1856–1942), a Middlesex magistrate, former chairman of the Middlesex County Council and amateur historian and archaeologist.[12] Sharpe had proposed, in a book first published in 1919, that the area of the county of Middlesex had in Roman times been subject to the form of land division known as centuriation, marked out by roads in a regular grid pattern covering the whole county.[13] Sharpe noted, when plotting his gridlines, that a number of ancient parish churches appeared to be on or close to intersections, or at least on road alignments. He concluded that these churches must therefore stand on the sites of pagan compita, and represent the deliberate conversion of pagan temples to Christian use by early missionaries to the Middle Saxons in the 7th century. St Pancras Old Church is one of those marked on Sharpe's map.
Anglo-Saxon period
In 597, Pope Gregory the Great sent Augustine of Canterbury at the head of a group of 40 monks intending to promote the re-establishment of Christianity in England. Pope Gregory sent Augustine with relics of St Pancras, and the first church Augustine established, was dedicated to St Pancras and located in Canterbury, the capital of the Kingdom of Kent. Some traditions also ascribe the establishment of the St Pancras Old Church, or its dedication to St Pancras, with Augustine's mission and the relics he brought.
J. Carter Rendell (vicar 1912–26) argued that a medieval altar slab marked with five consecration crosses, found during the 19th-century building works, could be dated to the 6th century.[5][6]
Phil Emery and Pat Miller discuss the archaeological history of the site in 'Archaeological findings at the site of the St Pancras Burial Ground and its vicinity':
The 1847 reconstruction of the medieval church revealed Roman tiles in the fabric of its tower and an inscribed altar stone dated to AD 625 (other sources estimate an AD 600 date[14]), which might suggest an early 7th-century foundation. The original cemetery around the church appears to have been sub-circular like many late Saxon cemeteries
These archaeological findings seem to go some way to countering the 18th century London historian William Maitland, who dismissed links to Augustine's era as a "vulgar Tradition", and suggested that there was confusion with the ancient church with the same dedication in the grounds of St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury, which was said to have been converted from a pagan temple by Augustine in 598.[15]
In 1870 local historian Samuel Palmer reported "This old and venerable church is said to be the first Christian place of worship in the county of Middlesex in the eighth or ninth century."[16]
An earlier vicar is said to have claimed to have seen in the Vatican Library a manuscript mentioning that St Pancras church was built in the 9th century (in addition to the other clergyman who claimed to have found reference to a Roman era establishment).[5][6]
Medieval and Tudor church building
St Pancras Old Church in 1815. It was largely reconstructed later in the 19th century. The River Fleet has been covered over.An anonymous pen-and-ink sketch of the south-east view, circa 1840
When the church was rebuilt in 1847, builders found some evidence of Anglo-Saxon period church activity and some re-used Roman tiles in the walls. They were able to identify that the church building they were replacing was mainly late Tudor with elements of earlier structures incorporated.
According to a Victorian architect, Robert Lewis Roumieu, involved in the works:
The old church was principally late Tudor. When it was pulled down to be rebuilt, several small Norman columns, pilaster piers and other remains of a Norman edifice were found among the materials used in the wall, leaving no doubt but that the original church had been a Norman structure which had been at some time completely rebuilt and part used as building material in the reconstruction.[17]
In the early Middle Ages there was a centre of population in the vicinity of what is now known as the old church. However, in the 14th century the focus of population is thought to have shifted to what is now Kentish Town (further north in St Pancras parish). The reasons for this were probably the vulnerability of the plain around the church to flooding (the River Fleet, which is now underground, runs through it) and the availability of better wells at Kentish Town, where there is less clay in the soil.
Richard Granger is named as parson of the church of St Pancras, in 1446.[18]
Disrepair and restoration
After the Reformation the isolation and decay of the church made it a tempting resort for Catholics: indeed, it was said that the last bell which tolled for the Mass in England was at St Pancras.[19] St Pancras (and to a lesser degree Paddington Church) were the only places in London where Roman Catholics were permitted to be buried.[20] Among the several Catholics buried in the churchyard was Johann Christian Bach, youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach.[19] His name was misspelled in the burial register as John Cristian Back.[21]
The church fell into disrepair and towards the end of the 18th century services were only held there on one Sunday each month; on other weeks, the same congregation would use a chapel in Kentish Town.[22] 18th and early 19th century urban expansion led to the construction of the capacious St Pancras New Church on what was then the "New Road" (Euston Road, about a km away).[a] The old building lost its status as the parish church when the New Church was consecrated in 1822, and became a chapel of ease. As it stood in the early 19th century, the church consisted of an unaisled nave, a chancel without a chancel arch and a western tower. The south porch had served as a vestry since the 18th century.
Interior view of the chancelInterior looking west
By 1847 the Old Church was derelict, but in view of the growth of population in the southern part of the parish, it was decided to restore it. (Victorian restoration of churches is not what we understand today by the phrase building restoration.) The architect of the alterations was Alexander Dick Gough. The old tower was removed, allowing the nave to be extended westwards, and a new tower was built on the south side. The south porch was removed, and a new vestry was added on the north side. The whole exterior of the church was refaced or reworked.[3] The enlargement and the addition of galleries increased the capacity of the church from about 120 to 500.[24]
There were further restorations in 1888 by Arthur Blomfield with the reredos by C E Buckeridge; in 1925 when the plaster ceiling and the side galleries were removed,[3] and in 1948 following Second World War bomb damage. The building was designated a grade II* listed building on 10 June 1954,[25][26] That year also saw the former parish of Christ Church Somers Town (destroyed in the 1940 Blitz) merged into that of St Pancras Old Church,[27][28] followed by that of St Matthew's Oakley Square in 1956.[29]
The church contains the grave of Samuel Cooper (or Cowper), the miniaturist, against its east wall.
Churchyard
Tomb of John Soane
The churchyard, which is the largest green space in the locality, is managed by the London Borough of Camden. It has some fine mature trees, and was restored in the first few years of the 21st century.
Other people associated with the churchyard include the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and the future Mary Shelley, who planned their 1814 elopement over meetings at the grave of her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, mentioned above. Charles Dickens mentions it by name in his 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities, making it the location of body snatching to provide corpses for dissection at medical schools, a common practice at the time. Burials in the churchyard eventually ceased under the Extramural Interment Act in 1854, and St Pancras and Islington Cemetery was opened in East Finchley.[39] In the mid-1860s, the young Thomas Hardy was in charge of the excavation of part of the graveyard in the course of the construction of the Midland Railway's London terminus, St Pancras station.[40] More burials were removed in 2002.
The stone installation by Emily Young and Jeremy Clarke
The churchyard was reopened in June 1877 as St Pancras Gardens, following the movement to allow conversion of disused burial grounds into public gardens. Angela Burdett-Coutts, an important local benefactress, laid the foundation stone of the memorial sundial she had presented.[41]
A recent addition is a polished marble stone at the entrance to the church, a collaboration between and a gift from the poet Jeremy Clarke and the sculptor Emily Young. It is inscribed: "And I am here / in a place / beyond desire or fear", an extract from the long poem "Praise" by Clarke.
Names of note listed on the Burdett Coutts Memorial as lost
This impressive monument was erected in 1877 when the northern half of the churchyard was formalised as a public park, clearing most of the smaller gravestones. It lists stones lost to this and earlier clearances for the railways.
Giambattista Tocco, Duke de Sicignano (c.1760–1793), ambassador from the Kingdom of Naples to Great Britain, committed suicide shortly after his arrival in London in 1793.[43]
Henry Sidgier, holder of a 1782 patent on a design for a washing machine[44]
William Woollett, engraver (no monument, despite not being listed on the Burdett Coutts memorial as an important grave lost). Woollett certainly was important as he was nationally recognised by a memorial in Westminster Abbey.
Popular culture
On 28 July 1968, The Beatles were photographed in the churchyard grounds, in a famous series of pictures designed to promote the single "Hey Jude" and the White Album.[45] A memorial bench bears a plaque commemorating the group's "Mad Day Out".[46]
The video for Lene Lovich's 1979 hit "Bird Song" was filmed in the church and churchyard.[47]
In 2013, British R&B singer Sam Smith performed two concerts at the church. The live version of "I've Told You Now" was included on deluxe editions of their album In the Lonely Hour.[48]
On 24 September 2014, singer Claudia Brücken, best known for her work with German electronic group Propaganda, performed a solo show at the church.[49]
St Pancras Old Church is frequently mentioned in the Bryant and May detective series by author Christopher Fowler.
References
^Then a section of what was simply known as the "New Road".[23]
^ abcLovell, Percy; Marcham, William McB., eds. (1938). "St. Pancras Old Church". Survey of London. Vol. 19: The parish of St Pancras part 2: Old St Pancras and Kentish Town. pp. 72–95. Retrieved 26 May 2010.
^Norden, John (1593). Speculum Britanniae: the First Parte: an Historicall, & Chorographicall Description of Middlesex. [London]. p. 38.
^"Our challenge". St Pancras Old Church Appeals. Archived from the original on 6 September 2014. Retrieved 6 September 2014. Ancient drains that lie beneath the church are collapsing. As a result they are destabilising the structure of the church.
^Matthew, H. C. G.; Harrison, Brian, eds. (2004). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Scheemakers. Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-861411-1.
Lysons, Daniel (2016) [1795]. The Environs of London. Vol. 3: Being an Historical Account of the Towns, Villages, and Hamlets, Within Twelve Miles of That Capital, Interspersed With Biographical Anecdotes, County of Middlesex. Fb&c Limited. ISBN978-1-333-76731-0.
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