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All the United Kingdom England London The Hardy Tree
The Hardy Tree is permanently closed.

This entry remains in the Atlas as a record of its history, but it is no longer accessible to visitors.

AO Edited

The Hardy Tree

This churchyard arbor is surrounded by hundreds of gravestones placed there by author Thomas Hardy.

London, England

Added By
Sarah Janet
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July 31, 2016   Pengwn / Atlas Obscura User
July 31, 2016, from a few steps back   Pengwn / Atlas Obscura User
  SEANETTA / Atlas Obscura User
  SEANETTA / Atlas Obscura User
The Hardy Tree   Paul Hudson on Flickr
  SEANETTA / Atlas Obscura User
St Pancras Old Church, St Pancras Gardens   beckyhto / Atlas Obscura User
  bishbishop84 / Atlas Obscura User
Fallen Hardy Tree in early 2023.   linkogecko / Atlas Obscura User
Sadly, the ash tree has fallen down.  
The Hardy Tree, St Pancras Gardens   beckyhto / Atlas Obscura User
The site after the tree removal. You can see parts of the trunk in the background   drengur / Atlas Obscura User
  davedavidedwards / Atlas Obscura User
The gravestones can still be found around the stump of the tree in early 2023.   linkogecko / Atlas Obscura User
Located near the tree and was the insperation for the UK phonebox design   Gavin / Atlas Obscura User
  tealeaves / Atlas Obscura User
2023  
St. Pancras Old Church   Pengwn / Atlas Obscura User
Church in background   Gavin / Atlas Obscura User
  Stevren / Atlas Obscura User
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About

Inside an ancient London churchyard, an ash tree is encircled with hundreds of overlapping gravestones placed there by classic novelist Thomas Hardy.

The cemetery alongside London’s St. Pancras Old Church, which is considered by many to be one of England’s oldest places of Christian worship, is the site of a number of fascinating stories—for one, Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley planned their elopement there while visiting Mary’s mother’s grave. But perhaps one of its most striking oddities is the Hardy Tree, an ash tree surrounded by hundreds of weathered gravestones, layered practically on top of one another. How did they come to be arranged in this way?

In the mid-1860s, Britain’s rail system was experiencing immense growth, and London was outgrowing its existing lines. In order to accommodate the growing population of commuters, an expansion was planned—directly affecting the graveyard at St. Pancras.

In order to make way for the new train line, an architecture firm was contracted to perform the sensitive task of exhuming the remains and reburying them at another site. In the tradition of dumping rather unpleasant work on those lowest on the totem pole, the job was promptly assigned to their young employee, Thomas Hardy, who in the following decades would publish many classic novels such as Far from the Madding Crowd and Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

After the essential duty was completed, there remained hundreds of headstones, along with the question of what to do with them. Hardy’s solution was to place them in a circular pattern around an ash tree in the churchyard in a spot that would not be disturbed by the railway. One can only speculate as to how he arrived at this decision, but over the years the tree has absorbed many of the headstones, life and death melding into one image of grotesque and gothic beauty, preserved for centuries.

Sadly the tree has fallen victim to the same disease that killed the Lebanon Tree, Highgate Cemetery.

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St. Pancras Gardens was also used as a photoshoot for The Beatles' "White Album" in 1968. Don McCullin photographed the musicians sitting on a bench that is located near The Burdett-Coutts Memorial Sundial.

Access to the tree is somewhat limited, as a chest height fence has been erected surrounding the entire circumference of the site. The tree and headstones are still visible, but getting into close proximity is curtailed. Just East of Mary Wollstonecraft's headstone lies the rather ornate tomb of Sir John Soane, proprietor of Soane's Museum. Purportedly, the design of Soane's grave was the inspiration for Sir Giles Gilbert Scot's model for the iconic red phone box. Giles' father was none other than George Gilbert Scott, the architect of the nearby St. Pancras International Hotel.

Community Contributors

Added By

sarahvjanet

Edited By

hrnick, Mike Portanova, SEANETTA, Monsieur Mictlan...

  • hrnick
  • Mike Portanova
  • SEANETTA
  • Monsieur Mictlan
  • Ella Morton
  • Pengwn
  • tealeaves
  • Collector of Experiences
  • rbenn250
  • beckyhto
  • Gavin
  • Stevren
  • davedavidedwards
  • linkogecko
  • drengur
  • bishbishop84
  • mikemhowe
  • EmilyFouilleroux

Published

July 3, 2015

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Sources
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Pancras_Old_Church
  • http://posp.co.uk/st-pancras-old-church/
The Hardy Tree
Pancras Road
London, England, NW1 1UL
United Kingdom
51.534921, -0.13091
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