Plaque

St Olave's Church

Inscription

St Olave's Church
Forward! Christ - Men. Cross - Men.
"Our own church" - Samuel Pepys, who came through this gate from the Navy Office and his home in Seething Lane to worship here. 
"My best beloved churchyard, the churchyard of St Ghastly Grim" - Charles Dickens, 'The Uncommercial Traveller'.

From the burial register:
1586 Sept. 14th Mother Goose
1665 (the Great Plague) 365 names
1703 June 4th Samuel Pepys Esq. buried in a vault under ye communion table.

'The Uncommerical Traveller' was the name of articles that Dickens wrote for his own journal 'All the Year Round'.

Site: St Olave's Church (1 memorial)

EC3, Hart Street

The ghoulish entrance to the graveyard is well-known, with the three skulls and the quote from St Paul about happiness in death. The inscription includes a date, 11 April 1658, Easter Day and, we guess, the day the gateway was inaugurated. 

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the subjects commemorated on the memorial on this page:
St Olave's Church

Subjects commemorated i

Navy Office, Seething Lane

Built on the site of Walsingham's mansion, this was the Navy Office in which ...

Read More

St Olave Hart Street - church

Survived the Great Fire but was so badly damaged in WW2 that for the period 1...

Read More

Great Plague

Europe suffered a number of bubonic plaque epidemics from 1347 – 1750.  The l...

Read More

Mother Goose

The interment register at St Olaves Hart Street records Mother Goose being bu...

Read More

Samuel Pepys

Diarist and Secretary of the Admiralty.  Born Salisbury Court, where his fath...

Read More

This section lists the subjects who helped to create/erect the memorial on this page:
St Olave's Church

Created by i

Charles Dickens

Born, son of Elizabeth and John Dickens, at No.1 Mile End Terrace, Landport, ...

Read More

Nearby Memorials

Borough Market Bell (1)

Borough Market Bell (1)

SE1, Middle Road, Borough Market

The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall carried out the first ringing of the bell.

3 subjects commemorated, 1 creator
Walter Clopton Wingfield

Walter Clopton Wingfield

SW1, St George's Square, 33

Greater London Council Major Walter Clopton Wingfield, 1833 - 1912, father of lawn tennis, lived here.

2 subjects commemorated, 1 creator
Battle of Trafalgar - Brentford war memorial

Battle of Trafalgar - Brentford war memorial

TW8, Kew Bridge Road, 56, The Express Tavern Public House

This plaque is a rare thing - a war memorial naming the enlisted men who died in a war prior to 1900. Admittedly it was erected quite re...

War dead | Other war
21 subjects commemorated
James Boswell

James Boswell

W1, Great Portland Street, 122

LCC James Boswell (1740 - 1795), biographer, lived and died in a house on this site.

1 subject commemorated, 1 creator
David Bomberg

David Bomberg

NW2, Fordwych Road, 10

David Bomberg, 1890 - 1957, painter, lived and worked here 1928 - 1934. English Heritage

1 subject commemorated, 1 creator