St Pancras Gardens: The story behind the unusual tree surrounded by gravestones created by a famous

Hidden in an ancient cemetery alongside London’s St. Pancras Old Church, in St Pancras Gardens is an unusual ash tree encircled by hundreds of overlapping gravestones.

This unusual sight has a very interesting history, which involves the famous novelist, Thomas Hardy.

The story goes that before Hardy was penning classics such as Far from the Madding Crowd and Tess of the d'Urbervilles, to when he was working as a junior architect.

During this time in the mid 1860s, Britain's rail system was experiencing immense growth and was outgrowing its existing lines.

To accommodate for this growth an expansion was undertaken, but it meant that the graveyard at St Pancras had to be moved.

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In comes a young Thomas Hardy, as his architecture firm was brought in to exhume the bodies in the graveyard and transport them to the new site.

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Being a young apprentice this unfortunate and difficult task was left to him.

Once the bodies had been moved there were hundreds of headstones left, which Hardy decided to arrange in a circular pattern around an ash tree in the graveyard where they would not be disturbed by the railway.

As a result, the tree is now commonly known as the Hardy Tree.

It is not known why he decided to arrange them in this way, but they now offer a unique and unusual memorial to those of the past.

Have you ever seen the unusual gravestones? Let us know in the comment section here.

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