The Hardy Tree is a memorial to the work done by Thomas
Hardy before he became famous for his writing. The plaque, on the railings
surrounding the tree, tells of Thomas Hardy's work here:
"The Hardy Tree
The novelist and poet Thomas Hardy (1840
- 1928) is best know 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 protege Thomas Hardy in c1865.
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 here about 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)."
Hardy wrote the following poem, 'The Levelled
Churchyard', that may have been due to his experiences here [visit
link]:
O passenger, pray list and catch
Our
sighs and piteous groans,
Half stifled in this jumbled patch
Of wrenched
memorial stones!
We late-lamented, resting here,
Are
mixed to human jam,
And each to each exclaims in fear,
'I know not which I
am!'
The wicked people have annexed
The
verses on the good;
A roaring drunkard sports the text
Teetotal Tommy
should!
Where we are huddled none can trace,
And
if our names remain,
They pave some path or p-ing place
Where we have
never lain!
There's not a modest maiden elf
But
dreads the final Trumpet,
Lest half of her should rise herself,
And half
some local strumpet!
From restorations of Thy fane,
From
smoothings of Thy sward,
From zealous Churchmen's pick and plane
Deliver
us O Lord! Amen!
1882.
An anecdote, on the same web page, adds:
""The Levelled Churchyard" was written in 1882 while
Hardy and Emma were living in Winborne, and it appears to refer specifically to
Winborne Minster. The manuscript originally bore a subtitle: "W------- Minster".
Michael Millgate explains that Hardy, while cooperating with the Society for the
Protection of Ancient Buildings, "offered, in particular, to keep a watchful eye
on work being done on Winborne Minster" The germ of the poem -- with the
scattered parts of the disinterred bodies -- may have come from an experience
twenty years earlier. In The Early Life, Hardy recounts being involved with the
overseeing of churchyards that were being cut through by railroad companies. His
employer, Arthur Blomfield, described "returning from visiting the site on which
all the bodies were said by the railway companies to be reinterred; but there
appeared to be nothing deposited, the surface of the ground quite level as
before" In order to make sure the bodies were actually buried properly, Hardy
was asked to check one such job at irregular intervals. One evening, accompanied
by Blomfield, he watched as a coffin fell apart. Out dropped a skeleton and two
skulls. When years later he met Arthur Blomfield again, "among the latter's
first words were: 'Do you remember how we found the man with two heads at St.
Pancras?'"
John Gould – Hardy Forum Archive
(2001)"