The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

Why Cherish the Churchyard?   

Because it’s a site of Nature Conservation importance; because there are famous people buried here; because it’s pretty; because it’s ours to care for just as the church building is.

We have local history (tombwithaview.org.uk), we have wild flowers, we have natural habitats (all those piles of wood are left for a reason) bat and bird boxes, a measurable percentage of the capital’s acid grass and, in the right season, enough blackberries to satisfy everyone’s need.

On Saturday 6th June we’re holding an Open Day when you are invited to call in for a cup of coffee, a wander round, possibly a guided tour (work in progress) and an invitation to pick a grave to look after – to clear and weed occasionally, it doesn’t have to be a huge job.  The gardening group meets on the first Saturday of the month from 10am-12ish but you can come at any time that suits you.

And who knows what gem you might uncover? 

Felix Edward son of Manley and Kate Hopkins
died Christmas Day MDCCCLIII (1853) aged 1 year 10 months

Felix was the young brother of Gerard Manley Hopkins and it is popularly supposed that he took the name for one of his characters, Felix Randall the Farrier, from the juxtaposition of his brother’s grave and that of John Randall who died aged 7 years 5 months.  Gerard won a poetry prize at Highgate School when he was 16 though he didn’t write Felix Randall for another 20 years.
And if you’re wondering why such a famous, and famously Jesuit, poet came to be in our churchyard his father was churchwarden here and the family lived at 9 Oakhill Park from 1852 to 1886 though Gerard left for Balliol in 1863.

During his tenure as churchwarden Mr Hopkins contributed to the restoration of the memorial to John Hindley (XG001, by the lower gate down to the vicarage).  The graves along the west wall all look a bit cramped but that’s because when they were first dug the west end of the church was a considerable distance further back, the chancel and sanctuary having not yet been built. 

If they hadn’t restored it we might have lost this inscription forever:

“Here lie the ashes of Mr John Hindley of Stanhope Street, MayFair, London, originally of King Street Liverpool, who under peculiar disadvantages which to common minds would have been a bar to any exertion raised himself from all obscure situations of birth and fortune by his own industry and frugality to the enjoyment of a moderate competency.  He attained a peculiar excellence in penmanship and drawing without the instructions of a master and to eminence in arithmetic the useful and higher branches of the mathematics by going to school only a year and eight months.  He died a bacheolor on the 24th day of October 1807 in the 55th year of his age and without forgetting relations, friends or acquaintances bequeithed (sic) one fifth of his property to public charities.
Reader the world is open to thee, go thou and do likewise.”

Someone added to the Camden History Society record “An inscription that for complacent egotism is ludicrously noticeable” which is perhaps a little unfair as one assumes he didn’t compose it himself.

For the full browsing experience go the History section of the parish website where you can search on any of the graves and read the Camden History Society notes on each one.