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. 

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

General Gordon's birth place - lost plaque, oblong

General Gordon's birth place - lost plaque, oblong

SE18, Woolwich Common, 29

At our request Rosemary and Richard Christophers of The Lightbox, previously Woking Museum, put paid to the rumour that the plaque is hel...

1 subject commemorated
Prebendary Wilson Carlile

Prebendary Wilson Carlile

W8, Sheffield Terrace, 32 - 34

Chesterton at 32. Carlile at 34, behind the scaffolding.

2 subjects commemorated, 1 creator
Mrs W. F. Stanley

Mrs W. F. Stanley

SE25, South Norwood Hill, 12

The portrait medallions are on the right hand flank wall, on Cumberlow Avenue. Reading left to right: W. F. R. Stanley; Mrs W. F. Stanley...

1 subject commemorated
Fanny Cradock

Fanny Cradock

E11, Fairlop Road, Fairwood Court

The plaque gives Fanny one too many "D"s.

2 subjects commemorated, 1 creator
Dame Ida Mann

Dame Ida Mann

NW2, Minster Road, 13

This house is on the corner of the street in which Ida Mann was born, Fordwych Road, number 67. She lived in Minster Road aged 9 - 41.

1 subject commemorated, 1 creator