From Fleet Street I wandered up Fetter Lane - and found my first proper Pocket Park of the day - complete with shrubs in flower! St Andrew's Gardens - not far from Holborn and next door to that centre of Methodism, the City Temple.
Here is the history: St Andrew's Gardens are laid out as two rectangular lawns bisected by a central path with mature London planes and an ancient weeping ash. Many of the headstones were re-sited near the northern entrance but a few C18th chest tombs remain in situ in the gardens. A granite drinking fountain and a small red brick lodge date from the C19th.
Formerly a burial ground for St Andrew's Holborn that closed for burials in 1850, the site was converted into public gardens in 1885 when St Pancras Borough Council acquired it along with a strip of land at the southern edge.
I spent a few minutes in the church - Sir Christopher Wren's largest parish church I am told - but will go back another day. For now it was the garden that I enjoyed. Being near lunchtime, most of the bench seats were occupied - mainly by men who shouted their conversations across the grass. The blues and the reds caught my eye.
Traffic roared above - but there was an air of peacefulness tucked away not far from Holborn Viaduct. I have a very early pre-war memory of that stretch of City roadway - travelling in a tram from the Christmas pantomime at the Lyceum to my grandparents' home in Islington. The memory is fresh in my mind as though it were yesterday
