More About King Billy
Sorry about the delay here - I'm finally reposting this after a week or so of prevarication (the splendid Phantom Webmaster was away and I'm a technical toddler without TPW) But now the link should work...
There's been a huge amount of interest in the digging going on around the site of the Old St Mary's Church, where King William stands (curiously, according to the article below, the poor guy's even facing the wrong direction - he was apparently supposed to be looking south into the park...) and both John and Tony have sent me some clues that imply that the land is still consecrated - and that there are over three hundred bodies under there - some of whose coffins are just a few inches under the soil...
Tony sent me a link to a truly fascinating document written a few years ago by the author William Clarke, who, at the time was editor of the Friends of Greenwich Park. It's so beautifully written that I'm not going to reinvent the wheel here - here it is for your own perusal - I highly recommend it as a utterly intriguing read. I am sure the NNM already know of its existence.
Tony sent me a link to a truly fascinating document written a few years ago by the author William Clarke, who, at the time was editor of the Friends of Greenwich Park. It's so beautifully written that I'm not going to reinvent the wheel here - here it is for your own perusal - I highly recommend it as a utterly intriguing read. I am sure the NNM already know of its existence.
posted by The Greenwich Phantom at
07:42
19 Comments:
Would love to know more about St Mary's - it was a striking church. But the link's not working.
Thanks Paul - I've re-posted and it now works for me. Could you tell me if it works for you too?
sorry, no, tried it with Firefox and Safari and link goes to a https.google.co.uk site.
The anticipation is killing me!
we go get a google video of someone writing a 'love letter' on a lap top, though. Is that it??
Heavens - I've no idea what that is - I don't get that picture (and BTW I don't generally use a laptp in case you think it's me!!) Maybe everyone gets something different.
Okay - so, for some weird reason Google/blogger doesn't seem to want to link to its own sites - it's a googledoc. I've emailed the Phantom Webmaster to ask about how to upload it/link to but if anyone else knows - please tell me. I often have interesting PDFs to share, but I've so far not found a satisfactory way of doing it.
Not that I'm rubbish with technology or anything...
Right - the Phantom Webmaster reckons it's something to do with a very strange double-dot in the filename. It can be got round, but TPW's away this weekend, so you'll just have to wait, I'm afraid. I may well take this post down so that lots of people don't try to click on it and have a duff time, but I'll leave this message for a while so you know I'm working on it.
Looks like you might be trying to link to a PDF which is in your gmail account?
You need to download it to your computer and upload it to your blog to host it...
Okay - I'll give it a whizz.
Fascinating reading! Id be interested in seeing a list of those buried in the vaults as a large proportion of my ancestors are said to be buried in and around Greenwich. Does anyone know if the records are available to the public?
Might be hard to track down ancestors of the "Anonymous" family tree! Unfortunate surname ;)
I'd like to read this doc but it's rotated at 90 degrees and my browser won't let me rotate it to a neck friendly angle.
Mine wouldn't do it either, so I printed it out.
On the sideways PDF problem - if you right-click on the document* and choose ''rotate clockwise'' it instantly saves you printer ink.
*I don't know whether this depends on your browser - it works in Firefox though.
Good idea, I'll print it. Will give me some reading on the train home.
Incidentally Phantom, your last post on King Billy made me look into his life a bit more (bless Wikipedia) and have to say I like the cut of his jib. In fact he's turned into a bit of a favourite of mine, what with his sailing career, being mates with Nelson (lunching together every day for years) and being an all round good egg (compared to George IV at least).
Tee hee - but let's face it EVERYONE was a good egg in comparison to George IV (though at least we laugh at him now, ever since Hugh Laurie played him so perfectly)
Hugh Laurie was hilarious as the Prince Regent but another good portrayal (and probably closer to reality too) is by Julian Fellowes in Sharpe's Regiment - corpulant, drunk and unpleasant!
Yes, I definitely prefer Sailor Billy!
Fascinating, many thanks for posting this.
SO it's still consecrated ground, with vaults beneath; as far as I can tell from the model, there will be a wide footpath on the right-hand side of this area (once the lorries have ceased rumbling over). I wonder if they will leave any clues to the existence of the church, and vaults, or whether they'll simply be regarded as a part of history we can conveniently forget?
This also reminds me of the vandalism of the C of E, who even in the 30s showed disturbing zeal in destroying their own built legacy. They demolished All Hallow's Lombard Street in 1938, somewhat miffed they'd not been allowed to complete their plan for demolishing 19 city churches.
Your posts often take me on a fascinating internet journey following up some point of interest. This time I was looking for more information on St. Mary's Church, and came across this page from a strange publication called 'Notes & Queries':
http://nq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/issue_pdf/frontmatter_pdf/CLXI/jul18.pdf.
I wonder if St. Alfege's ever raised the money to refurbish the organ? Does anyone know?
Would you happen to know where the article came from and the date?
Thanks.
It's from the 1998 transactions of the Greenwich Histiorical Society – “William IV and the coffins of St Mary”.
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