IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Camden Street, LONDON, NW1 0HS

This small urban open space recently won a Green Flag Award for excellence after it was rescued and returned to general community use having served for years as a haunt of drinkers and drug dealers. It has been planted with an eye to biodiversity; there is a children's playspace and information boards on its history. For information on the grave and the cross see Image

Gravestones lined up along the north wall which is said to be original, and therefore over 200 years old.

In 1802 this former farmland was handed to St Martin's in the Fields (Trafalgar Square) for the burial of its parishioners.

In the late 1970s the nearest building was a squat inhabited by members of the (then highly-political) band Scritti Politti; the squalid interior is shown on the sleeve of their first single. Now very much refurbished.

Small area that has been set aside as a public space. It was originally consecrated in 1805 as an overflow cemetery for St Martin-in the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, and a few years later a chapel and almshouses (left, behind the west wall) were built. In 1854 permission was given to develop the site but this caused a riot when bodies were dug up and the labourers were driven off. It is said that the central mound contains the corpses exhumed at that time. The public drinking fountain in the foreground dates from 1889.

Looking north-northeast.

Sir John Barrow (1764-1848) was a traveller, mapmaker, naval administrator and founder of the Royal Geographical Society in 1830. As Second Secretary to the Admiralty, a post he held for 40 years, he promoted a number of exploring expeditions in West Africa and the Arctic, notably that of Sir John Franklin, as well as being to a large measure responsible for the naval successes of the Napoleonic Wars. See http://www.sirjohnbarrowmonument.co.uk/sir_john_barrow_contents.htm Charles Dibdin (1745-1814), songwriter, musician, dramatist and actor, also had a nautical connection in that his sea songs were said to be worth ten thousand sailors to the cause of England and were officially appropriated by the British navy to use during the war with France. His life was marred by scandal and misfortune and despite great acclaim he died poor. However this Celtic Cross memorial was erected by public subscription in 1889 after his original tomb collapsed. A verse from his well-known song Tom Bowling (written about his brother) is inscribed upon it: His form was of the manliest beauty, His heart was kind and soft, Faithful, below, he did his duty; But now he's gone aloft. See http://www.contemplator.com/history/dibdin.html In St Martin's Gardens, Camden Town.

Seen from its junction with Camden Street