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when a sewer was
being constructed beneath it.
    Having for many years charged cheap burial fees, the crypt beneath the chapel had long proved a popular choice among the local poor from whence to embark on the afterlife. With
the sewer requiring that the chapel undergo structural alterations, the Baptist minister took the opportunity to remove some of the ‘earth’ building up beneath his chapel. He had the
earth carried off to a new road being built on the south side of Waterloo Bridge and the alarm was raised when a human hand was discovered in one of the carts. It emerged that the church’s
worshippers had had only a few floor boards separating them from over 12,000 people interred in the crypt, covered by the merest scattering of earth.
    The renovation works were halted and the chapel subsequently closed, to be taken over by a group of teetotallers who seemed content to hold dances and host a Sunday school just a matter of feet
and inches above the corpses. The affairbrought attention to the disgraceful state of many of the city’s burial grounds and a Parliamentary Select Committee was
established to deal with numerous overflowing sites from Aldgate to Soho. A worshipper from Enon Chapel was called to give evidence and told the committee:
    At the time I attended it ... there were interments, and the place was in a very filthy state: the smell was most abominable and very injurious; I have frequently gone home with a severe
headache which I supposed to have been occasioned by the smell, more particularly in the summer time; also, there were insects ... I have seen them in the summertime hundreds of them flying about
the chapel; I have taken them home in my hat, and my wife has taken them home in her clothes; we always considered that they proceed from the dead bodies underneath.
    The remains were finally removed in 1847 and reburied in a single pit in a cemetery in Norwood, but not before becoming something of a tourist attraction. In his 1878 work London Old and
New , Thornbury wrote:
    The work of exhumation was then commenced, and a pyramid of human bones was exposed to view, separated from piles of coffin wood in various stages of decay. This ‘Golgotha’ was
visited by about 6000 persons, previous to its removal, and some idea may be formed of the horrid appearance of the scene, when it is stated that the quantity of remains comprised four upheaved van
loads.
    The London School of Economics’ St Clement’s Building now sits atop the former charnel house.

Essex House

    Near the Strand
    L OCATED ON THE CURRENT E SSEX S TREET , SOUTH of the Strand, Essex House was home
to the Bishops of Essex from the early 1300s.
    In a history chequered with uprisings, the property witnessed Walter Stapleton holding out against the rebellious city populace here in 1326 until they stormed the gates,
plundering or burning the plate, money, jewellery and goods contained within. Bishop Stapleton rode out on his horse to seek sanctuary but was dragged from his saddle near St Paul’s and
hauled by the mob to Cheapside, where he was stripped and beheaded. His head was set on a pole and his body burnt in a pile of rubbish outside his own gates.
    In the 16th century, Essex House became the property of Robert, Earl of Essex, one of Elizabeth I ’s favourites. But after a failed military campaign in Ireland, he
foolishly attempted to rouse the city against the queen. Despite being personally popular, none of the citizenry joined his cause and while attempting to return home, he was met by a troop of
soldiers who promptly delivered him to the Tower of London. After being tried for treason, he was beheaded on 25 February 1601 on Tower Hill.
    His son, Robert Devereux, achieved some success as a Parliamentarian general during the Civil War and received a delegation from the House of Commons at Essex House after his victory at the
First Battle of Newbury in 1643. When Pepys visited Devereux’s body as it lay in state in 1646,