Visit St George's churchyard and gardens

Separated from the Church of St George the Martyr in Southwark by a short pedestrianised section of Tabard Street, St George's churchyard and garden is a fairly peaceful place, set back from the hustle and bustle of Borough High Street.


The church itself dates from the 18th-century and the churchyard was opened as a park as early as 1882, when Southwark Metropolitan Borough Council made the necessary arrangements, and in 1903 part of it was lost when the now-pedestrianised section of Tabard Street was extended through it.

In an area with strong Dickensian connections, it is perhaps unsurprising that the church featured in Little Dorrit, but a more intriguing memorial in the alleyway behind the park reminds us that this site once bordered the old Marshalsea Debtor's Prison, where the writer's father John Dickens was imprisoned for three months in 1824.

For more, see http://www.burial.magic-nation.co.uk/bgstgeorgemartyr.htm