Sarcophagi

I don't know what to think of this. I have attitudes pulling me in different directions.

Let me explain.

You can see two sarcophagi in the photo - (a sarcophagus is a stone coffin, typically adorned with a sculpture or an inscription).

The bigger sarcophagus, the one nearer the wooden bench, contains the remains of John Baring, his wife, and child. The carved inscription reads:

Here rests with his dearly loved wife and child John Baring of Oakwood Chichester who died on the 17 April 1888 aged 87.

Actually I can't make out the second numeral in the age clearly, but it is eighty something and I think it is a seven.

And I can only read a couple of words from the last line that has crumbled away.

The building to the right is St John's Wood Church. The hedge to the right of the two sarcophagi marks what looks like the boundary of the church garden.

And yet the whole garden itself with the path and the benches and the trash can is called St John's Wood Church Gardens, and the gardens are completely open to the public.

So are the gardens part of the church grounds?

The gardens are called St John's Wood Church Gardens on the map. But they are formally known as St John's Wood Church Grounds.

The garden is a disused graveyard which is now a public park owned and managed by Westminster Council.

St. John's Wood was part of the Great Forest of Middlesex in medieval times. From 1323 the land was owned by the Knights of the Order of St. John, after whom the whole area is named.

Then came the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII, and the ownership of the St John's Wood passed to the Crown.

In the 1732 the site of the gardens was sold to Henry Samuel Eyre, and in the 18th century it was agricultural land on two fields called Great Garden Field and Willow Tree Field.

The whole are was developed in the 19th century, and St John's Wood Church was built and it and the burial ground were consecrated in 1814.

The burial ground was closed in 1855, and converted to a public garden in 1886. Underneath the defunct graveyard that is now a public park there around 50,000 graves,

For some reason the two sarcophagi have been left in place and are (along with 50,000 buried graves), outside the church boundary and in the public park.

And that is what I mean when I say I don't know what to think of this. I have attitudes pulling me in different directions.

It seems a little bizarre to me to effectively shove the family in a corner of the park. Looked at that way it is a bit sad, and a poor reflection of the treatment of the long dead.

On the plus side, John Baring and his wife and child rest near to people who sit on the bench and perhaps talk, as did my wife with a woman she met when we were there heading back to St John's High Street after a walkabout.