Requiem for London• 189were used when the churchyards could hold no more, causing people to re-
name the land “Deadman’s Place.” It is unlikely that the stopgap burial place
had been sanctified, for the bishop of London insisted that sanctified ground
must remain so in perpetuity. The marshes at Gravesend became a mass
grave for religious dissenters who had held services illegally and died on the
Black Eagleprison ship before it could take them to exile in Jamaica.^22
At Saint Bride’s the vestry acted quickly as plague deaths mounted. The
parish’s regular bearer, Adam Baldwin, was joined by Edward Jennings and
Henry Meades, who eagerly accepted the twelve shillings a week (soon
raised to fifteen) offered by the vestry “for carrying the corps that shall dye of
the plague.” Their pay was to come from the customary fees for that service
on “all persons visited that are able to pay.” To lodge the new bearers at a safe
distance from the public, the parish beadle cleared out the halberds and
other arms stored at a shed inside the walls of the churchyard.^23
Finding space for single graves became a problem. Saint Bride’s grave-
maker was initially instructed to make no graves without supervision by the
churchwarden. Within two weeks the vestry added that he “digg the graves
deepe” and asked the churchwarden “to give him something extraordinary
for his paines as he shall thinke fitt.” The neighboring parishes of Saint
Dunstan in the West and Saint Martin Ludgate were charged heavily for
burying their dead in the same grounds. These extra burials came to well
over one thousand in addition to the twenty-two hundred residents of Saint
Bride’s who died during the year.
A week after his raise in pay, Henry Meades was dead. Two new bearers
took his place. The upper churchyard was closed to all but families of the
congregation who had held offices. All others were to be buried in the re-
cently acquired lower churchyard, which contained more room and (more
conveniently) no graves of past parish notables to be disturbed. The grounds
quickly became an eyesore. To make it safer for the rector and his clerk to
come there for burials, the bearers were forbidden to roam about in the
churchyard or hang their clothes on the grounds. Saint Giles Cripplegate
faced a similar problem, forcing neighboring houses backing onto the
churchyard to lock their back doors and prohibiting the drying of clothes
and collecting of rainwater from their roofs.^24
By mid-August Saint Bride’s was burying more than twenty bodies every
night. The number reached the forties as September began. Laborers were
hired at 2 s. 6 d. a day “for the digging of the pitts.” Neighboring women were
paid to serve breakfasts to the men, and food and drink were added as they
labored. They were given new shovels and pickaxes as the old ones broke. By