St George's Fields are a former burial ground of

St George's, Hanover Square St George's, Hanover Square, is an Anglican church, the parish church of Mayfair in the City of Westminster, central London, built in the early eighteenth century as part of a project to build fifty new churches around London (the Queen Anne C ...

, lying between Connaught Street and

Bayswater Road Bayswater Road is the main road running along the northern edge of Hyde Park in London. Originally part of the A40 road, it is now designated part of the A402 road. Route In the east, Bayswater Road originates at Marble Arch roadway at th ...

de-consecrated and sold off by the

Church Commissioners The Church Commissioners is a body which administers the property assets of the Church of England. It was established in 1948 and combined the assets of Queen Anne's Bounty, a fund dating from 1704 for the relief of poor clergy, and of the Eccle ...

in the 1970s to be built upon by The Utopian Housing Association, a

housing trust In Ireland and the United Kingdom, housing associations are private, non-profit making organisations that provide low-cost "social housing" for people in need of a home. Any budget surplus is used to maintain existing housing and to help fin ...

. The architects, Design 5, used a

ziggurat A ziggurat (; Cuneiform: 𒅆𒂍𒉪, Akkadian: ', D-stem of ' 'to protrude, to build high', cognate with other Semitic languages like Hebrew ''zaqar'' (זָקַר) 'protrude') is a type of massive structure built in ancient Mesopotamia. It has ...

style of building (similar to the Brunswick by Patrick Hodgkinson), retaining much of the open space whilst creating 300 dwellings. Parts of the double walls surrounding the burial ground - reputedly designed to frustrate

grave robbers Grave robbery, tomb robbing, or tomb raiding is the act of uncovering a grave, tomb or crypt to steal commodities. It is usually perpetrated to take and profit from valuable artefacts or personal property. A related act is body snatching, a term ...

- have been preserved along with a number of tombstones. The burial ground was also used for years as an

archery Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In m ...

ground, hence the nearby Archery Close and one of the new buildings being called Archery Steps. The estate is now in private ownership although the grounds of St George's Fields are opened to the public once a year under the London Garden Square Scheme when one of London's oldest

plane trees ''Platanus'' is a genus consisting of a small number of tree species native to the Northern Hemisphere. They are the sole living members of the family Platanaceae. All mature members of ''Platanus'' are tall, reaching in height. All except f ...

, with a girth of over , may be seen set amongst the other trees. Although the buildings on the estate are not listed they have been included within the Bayswater Road

Conservation Area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...

established by the

City of Westminster The City of Westminster is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and London boroughs, borough in Inner London. It is the site of the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament and much of the British government. It occupies a large area of cent ...

to preserve the amenities of this historic area. Within ten minutes walk is

London Paddington station Paddington, also known as London Paddington, is a Central London railway terminus and London Underground station complex, located on Praed Street in the Paddington area. The site has been the London terminus of services provided by the Great We ...

, and the nearest

London Underground stations The London Underground is a metro system in the United Kingdom that serves Greater London and the home counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire. Its first section opened in 1863, making it the oldest underground metro system in the ...

are

Marble Arch The Marble Arch is a 19th-century white marble-faced triumphal arch in London, England. The structure was designed by John Nash (architect), John Nash in 1827 to be the state entrance to the cour d'honneur of Buckingham Palace; it stood near th ...

Lancaster Gate Lancaster Gate is a mid-19th century development in the Bayswater district of central London, immediately to the north of Kensington Gardens. It consists of two long terraces of houses overlooking the park, with a wide gap between them openi ...

on the Central line, and the

Edgware Road station Edgware Road is the name of two London Underground stations near the junction of Edgware Road and Marylebone Road in Central London: * Edgware Road tube station (Bakerloo line) * Edgware Road tube station (Circle, District and Hammersmith & City l ...

. Post Code to look up location on either GPS or a map is W2 2YE.Google Maps
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References

External links

* Churchyards in London Parks and open spaces in the City of Westminster Ziggurat style modern architecture {{UK-cemetery-stub