St George's Fields are a former burial ground of

St George's, Hanover Square St George's, Hanover Square, is an Church of England, 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 ...

, lying between Connaught Street and

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

Tyburnia Tyburnia is an area in Paddington, London, originally developed following an 1824 masterplan drawn up by Samuel Pepys Cockerell (1753–1827) to redevelop the historic lands of the Bishop of London, known as the Tyburn Estate, into a residential ...

deconsecrated Deconsecration, also referred to as decommissioning or ''secularization'' (a term also used for the external confiscation of church property), is the removal of a religious sanction and blessing from something that had been previously consec ...

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. 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'), ( Persian: Chogha Zanbilچغازنجبیل) is a type of massive ...

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 - 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 and arrow, bow to shooting, shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting ...

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. The type ...

, 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 or cultural values. Protected areas are those areas in which human presence or the exploitation of natural resources (e.g. firewoo ...

established by the

City of Westminster The City of Westminster is a London borough with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in Greater London, England. It is the site of the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament and much of the British government. It contains a large par ...

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

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

, and the nearest

London Underground stations The London Underground is a rapid transit, 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 ...

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 in 1827 as the state entrance to the cour d'honneur of Buckingham Palace; it stood near the site of what is today 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. History It consists of two long terraces of houses overlooking the park, with a wide gap between t ...

on the Central line, and Edgware Road station on the

Circle A circle is a shape consisting of all point (geometry), points in a plane (mathematics), plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the Centre (geometry), centre. The distance between any point of the circle and the centre is cal ...

District A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municip ...

, and Hammersmith & City lines. Post Code to look up location on either GPS or a map is W2 2YE.Google Maps
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References

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