According to John Norden, a 16th century cartographer, St Pancras raised the first altar to Christ in Britain, anterior to the Saxon invasion. He added that in his day, the church was all alone as utterly forsaken, old and weather beaten, but that it yielded nothing to Paule's in London for antiquity.

Old St Pancras Church

The Hardy Tree

The plaque on the fence around the tree says:

The Hardy Tree, Old St Pancras Churchyard, London
"....... Thomas Hardy "studied architecture in London from 1862-67 under Mr. Arthur Blomfield, an architect based in Covent Garden. During the 1860s the Midland Railway line was being built over part of the original St. Pancras Churchyard. Blomfield was commissioned by the Bishop of London to supervise the proper exhumation of human remains and dismantling of tombs. He passed this unenviable task to his protegé Thomas Hardy in. c.l865. Hardy would have spent many hours in St. Pancras Churchyard . . . overseeing the careful removal of bodies and tombs from the land on which the railway was being built. The headstones around this ash tree (Fraxinus excelsior) would have been placed here about that time. Note how the tree has since grown in amongst the stones....."

King's Cross bore the name Battle Bridge until 1830,