The information board in the garden reads:
The Royal Fusiliers
(City of London Regiment)
Garden of Remembrance
Dedicated to the
officers and other ranks
who gave their lives in the service
of the Regiment
since 1685
The garden is adjacent to a major road, Holborn Viaduct, so cannot be descibed as peaceful. There are a few benches that are popular with office workers dusing the summer lunch hours.
The London Gardens Online website tells us about the church and churchyard:
A church is recorded here in c1137 when it was given to the Priory of St Bartholomew; it was originally dedicated to St Edmund. The churchyard dates from c1240 and a cross is mentioned in the south churchyard in 1370. The church was rebuilt in the C15th by Sir Hugh Popham, who was Treasurer of the King's Household and Chancellor of Normandy. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries it remained in possession of the Crown until 1610. The church bell reputedly summoned prisoners at nearby Newgate Prison to the gallows after Robert Dowe had left an endowment to the parish in his will of 1605 on condition that a hand-bell which he also left should give '12 solemn tolls with double strokes, and then, after a proper pause, deliver a solemn exhortation' and that the 'great bell of the church should toll on the morning, and that, as the criminals passed the wall, the bellman or sexton should look over it and say 'All good people pray heartily unto God for these poor sinners, who are now going to their death', a practice which was discontinued after the place of execution moved from here. Much of the present building dates from 1670 when Wren rebuilt the earlier building largely destroyed in the Great Fire. However by 1790 it was in a state of decay following which substantial restoration work took place. From the north end of the church porch a passage ran to the burial ground on the north side.
Among those buried here was Captain John Smith, Governor of Virginia (d.1631) who went to America following participation in the war with Hungary where he reputedly overcame three Turks in single combat. He was taken prisoner by the Indians but escaped and 'subsequently had a considerable share in reducing New England', published a Map of Virginia in 1612 and other books related to his travels in America and Europe. The churchyard wall once extended into the street on the south, which made the passageway narrow so that in 1760 the churchyard was levelled and open to the public, although in 1802 it was once more enclosed. In 1791 a Watch-House was built on Giltspur Street to the north of the church to protect the churchyard from body snatchers and the wrought-iron gates to the north may be C18th. This building was destroyed by World War II bombing and a replica erected in 1962 designed by Seely and Paget. On the wall of the Watch House is a bust of Charles Lamb by W Reynolds-Stephens of 1935, which was formerly in Christ Church.
Part of the churchyard was lost when Holborn Viaduct was constructed in 1871 and the road widened. Bodies were re-interred in the City of London Cemetery (q.v.) What remains of the former churchyard area on the south and east sides of the church was laid out as a public garden with grass, mature trees and a number of seats, and it contains a tomb with carved and Coade stone ornament to Edward Chandler, d.1780. The church has historically been connected with the Royal Fusiliers City of London Regiment, and the churchyard incorporates a Garden of Remembrance dedicated to officers and other ranks who gave their lives in service of the regiment since 1685.
The churchyard is bounded by substantial railings to Holborn Viaduct over a dwarf wall. In the south east, set into the wall, are the remains of a drinking fountain originally installed in 1859 with a neo-Norman surround. This was taken down and sited in the current location when the churchyard was truncated by the building of Holborn Viaduct. It had been the gift of Samuel Gurney MP and was the first to be erected by the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association.
The Forces War Record website tells us:
The Regiment was first formed in 1685 by George Legge, 1st Baron of Dartmouth in order to support King James II during the Monmouth Rebellion, when James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth (the illegitimate son of Charles II and the King’s nephew) unsuccessfully attempted to overthrow the unpopular King.
The Regiment was initially named as the Ordinance Regiment and employed as an elite corps for escorting and protecting artillery guns. The Regiment was armed with the ‘Fusil’ muskets which was the most modern weapon of the day, instead of matchlock muskets which held the the danger of igniting the open topped barrels of gunpowder carried by the artillery. The Regiment became the Royal Regiment of Fuzileers and went on to served during the Nine Years War (1688–97), fighting at the Siege of Namur in 1695.
In 1751 all British Regiments were awarded a numerical title according to their precedence therefore the Regiment became known as the 7th (Royal Fusiliers) Regiment of Foot. In 1773 the Regiment deployed to garrison Quebec in order to quell the increasing civil unrest prior to the American War of Independence (1775–1783). In 1775 9 of the Regiments 10 companies were captured while the remaining one was besieged in Quebec. In 1776 prisoners of the Royal Fuzileers were successfully exchanged for rebels and with the relief of Quebec the Regiment was able to reform in New York. The Regiment went on to fight at the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse and besieged and captured the City of Charleston during the Southern Campaign but suffered terrible casualties during the Battle of Cowpens and was unable to recover until it returned to England in 1783.
During the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) the Regiment captured the Danish city of Copenhagen in 1807 and the French island colony of Martinique in 1809, before joining the Duke of Wellington’s famed Fusilier Brigade and fought at the Battles of Talavera (1809), Busaco (1810), Albuera (1811), the siege of Badajos (1811), the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo (1812), Salamanca (1812), Vittoria (1813), Roncesvalles (1813), San Sebastien (1813), Orthes (1814) and Toulouse (1814). Following the defeat of Napoleon the Regiment was dispatched to America to curb the expansionist ambitions of the United States, which tried to annex Canada during the war of 1812 (1812-1815). The War was a 32-month military conflict between the United States and the British Empire, resolving many of the remaining issues of the American War of Independence, and the Regiment fought in the unsuccessful attempt to capture of New Orleans.
The next 39 years were relatively uneventful for the Regiment until 1854 when it was dispatched to serve in the Crimean War (1853–1856) fighting at the Battle of the Alma and Inkerman as well as during the siege and relief of Sevastopol.
In 1881 the Childers Reforms restructured the British army infantry into a network of multi-battalion Regiments each having two regular and two militia battalions. The Regiment managed to avoid amalgamation but the number of precedence was dropped and became The Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment). The Regiment went on to serve during the Second Boer Wars (1899–1902) and two World Wars. Due to Government Defence Reviews on the 23rd April 1968 the Regiment was merged with the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers (5th Foot), The Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers (6th Foot) and the Lancashire Fusiliers (20th Foot) to form The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers of the Queens Division.
Since 1815 the balance of power in Europe had been maintained by a series of treaties. In 1888 Wilhelm II was crowned ‘German Emperor and King of Prussia’ and moved from a policy of maintaining the status quo to a more aggressive position. He did not renew a treaty with Russia, aligned Germany with the declining Austro-Hungarian Empire and started to build a Navy rivalling that of Britain. These actions greatly concerned Germany’s neighbours, who quickly forged new treaties and alliances in the event of war. On 28th June 1914 Franz Ferdinand the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne was assassinated by the Bosnian-Serb nationalist group Young Bosnia who wanted pan-Serbian independence. Franz Joseph's the Austro-Hungarian Emperor (with the backing of Germany) responded aggressively, presenting Serbia with an intentionally unacceptable ultimatum, to provoke Serbia into war. Serbia agreed to 8 of the 10 terms and on the 28th July 1914 the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia, producing a cascade effect across Europe. Russia bound by treaty to Serbia declared war with Austro-Hungary, Germany declared war with Russia and France declared war with Germany. Germany’s army crossed into neutral Belgium in order to reach Paris, forcing Britain to declare war with Germany (due to the Treaty of London (1839) whereby Britain agreed to defend Belgium in the event of invasion). By the 4th August 1914 Britain and much of Europe were pulled into a war which would last 1,566 days, cost 8,528,831 lives and 28,938,073 casualties or missing on both sides.
The Royal Fusiliers raised an additional 76 battalions and were awarded 80 Battle Honours and 12 Victoria Crosses (two of which were the first awarded in the war for the Battle of Mons and the last two of the war in North Russia) losing 15,600 men during the course of the war. In 1914 1,600 members of the Stock exchange joined the Regiment to form the Stock Exchange Battalion, 400 of which were killed during the war. Five Battalions of the Regiment (the 38th to the 42nd) served as the Jewish Legion in Palestine and many contributed to the founding of the State of Israel in 1948.