St Anne's Churchyard, also known as St Anne's Gardens, is a public park on

Wardour Street Wardour Street () is a street in Soho, City of Westminster, London. It is a one-way street that runs north from Leicester Square, through Chinatown, across Shaftesbury Avenue to Oxford Street. Throughout the 20th century the street became a c ...

Soho Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develo ...

, London. Formerly the churchyard of

St Anne's, Soho Saint Anne's Church serves in the Church of England the Soho section of London. It was consecrated on 21 March 1686 by Bishop Henry Compton as the parish church of the new civil and ecclesiastical parish of St Anne, created from part of the pari ...

, it was closed to burials in 1853. It rises 6 ft above the pavement, because of the 13,000 burials within it. It was laid out as a garden by the landscape gardener

Fanny Wilkinson Fanny Wilkinson (1855–1951) was a British landscape designer. She was the first professional female landscape designer in Britain, and responsible for the design and the layout of more than 75 public gardens across London in the late 19th centu ...

on behalf of the

Metropolitan Public Gardens Association The Metropolitan Public Gardens Association (also known as the MPGA) is a charity in London for the purposes of the preservation of public parks and gardens, established in 1882. It facilitated the creation of new public open spaces, including f ...

in 1891. It was opened to the public by Lady Hobhouse in 1892. The London plane trees remain a notable feature of the garden. It is managed by

Westminster City Council Westminster City Council is the local authority for the City of Westminster in Greater London, England. The city is divided into 20 wards, each electing three councillors. The council is currently composed of 31 Labour Party members and 23 Con ...

and has received the

Green Flag Award The Green Flag Award is an international accreditation given to publicly accessible parks and open spaces, managed under licence from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, a UK Government department, by Keep Britain Tidy ...

. War memorials to

WWI World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and

WWII World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

are located in the churchyard on the wall of the church tower. The WWII memorial was only installed in 2012. There are a small number of memorials remaining within the churchyard, including the German adventurer

Theodore von Neuhoff Theodore I of Corsica (25 August 169411 December 1756), born Freiherr Theodor Stephan von Neuhoff, was a low-ranking German title of nobility, usually translated "Baron". was a German adventurer who was briefly King of Corsica. Theodore is the subj ...

, who was briefly King of Corsica in 1736, and the essayist

William Hazlitt William Hazlitt (10 April 177818 September 1830) was an English essayist, drama and literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English lan ...

, whose gravestone was restored in 2003. The gardens contain a memorial to the victims of the 1999 Admiral Duncan pub bombing. There are three art installations, all of which serve practical purposes: "Wall of Light" (an illuminated security fence), "Art Loo" (a WC with art displays) and "Table" (a monumentally-sized picnic table).

References

Soho, London {{london-stub