Hardy Souls

Old St.Pancras Churchyard is tucked behind the well known station. This is the base of the "Hardy Tree".
The plaque nearby tells us:

"Thomas Hardy is best known for his Wessex novels, but from 1862-67 he studied architecture in London, under Mr. Arthur Blomfield.
During the 1860s the Midland Railway Line was build over part of Old St.Pancras churchyard.
Blumfield was commissioned by the Bishop of London to supervise the exhumations & dismantling of tombs. He passed this unenviable task to his protege Thomas Hardy in 1865.
The headstones around the Ash tree would have been placed here at that time.

Dickens also mentions Old St.Pancras Churchyard in "A Tale of Two Cities" as the place where Jerry Cruncher was known to "fish", a C19th term for grave robbing & body snatching"