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A Dead Man in Clerkenwell

November 26, 2010
by the gentle author

This is the face of the dead man in Clerkenwell. He does not look perturbed by the change in the weather. Once Winters wore him out, but now he rests beneath the streets of the modern city he will never see, oblivious both to the weather and the wonders of our age, entirely oblivious to everything in fact.

Let me admit, although some might consider it poor company, I consider death to be my friend – because without mortality our time upon this earth would be worthless. So I do not fear death, but rather I hope I shall have enough life first. My fear is that death might come too soon or unexpectedly in some pernicious form. In this respect, I envy my father who always took a nap on the sofa each Sunday after gardening and one day at the age of seventy nine – when he had completed trimming the privet hedge – he never woke up again.

It was many years ago that I first made the acquaintance of the dead man in Clerkenwell, when I had an office in the Close where I used to go each day and write. I was fascinated to discover a twelfth century crypt in the heart of London, the oldest remnant of the medieval priory of the Knights of St John that once stood in Clerkenwell until it was destroyed by Henry VIII, and it was this memento mori, a sixteenth century stone figure of an emaciated corpse, which embodied the spirit of the place for me.

Last week, thanks to Pamela Willis,  curator at the Museum of the Order of St John, I went back to look up my old friend after all these years. She lent me her key and, leaving the bright November sunshine behind me, I let myself into the crypt, switching on the lights and walking to the furthest underground recess of the building where the dead man was waiting. I walked up to the tomb where he lay and cast my eyes upon him, recumbent with his shroud gathered across his groin to protect a modesty that was no longer required. He did not remonstrate with me for letting twenty years go by. He did not even look surprised. He did not appear to recognise me at all. Yet he looked different than before, because I had changed, and it was the transformative events of the intervening years that had awakened my curiosity to return.

There is a veracity in this sculpture which I could not recognise upon my previous visit, when – in my innocence – I had never seen a dead person. Standing over the figure this time, as if at a bedside, I observed the distended limbs, the sunken eyes and the tilt of the head that are distinctive to the dead. When my mother lost her mental and then her physical faculties too, I continued to feed her until she could no longer even swallow liquid, becoming as emaciated as the stone figure before me. It was at dusk on the 31st December that I came into her room and discovered her inanimate, recognising that through some inexplicable prescience the life had gone from her at the ending of the year. I understood the literal meaning of “remains,” because everything distinctive of the living person had departed to leave mere skin and bone. And I know now that the sculptor who made this effigy had seen that too, because his observation of the dead is apparent in his work, even if the bizarre number of ribs in his figure bears no relation to human anatomy.

There is a polished area on the brow, upon which I instinctively placed my hand, where my predecessors over the past five centuries had worn it smooth. This gesture, which you make as if to check his temperature, is an unconscious blessing in recognition of the commonality we share with the dead who have gone before us and whose ranks we shall all join eventually. The paradox of this sculpture is that because it is a man-made artifact it has emotional presence, whereas the actual dead have only absence. It is the tender details – the hair carefully pulled back behind the ears, and the protective arms with their workmanlike repairs – that endear me to this soulful relic.

Time has not been kind to this figure, which originally lay upon the elaborate tomb of Sir William Weston inside the old church of St James Clerkenwell, until the edifice was demolished and the current church was built in the eighteenth century, when the effigy was resigned to this crypt like an old pram slung in the cellar. Today a modern facade reveals no hint of what lies below ground. Sir William Weston, the last Prior, died in April 1540 on the day that Henry VIII issued the instruction to dissolve the Order, and the nature of his death was unrecorded. Thus, my friend the dead man is loss incarnate – the damaged relic of the tomb of the last Prior of the monastery destroyed five hundred years ago – yet he still has his human dignity and he speaks to me.

Walking back from Clerkenwell, through the teeming city to Spitalfields on this bright afternoon in late November, I recognised a similar instinct as I did after my mother’s death. I cooked myself a meal because I craved the familiar task and the event of the day renewed my desire to live more life.

12 Responses leave one →
  1. Joy permalink
    November 26, 2010

    Thanks for this lovely article – your understanding and reverence for death is delicate and evocative.

  2. JohnB permalink
    November 26, 2010

    Wonderful. Your writing always gives me pleasure. I believe we agree that Dylan Thomas was correct:

    Do not go gentle into that good night,
    Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
    Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
    Because their words had forked no lightning they
    Do not go gentle into that good night.

    Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
    Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

    Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
    And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
    Do not go gentle into that good night.

    Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
    Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

    And you, my father, there on the sad height,
    Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
    Do not go gentle into that good night.
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

  3. paul permalink
    November 26, 2010

    Dear Gentle Author, thank you for a beautiful, revealing piece on this wonderfully august tomb and I hope you will be enlightening us for many years to come!

  4. Kamala permalink
    November 26, 2010

    Oh. Thank you for this, dear gentle author.

  5. Ade Clarke permalink
    November 27, 2010

    Hi Gentle

    I visited William myself the other day, having never seen the crypt there before, and was bowled over by this hidden treasure. I’m guessing that this effigy would have formed the bottom half of a transi tomb, with an effigy of William in all his earthly finery above.

  6. jeannette permalink
    November 27, 2010

    thank you for the beautiful pictures and links as well.

  7. David Whittaker permalink
    October 31, 2012

    WONDERFUL REALLY WONDERFUL..

  8. Margot Thomson permalink
    October 31, 2012

    Wonderfully written. Enjoyed immensely.

  9. April 9, 2013

    ” because it is a man-made artifact it has emotional presence, whereas the actual dead have only absence”. One of the truest sentences I’ve ever read — and I only knew it after reading it. Ah, gentle author, your blog is such a treasure.

  10. mary kamps Milwaukee Wisconsin USA permalink
    February 24, 2015

    I love you, Gentle Author. Mary Kamps, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

  11. Pamela permalink
    March 20, 2019

    Thank you.

  12. Stuey the time traveller permalink
    November 1, 2023

    In my scribblings in response to your words, GA, I don’t believe I have ever passed judgement on your words, just my own musings to that you have evoked.

    This time it’s different, although I can append my own musings, I shall not – I was moved by this article for it’s depth and understanding, possibly because it’s in tune with my own thoughts, but more likely because of its wonderful prose.

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