The church and the hospital had long survived the
intentions of the founders; yet as they stood, so situated, so
ancient, so venerable, amid a dense population of rough sailors and
sailor folk, with such enormous possibilities for good and useful
work, sacred and secular, one is lost in wonder that the consent of
Parliament, even for purposes of gain, could be obtained for their
destruction. Yet St. Katherine's was destroyed. When the voice of the
preacher died away, the destroyers began their work. They pulled down
the church; they hacked up the monuments, and dug up the bones; they
destroyed the Master's house, and cut down the trees in his quiet
orchard; they pulled down the Brothers' houses round the little
ancient square; they pulled down the row of Sisters' houses and the
Bedeswomen's houses; they swept the people out of the Precinct, and
destroyed the streets; they pulled down the Courts, Spiritual and
Temporal, and opened the doors of the prison; they grubbed up the
burying ground, and with the bones and the dust of the dead, and the
rubbish of the foundations, they filled up the old reservoir of the
Chelsea water-works, and enabled Mr.
Cubitt to build Eccleston Square. When all was gone they let the water
into the big hole they had made, and called it St.
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