hrygian nobleman, who suffered
death under the Emperor Dioclesian, for his zealous adherence to
the Christian faith.

[2] Lysons's Environs, 4to. vol. ii. part ii.

[3] The parish extends in this direction to the foot of Gray's
Inn Lane, and includes part of a house in Queen's Square.

[4] Anciently Kentistonne, where William Bruges, Garter King at
Arms in the reign of Henry V. had a country-house, at which he
entertained the emperor Sigismund.

It would occupy too much space to detail the progressive increase of
this district. When a visitation of the church was made in the year
1251, there were only forty houses in the parish. The desolate situation
of the village in the latter part of the sixteenth century is
emphatically described by Norden, in his _Speculum Britanniae_. After
noticing the solitary condition of the church, he says, "yet about this
structure have bin manie buildings now decaied, leaving poore Pancras
without companie or comfort." In some manuscription additions to his
work, the same writer has the following observations:--"Although this
place be, as it were, forsaken of all; and true men seldom frequent the
same, but upon devyne occasions; yet it is visyted by thieves, who
assemble there not to pray, but to wait for praye; and manie fell into
their handes, clothed, that are glad when they are escaped naked. Walk
not there too late." Newcourt, whose work was published in 1700, says
that houses had been built near the church. The first important increase
of the parish took place in the neighbourhood of Tottenham Court Road.

"Pancras Church," says Norden, "standeth all alone, as utterly forsaken,
old and wether-beten, which, for the antiquity thereof, it is thought
not to yield to Paules in London." It is of rude Gothic architecture,
built of stones and flints, which are now covered with plaster. Mr.
Lysons says, "It is certainly not older than the fourteenth century,
perhaps in Norden's time it had the appearance of great decay; the same
building, nevertheless, repaired from time to time, still remains; looks
no longer 'old and wether-beten,' and may still exist perhaps to be
spoken of by some antiquary of a future century. It is a very small
structure, consisting only of a nave and chancel; at the west end is a
low tower, with a kind of dome."[5] Mr. Lysons speaks of the
disproportionate size of the church to the population of the parish; but
since his time anothe