For Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, The Last Man, and other novels, the woman for whom it can be said invented the genre of science fiction, St Pancras Churchyard was a special and sacred place.
Mary Shelley wanted to be buried in St Pancras rather than with her husband in Rome because she wanted to be buried with her parents and in a place that meant so much to her. However, by 1851, the year that Mary Shelley died, this was no longer the beautiful countryside graveyard it had once been.
The railway was encroaching, the church was derelict, and worse still, the graveyard had a reputation for attracting grave robbers, something that was described by Charles Dickens in his novel, A Tale of Two Cities. Mary's daughter in law, Lady Jane, was determined that Mary Shelley would not be buried there.