DLA019-0151  Transcription 

9 THE GROVE

HIGHGATE VILLAGE

LONDON, N. 6

July 14th 1931

Dear Mr. de Laszlo.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge,^[1] who live [sic] in Highgate for nineteen years, is buried in the graveyard of St Michael’s Church in that village. The foundation arches of a modern church have been built over the grave, which is now in a practically unknown and unvisited corner of a disused churchyard.

Feeling that it was a pity that the grave of one of our great poets should fall into entire neglect I approached the headmaster of Highgate School and the vicar and the churchwardens of St. Michael’s who are the responsible authorities, and have obtained permission from them to place a stone on the wall which runs along the main road five yards from the grave. I have an estimate from Mr Frank Etchells for an inscription indicating the position of the grave as a reminder to passers-by. The cost of engraving the stone and fixing it will not exceed £25, and I am asking twenty-five people in Highgate and Hampstead whether they will give £1 each to make up this sum. Will you be one of them?^[2]

I should not propose to have any names other than Coleridge’s on the stone, but to place a note of the subscribers in the keeping of the vicar.

Yours

John Drinkwater

SMDL

08/06/2018