W'on, for your benefit and Jackie's, I'll add a little background to this story.

The Westminster churchyard is not just behind the church -- it's actually under the church. The church was built on piers so that it is raised over the graves it covers. You can actually go underneath it to view some tombs and monuments, mostly now in bad repair. This is, of course, because the cemetery was there first.

In the 18th century, they didn't allow any burying grounds within the city limits because of the fear of contaminating the wells. Also, there were no freestanding or independent cemeteries, only the burial grounds or "churchyards" belonging to churches. Usually the churchyard is next to a church, but if the church was in the city, the churchyard had to be some distance away. The oldest church in Baltimore is Old St. Pauls (Episcopal), established as an Anglican parish in 1673 some distance from its present location, moved to its present location in 1705 when the city of Baltimore was established. The current building, the third on the site, is at Charles & Saratoga Sts., which was about a quarter mile north of the city in 1705. Its churchyard is at Lombard Street and Martin Luther King Blvd, which is 6 blocks south and about 10 blocks west. Westminster church and churchyard are at Fayette & Greene Sts., which is only 2 blocks north and 2 blocks east of St. Paul's churchyard. Westminster Presbyterian was located in the old part of the city originally and at some point, around the turn of the 19th century I believe, had to move, so it was decided to build a new church above the churchyard. In order not to disturb the graves, it was, as I noted, built on low piers just high enough to clear the tombs and monuments. The building that was Westminster Church is of a suitable appearance. It's built in a plain (i.e., unadorned) Gothic style with a square tower in the middle of the north side over the main entrance (it's on the south side of Fayette St. and therefore oriented on a N-S axis with the entrance on the north end.) Built of stone and brick which has never had the 19th century's accumulation of soot cleaned off and is therefore a dark brownish grey color. The churchyard is beautiful, with trees, brick paving and the wrought-iron fence and, of course, the monuments and tombstones. Many prominent citizens of 18th & 19th century Baltimore are buried there (besides Poe).