A database of several hundred historical descriptions and references to London's sounds. They're drawn mainly from primary sources such as autobiographies, diaries and statutes, as well as novels written around the times they depict.
Period referred to: 1660s
Sound category: Religious > Funerals and mourning
Title of work: The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Type of publication: Diary
Author: Samuel Pepys
Year of publication: 1662
Page/volume number: 22 October 1662
‘This night was buried, as I hear by the bells
at Barking Church, my poor Morena’
This night was buried, as I hear by the bells at Barking Church, my poor Morena, whose sickness being desperate, did kill her poor father; and he being dead for sorrow, she could not recover, nor desire to live, but from that time do languish more and more, and so is now dead and buried.
Period referred to: 1660s
Sound category: Religious > Funeral services and mourning
Title of work: The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Type of publication: Diary
Author: Samuel Pepys
Year of publication: 1661
Page/volume number: July 1661
Pepys attends his uncle Robert’s funeral
Which in the afternoon was done; where, it being Sunday, all people far and near come in; and in the greatest disorder that ever I saw, we made shift to serve them what we had of wine and other things; and then to carry him to the church, where Mr. Taylor buried him, and Mr. Turners preached a funerall sermon, where he spoke not particularly of him anything, but that he was one so well known for his honesty, that it spoke for itself above all that he could say for it. And so made a very good sermon.