The Old Church is surrounded by the Old Church Park, which was already a cemetery before the Old Church was built. People began to call it Ruttopuisto (plague park) when victims of the plague epidemic that killed two thirds of the city residents were buried there  in 1710. The park gate, designed by Carl Ludvig Engel, includes a memorial plaque of the fatal year. In the north-eastern corner of the cemetery are the crypt of merchant, Johan Sederholm, and monument of H.C. Reuterskiöld, also designed by Engel. The last people buried in the old cemetery were those killed in the occupation of Helsinki in 1919.