Bunhill Fields is a former burial ground in central London, in the London Borough of Islington, just north of the City of London. What remains is about in extent and the bulk of the site is a public garden maintained by the City of London Corporation.
It was first in devoted use as a burial ground from 1665 until 1854, in which period approximately 123,000 interments were estimated to have taken place. Over 2,000 monuments remain, for the most part in concentrated blocks. It was a prototype of land-use protected, nondenominational grounds, and was particularly favoured by nonconformists who passed their final years in the region. It contains the graves of many notable people, including John Bunyan (died 1688), author of The Pilgrim's Progress; Daniel Defoe (died 1731), author of Robinson Crusoe; William Blake (died 1827), artist, poet, and mystic; Susanna Wesley (died 1742), known as the "Mother of Methodism" through her education of sons John and Charles; Thomas Bayes (died 1761), statistician and philosopher; and Isaac Watts (died 1748), the "Father of English Hymnody".
Bunhill Fields Burial Ground is listed Grade I on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. It is now maintained by the Friends of the City Gardens.
Nearby, on the west side of Bunhill Row and behind the residential tower Braithwaite House, is a former Quaker burial ground, in use from 1661 to 1855, at times also known as Bunhill Fields. George Fox (died 1691), one of the founders of the movement, is among those buried there. Its remains are also a public garden, Quaker Gardens, managed by the London Borough of Islington.
Historical background
Bunhill Fields was part of the Manor of Finsbury (originally Fensbury), which has its origins as the prebend of Halliwell and Finsbury, belonging to St Paul's Cathedral and established in 1104. In 1315 the prebendary manor was granted by Archdeacon Robert Baldock to the Mayor and commonalty of London. This enabled more general public access to the semi-fen or moor stretching from the City of London's boundary (London Wall), to the village of Hoxton.
In 1498 part of the otherwise unenclosed landscape was set aside to form a large field for military exercises of archers and others. This part of the manor has sports and occasional military use: Artillery Ground.
Next to this lies Bunhill Fields. The name derives from "Bone hill", likely linked to occasional burials from at least Saxon times, but more probably derives from the use for mass-deposit for human bones—amounting to over 1,000 cartloads—brought from St Paul's charnel house in 1549 (when that building was demolished). The dried bones were deposited on the moor and capped with a thin layer of soil. This built up a hill across the otherwise damp, flat fens, such that three windmills could safely be erected in a spot that came to be one of the many windmill hills.
Opening as a burial ground
In keeping with this tradition, in 1665 the City of London Corporation decided to use some of the land as a common burial ground for the interment of bodies of inhabitants who had died of the plague and could not be accommodated in the churchyards. Outer walls were completed but Church of England officials never consecrated the ground nor used it for burials. A Mr. Tindal took over the lease.
He allowed extramural graveyard burials in what was unconsecrated soil, thus popular with nonconformists—those Protestant Christians who practised their faiths outside the Church of England; unlike Anglican churchyards it was open for interment to anyone who could afford the fees. It appears on Rocque's Map of London of 1746, and elsewhere, as "Tindal's Burying Ground".
An inscription at the eastern entrance gate to the burial ground reads: "This church-yard was inclosed with a brick wall at the sole charges of the City of London, in the mayoralty of Sir John Lawrence, , Anno Domini 1665; and afterwards the gates thereof were built and finished in the mayoralty of Sir Thomas Bloudworth, Knt., Anno Domini, 1666." The present gates and inscription date from 1868, but the wording follows that of an original 17th-century inscription at the western entrance, now lost.
The earliest recorded monumental inscription was that to "Grace, daughter of T. Cloudesly, of Leeds. February 1666". The earliest surviving monument is believed to be the headstone to Theophilus Gale: the inscription reads "Theophilus Gale MA / Born 1628 / Died 1678".
In 1769 an Act of Parliament gave the corporation the right to continue the lease for 99 years. The City authorities continued to let the ground to their tenant as a burial ground; in 1781 the Corporation decided to take over management of the burial ground.