Monument To Thomas And Hannah Miller, South Enclosure

635-1/0/10274

BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND Monument to Thomas and Hannah Miller, South enclosure

21-FEB-11

GV II* Headstone of Thomas and Hannah Miller, early C18

LOCATION: 532736.6, 182240.5

MATERIALS: Portland stone

DESCRIPTION: The monument takes the form of a shield-shaped upright slab, flared at the base and with a shaped pediment above. Its bowed front is carved to resemble drapery, which hangs down over a pair of projecting skulls at the sides. An amorino (winged cherub's head) with folded wings rests under the upper cornice. The inscription, carved as though written on the surface of the drapery, commemorates the merchant Thomas Miller (d.1701) and his daughter Hannah (d.1723).

HISTORY: Bunhill Fields was first enclosed as a burial ground in 1665. Thanks to its location just outside the City boundary, and its independence from any Established place of worship, it became London's principal Nonconformist cemetery, the burial place of John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe, William Blake and other leading religious and intellectual figures. It was closed for burials in 1853, laid out as a public park in 1867, and re-landscaped following war damage by Bridgewater and Shepheard in 1964-5.

SOURCES: Corporation of London, A History of the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground (1902). A W Light, Bunhill Fields (London, 1915).

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The monument to Thomas and Hannah Miller is designated at Grade II* for the following principal reasons: * An unusually fine example of Baroque monumental sculpture, the best of its kind in the cemetery, illustrating that - at this early period at least - Puritanism in religion did not necessarily entail the rejection of aesthetic opulence. * It is located within the Grade I registered Bunhill Fields Burial Ground (q.v.), and has group value with the other listed tombs in the south enclosure.