Chest Tomb With Volutes, South Enclosure

635-1/0/10253 BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND 21-FEB-11 Chest tomb with volutes, South enclosure

GV II Chest tomb, mid-C18

LOCATION: 532636.4, 182215.3

MATERIALS: Portland stone with brick plinth

DESCRIPTION: The monument takes the form of a tall stone chest with a projecting coped lid and moulded base, set upon a brick and stone plinth. The sides of the chest have label-shaped fielded panels, their inscriptions now illegible. The ends have similar panels set between elongated, richly-carved volutes.

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 is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It is a well-preserved mid-C18 chest tomb in an unusual Continental Baroque style. * 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.