Yallowley Family Monument, South Enclosure

635-1/0/10277 BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND 21-FEB-11 Yallowley family monument, South enclo sure

GV II Chest tomb of the Yallowley family, late C18 or early C19

LOCATION: 532746, 182232.9

MATERIALS: Portland stone

DESCRIPTION: The monument is of a hybrid form combining the characteristics of chest and table tomb. Beneath the plain flat lid is a substructure of finely tooled stonework, comprising four tapering 'legs' supporting flat lintels. Within this sits a plain stone chest, carved on its northern end with a heraldic crest displaying three crescents and a lion rampant, with a scroll bearing the motto 'In Deo Confido'. The southern lintel is inscribed 'Joseph Yallowley Family Vault 1770', and beneath is recorded the burial of Joseph's wife Grace (d.1823). The lower part of the monument has been repaired using cement mortar.

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 Yallowley family monument is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * an austere and imposing late-Georgian monument constructed to an idiosyncratic Neoclassical design. * located within the Grade I registered Bunhill Fields Burial Ground (q.v.), the monument has group value with the other listed tombs in the south enclosure, and in particular with the contemporary but utterly contrasting Flavell monument (q.v.) in the adjoining plot.