Monument To Joseph Waddington, East Enclosure

635-1/0/10215 BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND 21-FEB-11 Monument to Joseph Waddington, East en closure

GV II Headstone of Joseph Waddington, 1786

LOCATION: 532734.6, 182257.2

MATERIAL: Slate

DESCRIPTION: The monument is an upright slate slab with a shaped top. The carved face is framed by a decorative border of a repeating lozenge design. The top of the slab is filled with incised floral ornament, and there is similar carving at the base. The text comprises a simple memorial inscription to Joseph Waddington (d.1786) and, below, a verse epitaph, separated by a further band of carving.

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).

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The monument to Joseph Waddington is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It is a well-preserved late-C18 headstone bearing good-quality carved text and decoration. * 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 east enclosure.