Chest Tomb With Memento Mori Carving, South Enclosure

635-1/0/10266 BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND 21-FEB-11 Chest tomb with memento mori carving, South enclosure

GV II Chest tomb, late C17 or early C18

LOCATION: 532728.8, 182214.4

MATERIALS: Portland stone with darker (probably Pennant) stone top

DESCRIPTION: The monument takes the form of a stone chest with a moulded top and base and bulbous corner balusters. The side and end panels bear relief carvings of skulls and crossed bones, which are known as 'momento mori', or reminders of death and mortality.

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: This monument is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It is a substantial early chest tomb bearing extensive memento mori carving. * 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.