Chest Tomb with Memento Mori Carving, South Enclosure is a Grade II listed building in the Islington local planning authority area, England. First listed on 21 February 2011. Tomb.
Chest Tomb with Memento Mori Carving, South Enclosure
- WRENN ID
- slow-finial-curlew
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Islington
- Constituency
- Islington South and Finsbury MP: Emily Thornberry (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 21 February 2011
- Type
- Tomb
- Address
- Chest Tomb with Memento Mori Carving, South Enclosure, Bunhill Fields Burial Ground
- OS grid reference
- TQ 327 822
- Coordinates
- 51.52326, -0.0882
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
This chest tomb, dating from the late 17th century or early 18th century, is located in the south enclosure of Bunhill Fields Burial Ground. It is made of Portland stone with a darker stone top, likely Pennant. The tomb features a moulded top and base, along with bulbous corner balusters. Its side and end panels are adorned with relief carvings of skulls and crossed bones, known as 'memento mori', which serve as reminders of death and mortality.
Bunhill Fields was established as a burial ground in 1665 and became London's main Nonconformist cemetery due to its location just outside the City boundary and its independence from any established church. Notable figures buried here include John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe, and William Blake. The cemetery was closed for burials in 1853 and transformed into a public park in 1867, later being re-landscaped after war damage in 1964-1965.
This monument is significant for its substantial early design and extensive memento mori carvings, and it holds group value with other listed tombs in the south enclosure of the Grade I registered Bunhill Fields Burial Ground.
Local climate
Chest Tomb with Memento Mori Carving, South Enclosure sits in one of the driest parts of the UK, with an average of 690 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 95% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 98% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 35 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 57% of listed buildings. Of these, 16 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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