Monument To Lady Agnes Erskine, North Section

635-1/0/10243 BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND 21-FEB-11 Monument to Lady Agnes Erskine, North Section

GV II Chest tomb of Lady Agnes Erskine, early C19

LOCATION: 532642.2, 182308.8

MATERIALS: Brick with stone lid

DESCRIPTION: The monument takes the form of a simple brick chest with a flat, stone lid; one end bears a stone plaque with Lady Anne's name.

HISTORY: Lady Anne Agnes Erskine (1739-1804) was born in Edinburgh, the daughter of the 10th Earl of Buchan. In 1765, whilst living with her father at Walcot in Somerset, she became acquainted with Selina, countess of Huntingdon, a leading evangelical and the founder of a network of chapels known as the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion. The two women later shared a house adjoining the chapel at Spa Fields in London, and after the countess' death Lady Anne was one of four trustees who took on the administrative affairs of the Connexion, with particular responsibility for recruiting new ministers.

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. The latter scheme involved clearing the tombs in the cemetery's northern enclosure; Lady Anne's tomb was one of those selected for retention.

SOURCES: Corporation of London, A History of the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground (1902). A W Light, Bunhill Fields (London, 1915). E Dorothy Graham, entry on Lady Anne Erskine in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, www.oxforddnb.com (retrieved on 9 June 2009).

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The monument to Lady Anne Erskine is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * While modest in design and materials, this early C19 tomb commemorates one of the most important female figures of late-C18 Nonconformity, who played a key role in the development of the evangelical grouping known as the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion. * 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 north section.