Headstone With Cartouche, East Enclosure

635-1/0/10213 BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND 21-FEB-11 Headstone with cartouche, East Enclosure

GV II Headstone, early C18

LOCATION: 532733.1, 182274.7

MATERIALS: Portland stone

DESCRIPTION: The monument is an upright stone slab with a shaped top and much Baroque ornament in bold relief. Below, fluted Corinthian pilasters flank an auricular cartouche; above, scrolled volutes and palm fronds surround an armorial panel. The inscription is no longer legible.

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 monument is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It is a distinctive and well-crafted example of early-C18 Baroque funeral sculpture, of special interest despite the illegibility of the inscription; * 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.