Bunhill Fields

Bunhill Fields is a former burial ground in central London, in the London Borough of Islington, just north of the City of London. What remains is about 1.6 hectares and the bulk of the site is a public garden maintained by the City of London Corporation. It was first used as a burial ground from 1665 until 1854, during which time approximately 123,000 interments took place. Over 2,000 monuments remain, mostly in concentrated blocks. It was a prototype of protected, nondenominational grounds and was favoured by nonconformists. The site contains the graves of many notable people. John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, lies here alongside Daniel Defoe, writer of Robinson Crusoe. William Blake, artist and poet, is buried here, as is Susanna Wesley, known as the ‘Mother of Methodism’. The ground also holds the remains of Thomas Bayes, the statistician, and Isaac Watts, called the ‘Father of English Hymnody’. Thomas Newcomen, pioneer of the steam engine, is also interred here. Visitors find a Grade I-listed historic park with wide gravel paths and grassy clearings. Many of the old monuments stand in quiet clusters, including the earliest surviving headstone, to Theophilus Gale, dated 1678. The eastern entrance gate carries an 1868 inscription recalling the ground’s origins in 1665. Nearby, Quaker Gardens preserves another former burial site with the grave of George Fox, one of the movement’s founders. Benches line the walks, and the open space offers a calm retreat close to the City’s streets.