With the last throes of summer in motion I wanted to pay one more visit to a notable cemetery. I have been very conscious that my big plans to visit each of the 'Magnificent 7' cemeteries last summer did not amount to much, having only managed Highgate and Brompton. Any notion of reviving the plan this summer was truely shipwrecked when I landed myself in the Princess Alexadra Hospital for three weeks. It was a lousy summer weatherwise and unfortunately the best of it occured when I was confined to my ICU bed. The best of 2024's summer rays were viewed through a maze of aluminium ventilation ductwork that formed the outside view from the vantage point of my bed.
In recovery now and gaining strength I have been keen to push myself at weekends in terms of getting mobile. I was very surprised how quickly I lost weight, two stone in that three week period of hospital incarceration. As a result some muscle loss has rendered my already chicken-like legs even more spindly and, excuse the detail, but my buttocks seem to have withered leaving behind a rather bony bum. On the plus side I have noticed that a hint of cheekbones have started to emerge after many years of lying hidden in the depths of my face. We are not talking Pete Murphy of Bauhaus cheekbones here... but its a start!
Anyway, enough of the anatomical update and back to the talk of cemetery visits. Earlier in the week, an outing was proposed for the coming Saturday whereby we would take in Abney Park cemetery and at the same time pay a visit to the William Morris Museum in Walthamstow and also drop into the German Deli in Blackhorse Road, a regular haunt of Gunta's. This time, the visit was upended by technology, the BBC weather app to be precise, that suggested that Saturday's weather in the London area was likely to be very wet for most of the day. Hardly ideal conditions for a slow amble through a large garden cemetery.
Keen not to lose the opportunity for some much needed exercise, I consulted one of several books I have on unusual places to visit in London to see whether a more weather appropriate option could be found. The answer that we agreed upon was Bunhill Fields. This location still ticks all the boxes for me but the site is much smaller and as such a safer bet if the heavens were to open.
The location of Bunhill Fields will come to many as a surprise, for this ancient burial ground abutts directly onto City Road in London's EC1. When within the grounds, raising your eyes a little over the iron railings that enclose the site, you will see just how completely Bunhill Fields is hemmed in by the steel and glass superstructures that form part of the modern city, the UKs financal hub. This situation is a far cry from the site's origins in the 16th Century.
London has long had a problem with its dead. Don't take that in the wrong way! Not on a personal level but on a purely practical level. The expansion of the City occured with great rapidity as large numbers of people left the countryside for the perceived improved prospects to be had within urban areas, especially London. Here we must remember that for the longest period this 'London' would have extended not much further than the area within the Roman city walls and the immediate areas beyond i.e. a very confined geographical space. Limitations of space certainly were applicable to the many Churches within the city. In the more God-fearing atmosphere of the time, parishoners naturally desired upon their demise to be laid to rest in close proximity to other family members and the Church where they had worshipped in life. The problem was that the tiny Churchyards in the locality were not up to the job. Even the greatest Church in the area, St Pauls Cathedral, was not immune from the issues of how to manage a multitude of dead bodies.
In 1549 a decision was taken to demolish the charnel house of St Paul's and a plan had to be devised as to where to relocate the skeletal remains within the building. By the mid-sixteenth century theologians had estabilished that the dead only remain in pugatory (an intermediate state between physical death and entry of the purified soul into heaven) whilst flesh remained on the bones. Such 'Papish' concepts fell out of favour somewhat after the Reformation. As a result, 'dry bones' could be disinterred without risk of eternal damnation to the bones owners! But what to do with them? Bunhill was the answer. Little over a mile away from Wren's cathedral, but critically, beyond the City, was the area of Bunhill, at that time moorland. Incidently, the origin of the name Bunhill is thought to derive from 'Bone Hill' by virtue of burials that occured there in the Saxon era.
The removal operation was immense with over a 1000 cartloads of dry bones transported north to their new place of burial at Bunhill. The huge volume of bones were distributed over the moor and covered with a thin layer of soil. The introduction of such a mass of solid material resulted in an elevation of the moorland above the marshy surrounding fenland such that three windmills were erected in the area. Thus was Bunhill first established as a burial ground.
In 1665, the bubonic plague visited London and once again the authorities were faced with the dilema of the dead. The situation was more pressing than it had been a century before when Bunhill was first established. It was a priority to remove plague victimes from the environs of the living or obvious reasons. For this purpose Bunhill was authorised by the City of London Corporation as a potential plague pit to accomodate the victims of the City. However, it is uncertain whether Bunhill was ever put to this use.
By virtue of the Act of Uniformity 1662, the Church of England and its practises became national and whilst the Bunhill burial ground was subsequently enclosed, the Church neglected to consecrate the land and the site fell into private ownership.
It was a Mr. Tindal, who, as leaseholder put the burial ground to a new use. Interment for those that could afford the fee. The site became popular as an extramural cemetery for Nonconformists, Protestant Christians who elected to practise their faith outside of the rules of the Church of England. This fact caused one poet to describe the burial ground as the 'Campo Santo (cemetery) of the Dissenters'.
Detail of John Rocque's 1746 map of London showing the location of Tindal's Buring Ground (Bunhill Fields) relative to Old Street and Bunhill Row. (Image from https://www.locatinglondon.org/).
The Order for closure of Bunhill Fields was made in December 1853, an enactment of the Parlimentary legislation that decreed that cemeteries and burial grounds could be closed once deemed to be full. The last burial was that of Elizabeth Howell Oliver on 5th January 1854, although some burials in existing plots continued after that date. At the point of closure, it is estimated that 123,000 interments has taken place in the burial ground. Today, in excess of 2,000 monuments remain in the grounds, all apart from some of its most celebrated occupants are behind iron railling enclosures (although 'beyond the railing' publically accessible tours do take place at certain times).
So, what do you do with a closed plot of land that was once moorland beyond the city walls, but is now well within what we know as the City, that just happens to contain the remains of more than 100,000 old Londoners? A 99 year lease on the land granted to the London Corporation was due to expire at the end of 1867, so the Corporation established the Special Bunhill Fields Burial Ground Committee in 1865 (later to to be renamed the Bunhill Fields Preservation Committee). This body was able to prevent commercial companies from redeveloping the site. A further Act of Parliament, the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground Act 1867 decreed that the site be maintained as an 'open space'.
The above is an abrieviated summary of the lifetime of this most remarkable, now inner city space. I find it extraordinary that right in the heart of one of the biggest financial centres in the world there exists, unchanged and preseved, such a wonderful fragment of London's rich social and religious history. Busy cities need places like this. Enclosed spaces with benches from where one can take in the magnificent yet crumbling headstones and momuments of centuries past. To spend just fifteen minutes in such a place is sufficient to make the tumult of the metropolis, in full swing just yards away, almost non-existant. Not an easy feat.
As a designated and protected community garden it is also wonderful to see bird baths and feeders positioned amongst the headstones and the wonderful mature trees within Bunhill Fields. At the base of John Bunyan's monument I had an encounter with a particularly bold squirrel, who no doubt used to the footfall of several hundred humans through his manner daily, was not going to be phased by the likes of me. Likewise, gangs of pigeons (wrong collective noun I know, but far more fitting) congregate around certain monuments, creating a scene imaginable if 'The Birds' met 'The Omen'.
This being early morning on a weekend in the City, it was quiet and yet several tourists had the same idea and Gunta and I. How brilliant it is that these tourists chose to spent a precious hour of their time in London in the company of some of our most esteemed poets, painters and preachers, not to mention the odd brazen squirrel and plotting pigeons, rather than the Hard Rock Cafe London, or the London Dungeons.
An example of a London EC1 Dissident squirrel.
I won't dwell too much on the notables in residence in Bunhill Fields. As mentioned there are Nonconformist preachers aplenty, a few English Civil War Parlimentarians and John Bunyan, famed for his 'Pilgrim's Progress'.
The author of once chidren's favourite 'Robinson Crusoe' lies here, commenorated by an 1870 obelisk after his headstone was destroyed by a lightening stike.
Perhaps the most celebrated ocupant is 'painter, poet and mystic' William Blake whose headstone was moved as part of a relandscaping of the site, but in August 2018, a ledger stone on the site of his original grave was unveiled by author Philip Pullman, the President of the Blake Society.
A final word should go to Dame Mary Page who perhaps has one of the most bizzare epitaphs on her monument that I have ever seen.
The poor woman suffered from dropsy or water retention, and if the inscription is to believed in 67 months of treatment she endured the removal of 240 gallons of water from her body!
So, in short, should you find yourself with an hour of free time in the City of London you could do far worse than to spend it in Bunhill Fields. I can promise you that you will leave with feeling of calm that only the best cemeteries can offer!
