Quaker Gardens is a small public garden in the extreme south of the

London Borough of Islington The London Borough of Islington ( ) is a London borough, borough in North London, England. Forming part of Inner London, Islington has an estimated population of 215,667. It was formed in 1965, under the London Government Act 1963, by the amalg ...

, close to the boundary with the

City of London The City of London, also known as ''the City'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and Districts of England, local government district with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in England. It is the Old town, his ...

, in the area known historically as

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 in extent and the bulk of the site is a public garden maintained by the City of London Cor ...

. It is managed by Islington Borough Council. It comprises the surviving fragment of a former burying ground for

Quakers Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestantism, Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally ...

(members of the Religious Society of Friends), in use from 1661 to 1855.

George Fox George Fox (July 1624 Old Style and New Style dates, O.S. – 13 January 1691 Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.) was an English Dissenters, English Dissenter, who was a founder of the Quakers, Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as t ...

(d. 1691), one of the founders of the movement, was among those buried here. The gardens lie to the west of Bunhill Row, to the south of Banner Street, and to the north of Chequer Street, and can be entered from either Banner Street or Chequer Street. In addition to the public garden, the site includes a children's playground and a tarmac ball court with basketball hoops. A

Quaker meeting house A Friends meeting house is a meeting house of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), where meeting for worship is usually held. Typically, Friends meeting houses are simple and resemble local residential buildings. Ornamentation, spires, a ...

, the last remaining part of the former Bunhill Memorial Buildings, stands at the north-west corner of the gardens.

History

The site lies in the area known historically as Bunhill Fields. The name derives from "Bone Hill", which is possibly a reference to the district having been used for occasional burials from at least

Saxon The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...

times, but more probably alludes to the use of the fields as a place of deposit for human bones – amounting to over 1,000 cartloads – brought from

St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Paul the Apostle, is an Anglican cathedral in London, England, the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London in the Church of Engl ...

charnel house A charnel house is a vault or building where human skeletal remains are stored. They are often built near churches for depositing bones that are unearthed while digging graves. The term can also be used more generally as a description of a plac ...

in 1549 when that building was demolished. In 1661 the London Quakers purchased a plot of land here of 30

square yard The square yard (Indian English, Northern India: guz, gaj, Pakistani English, Pakistan: gaz) is an imperial unit and U.S. customary unit of area. It is in widespread use in most of the English language, English-speaking world, particularly the U ...

s for £270 for use as a burial ground: it constituted the first freehold property owned by Quakers in London.Butler 1999. This was four years earlier than the opening of the nearby "

Dissenter A dissenter (from the Latin , 'to disagree') is one who dissents (disagrees) in matters of opinion, belief, etc. Dissent may include political opposition to decrees, ideas or doctrines and it may include opposition to those things or the fiat of ...

s'" burial ground, on the other side of Bunhill Row, which is still known as

. As well as burials arising from routine deaths, the bodies of 1,177 Quakers who died in the Great Plague of 1665–66 were buried here. The ground was soon full, but additional plots of land were purchased to extend it, until by c. 1845 about £3,600 had been invested in the site. The ground was closed for burials in 1855, by which date around 12,000 burials had taken place.Holmes 1896, pp. 141–142. Graves were not individually marked with monuments or gravestones. The sole exception was a small tablet on the wall, simply inscribed "G. F.", in commemoration of

(1624–1691), one of the founders of the movement. However, so many Quakers came to visit this that it was denounced as " Nehushtan" (idolatrous) by Robert Howard, a prominent member of the Society, and was destroyed.Holmes 1896, p. 142. Fox is now commemorated by a more modern marker, also set against the wall. Quaker Gdns plaque 2020

In the 1870s the Bedford Institute Association (BIA), a Quaker mission, began to hold meetings at the ground, initially in a tent and subsequently in a corrugated iron room. In 1880 a large part of the burial ground was acquired by the

Metropolitan Board of Works The Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) was the upper tier of local government for London between 1856 and 1889, primarily responsible for upgrading infrastructure. It also had a parks and open spaces committee which set aside and opened up severa ...

for road-widening and building purposes, including the building of a

Board school School boards were ''ad hoc'' public bodies in England and Wales that existed between 1870 and 1902, and established and administered Elementary school (England and Wales), elementary schools. Creation The Elementary Education Act 1870 (33 & ...

. These parts of the site were cleared of burials, and the exhumed bodies reinterred in the surviving part of the burial ground. With the proceeds from the sale of the land, the Quakers built Bunhill Memorial Buildings (opened 1881), which was leased to the BIA: it incorporated a large

Meeting House A meeting house (also spelled meetinghouse or meeting-house) is a building where religious and sometimes private meetings take place. Terminology Nonconformist (Protestantism), Nonconformist Protestant denominations distinguish between a: * chu ...

, committee rooms, an adult school, a reading room, a medical mission, lodging rooms, and a teetotal " Coffee-Tavern Club". The burial ground suffered bomb damage in the Second World War, and in 1944 the Memorial Buildings were largely destroyed. The only part of the Buildings to survive was the detached caretaker's house, which was redeveloped by the BIA in 1976, and is still in use as a Quaker Meeting House.

Notable burials

Ann Austin Ann Austin (n.d. – 1665) was one of the first Quaker travelling preachers. She and Mary Fisher became the first Quakers to visit the English North American colonies. Mission to the New World Austin was a resident of London and the mother of fiv ...

(d. 1665), travelling Quaker preacher *

John Bellers John Bellers (1654 – 8 February 1725) was an English educational theorist and Quaker, author of ''Proposals for Raising a College of Industry of All Useful Trades and Husbandry'' (1695). Life Bellers was born in London, the son of the Quaker ...

(1654–1725), political and educational theorist and writer * Joseph Gurney Bevan (1753–1814), writer of Quaker apologetical works * Edward Burrough (1634–1663), Quaker leader and controversialist * Joan Dant (1631–1715), pedlar *

(1624–1691), a founder of the Quaker movement * John Nickolls (?1710–1745), collector and antiquary *

Daniel Quare Daniel Quare (1648 or 1649 – 21 March 1724) was an English clockmaker and instrument maker who invented a repeating watch movement in 1680 and a portable barometer in 1695. Early life Daniel Quare's origins are obscure. He was possibly a nat ...

(1649–1724), clockmaker * George Whitehead (1636–1723), Quaker leader and author of memoir, ''The Christian Progress of George Whitehead''

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

* {{Coord, 51, 31, 25.23, N, 0, 5, 27.78, W, scale:1563_region:GB, display=title 1661 establishments in England * Cemeteries in London Parks and open spaces in the London Borough of Islington Quakerism in England Quaker cemeteries Quakerism in London