Monument to David Nasmith, South Enclosure
MONUMENT TO DAVID NASMITH, SOUTH ENCLOSURE, BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND
Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places
Overview
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1396495
- Date first listed:
- 21-Feb-2011
- List Entry Name:
- Monument to David Nasmith, South Enclosure
- Statutory Address:
- MONUMENT TO DAVID NASMITH, SOUTH ENCLOSURE, BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND
Have you got a photo to share?
Join the Missing Pieces Project. We want you to share your photos and memories.
Location
Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.
Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions .
This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.
What is the National Heritage List for England?
The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.
The list includes:
 |
Buildings |
 |
Scheduled monuments |
 |
Parks and gardens |
 |
Battlefields |
 |
Shipwrecks |
Local Heritage Hub
Unlock and explore hidden histories, aerial photography, and listed buildings and places for every county, district, city and major town across England.
Discover moreOfficial list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1396495
- Date first listed:
- 21-Feb-2011
- List Entry Name:
- Monument to David Nasmith, South Enclosure
- Statutory Address 1:
- MONUMENT TO DAVID NASMITH, SOUTH ENCLOSURE, BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
Location
- Statutory Address:
- MONUMENT TO DAVID NASMITH, SOUTH ENCLOSURE, BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND
The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.
- County:
- Greater London Authority
- District:
- Islington (London Borough)
- Parish:
- Non Civil Parish
- National Grid Reference:
- TQ 32617 82222
Reasons for Designation
DCMS agree- list at Grade II.
Details
635-1/0/10249 BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND 21-FEB-11 Monument to David Nasmith, South enclo sure
GV II Headstone of David Nasmith, 1839, restored 1935
LOCATION: 532617.2, 182222.4
MATERIALS: Portland stone, whitewashed
DESCRIPTION: The monument takes the form of an upright stone slab with a pedimented top. The inscription names Nasmith as a 'founder of city missions' and gives details of his birth and death. A second inscription records the monument's restoration 'by friends of the London City Mission during that society's centenary year'.
HISTORY: David Nasmith (1799-1839) was a leading early-C19 evangelical and the founder of the City Mission movement, a still-flourishing (and now worldwide) association aimed at ministering to the spiritual and physical needs of the urban poor. Born and educated in Glasgow, Nasmith devoted himself from an early age in missionary activity. The Glasgow City Mission, which he helped found in 1826, became a model for hundreds of similar organisations worldwide. The Dublin City Mission followed in 1828, and in 1830 Nasmith set off on a tour of North America, helping to set up over thirty new mission groups en route. On moving to London in 1835 he became co-founder (with Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton) of the London City Mission, a leading force in the capital's evangelical life and still in existence today.
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). Gordon Goodwin, rev. H C G Matthew, entry on Nasmith in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, www.oxforddnb.com (retrieved on 9 June 2009).
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The monument to David Nasmith is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It commemorates an important early-C19 evangelical leader and the founder of the still-flourishing City Mission movement. * 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 south enclosure.
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
- Legacy System number:
- 508616
- Legacy System:
- LBS
Legal
This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.
Map
This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale. This copy shows the entry on 05-Jun-2026 at 20:42:52.
Download a full scale map (PDF)End of official list entry
All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.