Reasons for Designation
The Cromwell family monument is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* It commemorates several members of the Cromwell family, descendants of the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell.
* It is a well-preserved C18 chest tomb with clearly-legible inscriptions.
* 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, and in particular with the adjacent monument to Henry and Hannah Cromwell (q.v.).
Details
635-1/0/10261
BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND
Cromwell family monument, South enclosure
21-FEB-11
GV
II
Chest tomb, early C18
LOCATION: 532703.8, 182212.4
MATERIALS: Portland stone with darker stone lid and brick plinth
DESCRIPTION: The monument takes the form of a stone chest with raised and fielded side panels, a moulded lid and base and a plain rectangular plinth. The inscription on the lid records that the monument was originally set up in 1727, by Richard Cromwell in memory of his mother-in-law Eleanor Gatton. Also named are Eleanor, Mary, Hannah and Henry Cromwell - respectively, Richard's daughter, sister, mother and father (the latter two are also commemorated on an adjacent monument.) The name of Eleanor Gracedieu, daughter of the City merchant Sir Bartholomew Gracedieu, is also recorded. The side panels record later interments among the Cromwell family, including those of William, Mary, Elizabeth and Letitia - the latter's date of death, 1789, being the last.
HISTORY: Following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the fortunes of the Cromwell family declined sharply. Henry Cromwell (1658-1711), the Lord Protector's grandson, was forced to resign his Cambridgeshire estate and seek employment as an army officer; he died whilst on service in Portugal and was buried at Lisbon, his name later being inscribed on the family monuments in Bunhill Fields. His wife Hannah, née Hewling (d.1732), was the daughter of a wealthy London merchant; two of her brothers were officers in the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685, and were later executed despite her celebrated attempt to procure a pardon. Hannah bore ten children, among them Richard (1695-1759) and William (1693-1772), both lawyers.
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: James Anderson, Memorable Women of the Puritan Times, vol.2 (1862).
Corporation of London, A History of the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground (1902).
A W Light, Bunhill Fields (London, 1915).
The Genealogy of Oliver Cromwell, http://www.datadirect.org.uk/cromwellcollection/genealogy (retrieved on 9 October 2009)
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The Cromwell family monument is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* It commemorates several members of the Cromwell family, descendants of the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell.
* It is a well-preserved C18 chest tomb with clearly-legible inscriptions.
* 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, and in particular with the adjacent monument to Henry and Hannah Cromwell (q.v.).
