MONUMENT TO WILLIAM ALDRIDGE, SOUTH ENCLOSURE

MONUMENT TO WILLIAM ALDRIDGE, 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:: 1396506
Date first listed:: 21-Feb-2011
List Entry Name:: MONUMENT TO WILLIAM ALDRIDGE, SOUTH ENCLOSURE
Statutory Address:: MONUMENT TO WILLIAM ALDRIDGE, SOUTH ENCLOSURE, BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1396506
Date first listed:: 21-Feb-2011
List Entry Name:: MONUMENT TO WILLIAM ALDRIDGE, SOUTH ENCLOSURE
Statutory Address 1:: MONUMENT TO WILLIAM ALDRIDGE, SOUTH ENCLOSURE, BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND

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.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

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.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: MONUMENT TO WILLIAM ALDRIDGE, 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 32674 82228

Reasons for Designation

DCMS agree- list at Grade II.

Details

635-1/0/10256 BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND 21-FEB-11 Monument to William Aldridge, South en closure

GV II Chest tomb of William Aldridge, c1797

LOCATION: 532673.5, 182228.1

MATERIALS: Portland stone with brick plinth

DESCRIPTION: The monument takes the form of a stone chest with a moulded lid and base, plain corner pilasters and inscription panels. Unusually, the inscriptions run across the pilasters and the panels; those to the north are more legible than those facing south.

HISTORY: William Aldridge (1737-1797) a leading Independent minister of the late C18. Born at Warminster in Wiltshire, he spent a dissipated youth but afterwards devoted himself to preaching. He joined the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion and studied at the latter's college at Trefeca in south Wales between 1768 and 1771. In September 1771 he was sent to preach in Kent, where in spite of local Anglican opposition he was markedly successful, eventually taking charge of a meeting-house in Dover. About 1775 he was sent to supply the Mulberry Garden Chapel in Wapping, where his ministry proved so successful that the large congregation petitioned Lady Huntingdon to allow him to continue as minister. Her refusal led him to leave the Connexion in 1776. He later became minister at the Independent congregation in Jewry Street, London, where he remained until his death.

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). A. B. Grosart, 'Aldridge, William (1737-1797)', rev. M. J. Mercer, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/316, accessed 5 Jan 2010]

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The monument to William Aldridge is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It is a well-preserved late-C18 chest tomb, commemorating an important figure in the religious history of the period, and one with a particularly close connection to Bunhill Fields. * 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:: 508623
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.