Monument to Thomas Bayes and Family, Middle Enclosure
MONUMENT TO THOMAS BAYES AND FAMILY, MIDDLE 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:
- 1396526
- Date first listed:
- 21-Feb-2011
- List Entry Name:
- Monument to Thomas Bayes and Family, Middle Enclosure
- Statutory Address:
- MONUMENT TO THOMAS BAYES AND FAMILY, MIDDLE ENCLOSURE, BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND
Location
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Discover moreOfficial list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1396526
- Date first listed:
- 21-Feb-2011
- List Entry Name:
- Monument to Thomas Bayes and Family, Middle Enclosure
- Statutory Address 1:
- MONUMENT TO THOMAS BAYES AND FAMILY, MIDDLE 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 THOMAS BAYES AND FAMILY, MIDDLE 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 32665 82266
Reasons for Designation
Yes, list
Details
635-1/0/10224 BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND 21-FEB-11 Monument to Thomas Bayes and family, M iddle enclosure
GV II Chest tomb to Joseph Bayes and family, late C18
LOCATION: 532664.9, 182266.3
MATERIALS: Portland stone with brick vault beneath
DESCRIPTION: The monument takes the form of a simple stone chest with a coped lid. It has fielded inscription panels to the sides and a moulded base, and rests upon a low brick and stone plinth.
HISTORY: The vault contains the bodies of various members of the Bayes and Cotton families, amongst whom the most famous is the mathematician and Presbyterian minister Thomas Bayes (1701?-1761). Born in Hertfordshire, he studied at Edinburgh University and began his preaching career in that city; he later assisted at his father's meeting-house on Leather Lane in Holborn before being appointed minister to the Little Mount Sion meeting-house at Tunbridge Wells in 1731, which post he occupied until his retirement 20 years later. During his lifetime Bayes published nothing under his own name, although he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1742, perhaps on the basis of an influential defence of Newtonian mathematics published anonymously in 1734. His fame rests chiefly upon his mathematical 'Essay towards solving a problem in the doctrine of chances', published posthumously in 1764; this adumbrates the highly influential 'Bayesian' approach to probability theory, as well as containing the famous 'Bayes' Theorem', still widely used in statistics and information technology.
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). AF Edwards, entry on Thomas Bayes in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, www.oxforddnb.com (retrieved on 9 June 2009).
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The Bayes and Cotton family monument is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It is a well-preserved late-C18 chest tomb. * It marks the burial place of Thomas Bayes, whose insights into probability theory continue to influence contemporary approaches to statistics and the philosophy of mathematics. * 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 middle enclosure.
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
- Legacy System number:
- 508562
- 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 04-Jun-2026 at 09:18:31.
Download a full scale map (PDF)© Crown copyright [and database rights] 2026. OS AC0000815036. All rights reserved. Ordnance Survey Licence number 100024900.© British Crown and SeaZone Solutions Limited 2026. All rights reserved. Licence number 102006.006.
End of official list entry