Monument to Samuel Stennett, West Enclosure
MONUMENT TO SAMUEL STENNETT, WEST 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:
- 1396536
- Date first listed:
- 21-Feb-2011
- List Entry Name:
- Monument to Samuel Stennett, West Enclosure
- Statutory Address:
- MONUMENT TO SAMUEL STENNETT, WEST ENCLOSURE, BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND
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Location
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Discover moreOfficial list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1396536
- Date first listed:
- 21-Feb-2011
- List Entry Name:
- Monument to Samuel Stennett, West Enclosure
- Statutory Address 1:
- MONUMENT TO SAMUEL STENNETT, WEST 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 SAMUEL STENNETT, WEST 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 32635 82250
Details
635-1/0/10234 BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND 21-FEB-11 Monument to Samuel Stennett, West encl osure
GV II Chest tomb and headstone of Samuel Stennett, c.1795
LOCATION: 532634.7, 182250.3
MATERIALS: Portland stone with sandstone lid
DESCRIPTION: The monument is of a hybrid form, combining chest tomb and headstone. The main body of the tomb is a stone chest having fluted corner balusters, raised and fielded side panels and a moulded lid; cut into the latter at one end is a tall vertical slab with a shaped top. The inscription, once a lengthy Latin text, is no longer legible.
HISTORY: Samuel Stennett (1727-95) was born in Exeter, Devon, into a distinguished family of Baptist ministers. He moved to London in 1737 when his father Joseph became minister at the church on Little Wild Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. Educated by John Hubbard of Stepney and John Walker of the Mile End Academy, he succeeded his father at Little Wild Street in 1758 - the fourth successive member of his family to hold pastoral office. He became a leading figure in the Baptist community, a noted preacher and hymnodist, and a close friend of the philanthropist and prison reformer John Howard. He was awarded made Doctor of Divinity by King's College, Aberdeen in 1763.
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). S L Copson, entry on Stennett in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, www.oxforddnb.com (retrieved on 9 June 2009).
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The monument to Samuel Stennett is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It is a late-C18 chest tomb of unusual hybrid form. * It commemorates a leading Baptist minister and preacher of the second half of the C18. * 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 west enclosure.
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
- Legacy System number:
- 508575
- 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 28-Jun-2026 at 19:30:33.
Download a full scale map (PDF)End of official list entry
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