Latitude: 51.5237 / 51°31'25"N
Longitude: -0.0896 / 0°5'22"W
OS Eastings: 532633
OS Northings: 182257
OS Grid: TQ326822
Mapcode National: GBR S7.1Z
Mapcode Global: VHGQT.DYHV
Plus Code: 9C3XGWF6+F5
Entry Name: Monument to Elizabeth Stiff and Others, West Enclosure
Listing Date: 21 February 2011
Grade: II
Source: Historic England
Source ID: 1396530
English Heritage Legacy ID: 508570
ID on this website: 101396530
Location: Shoreditch, Islington, London, EC1Y
County: London
District: Islington
Electoral Ward/Division: Bunhill
Parish: Non Civil Parish
Built-Up Area: Islington
Traditional County: Middlesex
Lieutenancy Area (Ceremonial County): Greater London
Church of England Parish: St Giles Cripplegate
Church of England Diocese: London
Tagged with: Monument
635-1/0/10230 BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND
21-FEB-11 Monument to Elizabeth Stiff and others
, West enclosure
GV II
Headstone, mid C18
LOCATION: 532632.6, 182256.3
MATERIALS: Portland stone
DESCRIPTION: The monument is an upright slab having a scrolled and shaped top with a worn relief carving apparently depicting two amorini (winged cherubs' heads), an hourglass and a coffin lid. The inscription gives a number of names including those of Elizabeth wife of Peter Clugh of the parish of St Botolph Aldersgate (d.1748?) and Elizabeth wife of Thomas Stiff (d.1777). A warning is appended below: 'Reader be thou also ready.'
HISTORY: 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).
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The monument to Elizabeth Stiff is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* It is a richly-carved Baroque headstone whose admonitory inscription, still clearly legible, attests to contemporary attitudes to mortality.
* 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.
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