Description

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.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q27087485

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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