Quaker Gardens, Islington

Quaker Gardens is a small public garden in the extreme south of the London Borough of Islington, close to the boundary with the City of London, in the area known historically as Bunhill Fields. It is managed by Islington Borough Council. It comprises the surviving fragment of a former burying ground for Quakers (members of the Religious Society of Friends), in use from 1661 to 1855. George Fox (d. 1691), one of the founders of the movement, was among those buried here.

The gardens lie to the west of Bunhill Row, to the south of Banner Street, and to the north of Chequer Street, and can be entered from either Banner Street or Chequer Street. In addition to the public garden, the site includes a children's playground and a tarmac ball court with basketball hoops. A Quaker meeting house, the last remaining part of the former Bunhill Memorial Buildings, stands at the north-west corner of the gardens.

History

Foundation tablet from the Memorial Buildings, outlining the site's history

The site lies in the area known historically as Bunhill Fields. The name derives from "Bone Hill", which is possibly a reference to the district having been used for occasional burials from at least Saxon times, but more probably alludes to the use of the fields as a place of deposit for human bones – amounting to over 1,000 cartloads – brought from St Paul's Cathedral charnel house in 1549 when that building was demolished.^[1]

The land on which the gardens lie was purchased in 1661 as a burial site for London Quakers and constituted their first freehold burial ground in London. This was four years earlier than the opening of the nearby "Dissenters'" burial ground, on the other side of Bunhill Row, which is still known as Bunhill Fields. Around 12,000 Quakers were buried here before the ground was closed for burials in 1855.^[2]

Graves were not individually marked with monuments or gravestones. The sole exception was a small tablet on the wall, simply inscribed "G. F.", in commemoration of George Fox (1624–1691), one of the founders of the movement. However, so many Quakers came to visit this that it was denounced as "Nehushtan" (idolatrous) by Robert Howard, a prominent member of the Society, and was destroyed.^[3] Fox is now commemorated by a more modern marker, also set against the wall.

Modern commemorative memorial stone in the centre of the gardens

In 1880 a large part of the burial ground was acquired by the Metropolitan Board of Works for road-widening and building purposes, including the building of a Board school. These parts of the site were cleared of burials, and the exhumed bodies reinterred in the surviving part of the burial ground.^[3] With the proceeds from the sale of the land, the Quakers built Bunhill Memorial Buildings (opened 1881), incorporating a large Meeting House, committee rooms, an adult school, a medical mission, and a teetotal "Coffee-Tavern Club".

The burial ground suffered bomb damage in the Second World War, and in 1942 the Memorial Buildings were largely destroyed. The surviving remnant of the Memorial Buildings, the former caretaker's house, is still used as a Quaker Meeting House.

Notable burials

Memorial to George Fox (d. 1691)

• Ann Austin (d. 1665), Quaker travelling preacher
• John Bellers (1654–1725), political and educational theorist and writer
• Joseph Gurney Bevan (1753–1814), writer of Quaker apologetical works
• Edward Burrough (1634–1663), Quaker leader and controversialist
• George Fox (1624–1691), a founder of the Quaker movement
• John Nickolls (?1710–1745), collector and antiquary
• George Whitehead (1636–1723), Quaker leader and author of memoir, The Christian Progress of George Whitehead

References

Further reading

• Holmes, Mrs Basil [Isabella M.] (1896). The London Burial Grounds: notes on their history from the earliest times to the present day. London: T.F. Unwin. pp. 133–35, 141–42. 

External links

• "Quaker Gardens". London Borough of Islington. Retrieved 1 April 2015. 

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