Bunhill Fields Burial Ground is on City Road just north of the Artillery Ground, and directly opposite Wesley’s Chapel. A public walkway leads through the grounds from City Road to Bunhill Row, affording a pleasant tree-shaded escape from the street. The property was set apart and consecrated in 1665 as a burial place for plague victims outside the city. However, according to historian William Maitland writing in 1739, the actual ground where a huge pit was dug to bury the victims was elsewhere, and this land was simply held by the city until the Restoration.
After 1660 rents were demanded, and the city then let the property out for a cemetery. Somehow, perhaps because it was outside the city and not attached to a church, it became the customary burial ground for Dissenters. Among the more famous buried here are Thomas Goodwin, Cromwell’s favourite minister; John Owen, the Puritan divine; General Fleetwood, the Civil War commander; John Bunyan; Daniel Defoe; William Blake; Isaac Watts; and Susanna Wesley, mother of John and Charles.
Eventually Bunhill Fields was closed as a cemetery, but an act for the preservation of the grounds was passed in 1867. In 1869 the Lord Mayor opened the grounds to the public. The name is thought to be derived from ‘bone hill’, though nobody knows for sure. The poet Robert Southey called it the ‘Campo Santo (sacred ground) of Dissenters.’