Bunhill Fields
Burial Ground

William Blake wrote some of the best known poetry in the English language, and was a graphic artist of exceptional talent, producing drawings, paintings and engravings.

Famous poems include:

The Tyger ("Tyger, tyger, burning bright...)

Jerusalem ("And did those feet, in ancient time...")

John Owen was a leading Independent (or as we would say today, Congregationalist) minister in his day.

He was a man of exceptional learning and passion for defending the Christian faith. He rose to the position of  Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University. When the monarchy was restored, Owen's views meant that he was removed from his deanery at Christ Church, Oxford. For the rest of his days, his preaching was outside the Church of England, much of it at the Mark Lane Independent Chapel in London.

Bunhill Fields is literally just across the road from the home of Samuel and Susanna Wesley, and there is now a Wesleyan Chapel and Museum alongside.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, is himself buried in the chapel.

Charles Wesley was a prolific writer of hymns.

Daniel Defoe was born Daniel Foe, adopting the "de" in middle age because of the impression it created. Though primarily remembered as a writer - for Robinson Crusoe in particular - Daniel followed a quite varied career, at various times being a soldier, a clothing salesman, a tile-maker and even a government secret agent.

Though himself of a dissenting family, and sharing that persuasion, his satirical work The Shortest Way With Dissenters was taken over-literally by some dissenters, causing them outrage, and of course those on the establishment side of the divide also took umbrage; arrested and tried, Daniel was sent to the pillory and later prison..

Bunyan's monument is possibly the most elaborate in Bunhill Fields, carrying not only an effigy of the man himself, but also bas-reliefs of scenes inspired by his great Christian allegory, The Pilgrim's Progress.

However, all is not as it seems, because the effigy was only added to the tomb in 1862 while the tomb was being restored. The Earl of Shaftesbury was in charge of that project, and the money for the work was raised by public subscription.

Isaac Watts was one of the most prolific hymn writers in the English language as well as being one of  the first. Before Watts's time, people sang psalms in churches rather than hymns, and many of Watts's hymns are paraphrases of one or more psalms.

Other themes can also be discerned in his hymnody, particularly his understanding that God was very much on the side of the Nonconformists - an attitude exemplified by his well-known hymn, "Our God, our help in ages past". In those Anglican hymnbooks which include the hymn, this is often rewritten as "O God..." to try to cover up the sentiment.