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This old burial ground, shaded
by mature plane trees, is situated on the edge of the City.
Bunhill Fields was first set aside as a cemetery during the
Great Plague of 1665.
It was enclosed by a brick wall
and gates but does not seem to have been used at that time.
The ground was never apparently
consecrated and twenty years later it became a popular burial
ground for Nonconformists, who were banned from being buried
in churchyards because of their refusal to use the Church
of England prayer book.
Bunhill Fields was soon known
as ' the cemetery of Puritan England'. Although much
is now cordoned off, it is still possible to walk through
and find monuments to John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe and William
Blake, as well as to members of the Cromwell family.
The writer John Milton lived
in Bunhill Row, on the west side of the cemetery, from 1662
until his death in 1674. Some of Milton's greatest works
were written here, including his famous epic poem 'Paradise
Lost'.
Across the road from Bunhill
Fields is the Museum
of Methodism and John Wesley's House.
Admission free
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