London's Spa Fields

Deceased Online has just uploaded around 114,000 burial records from Spa Fields in the modern London borough of Islington

Spa Fields today, with the Church of Our Most Holy Redeemer in the background

Spa Fields Burial Ground became notorious in the 19th century for its overcrowded and insanitary conditions. Located in the parish of St James, Clerkenwell, the grave yard was not far from the ever-increasing City of London. Spa Fields was known also as Clerkenwell Fields and Ducking-pond Fields in the late 18th century, hinting at a dark side to what was then a summer evening resort for north Londoners. What would become a cemetery was a ducking pond in the rural grounds of a Spa Fields public house. It was here in 1683 that six children were drowned while playing on the ice. In his History of Clerkenwell (1865) William J. Pinks wrote that visitors, "came hither to witness the rude sports that were in vogue a century ago, such as duck-hunting, prize-fighting, bull-baiting, and others of an equally demoralising character." Another name for the area was Pipe Fields, named for the wooden pipes of the great New River Company that brought drinking water to the people of London.

Islington 1805

The Spa Fields locality is known for its nonconformist Chapel. This has led to some confusion among family historians who believed the burial ground to be nonconformist. In fact, Spa Fields is not the chapel's burial ground as it was privately owned. The creator of the Chapel, Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, is buried further east in the nonconformist burial ground of Bunhill Fields. Her record can be found in the Bunhill collection on the Deceased Online database. Both the Spa Fields and Bunhill collections are digitised from original registers held in series RG4 at The National Archives at Kew.

Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon (1707-1791)

Before being taken over by the Countess as Northampton Chapel, the building on Exmouth Street, built in 1770, was a public entertainment establishment named the "Pantheon". When this venture collapsed, the house and gardens were sold to a private company. The house re-opened as a chapel of the parish church of St James, Clerkenwell and was soon afterwards sold to the Countess of Huntingdon who turned it into a Dissenting chapel in 1777.

Shortly after this, a group of private speculators leased two acres of ground from behind the chapel from the local landowner, the Marquis of Northampton. The speculators turned this into a general cemetery. The small ground lay in an area of Georgian London that was growing at a rapid rate. Originally designed to hold 2,722 adult bodies, the cemetery was soon taking in 1,500 bodies a year. Since it was not in the speculators' financial interests to stop the burials, by the mid-19th century the ground had descended into a smelly, disease-ridden demesne.

In 1842, it was discovered that at night, bodies were being exhumed and coffins burned. A report in The York Herald, and General Advertiser of Saturday 5th April 1845 describes with a tone of horror one family's upsetting discovery:

A highly respectable family residing in - purchased

a double family grave in Spa-fields burying-ground.

This grave was marked by a head and a foot stone. The

grave was opened some time since, for the reception of a 

deceased member of the family. A tier of eight or ten

coffins was found projecting in every direction, and 

filling up half this double grave. The coffins and bodies

of adults and children were remorselessly cut through,

and upwards of five hundredweight of coffin-wood taken

out of the grave and burnt. The original occupant of 

this family grave, - , was "doubled up" and thrust into

the mud, &c, at the bottom of the grave, out of which

upwards of forty pailfuls of a most sickening compound

were baled. His coffin was taken to the bone-house,

 the fire being alight at the time. The "manager" has

frequently been on the watch through the wicket of

the large gates of the ground, and, as soon

as the mourners have made their appearance with the 

deceased, he has shouted to the grave-diggers, "Make

haste - they're coming:" earth has been quickly thrown

over the floor of the grave, the body deposited, and 

within half an hour - even before the funeral service was 

concluded - the coffin has been covered by the water.

The article continues at some length, detailing accusations from neighbours of the burying ground about its "nauseous fumes" and "the constant dread of being burnt out" by the regular fires in the bone-house. A petition was organized by George A. Walker, M.D., of the Society for the Abolition of Burials in Towns, which resulted in the culprits being summoned before Clerkenwell Police Court. Eventually, the "disgusting and loathsome practices" were outlawed.

London Metropolitan Archives, on the left, is situated opposite Spa Fields, to the right.

Today, the burial ground is a park managed by Islington Council. Visitors to London Metropolitan Archives, just across the the road, often walk through the park or eat lunch there in good weather. As seen in the photograph at the top of the page, Spa Fields still lies in the shadow of its neighboring building. The Dissenters Chapel was demolished and replaced in 1888 with the church of Our Most Holy Redeemer Clerkenwell, an Anglican parish church in the Diocese of London, whose entrance can be found by passing through Spa Fields Walk into bustling Exmouth Market.

The narrow Spa Fields Walk

Did your ancestors have any connection the Spa Fields Burial Ground? Were they buried there or did they live nearby? Do let us know in the Comments Box below, or on our Facebook and Twitter pages!

Sources:
The York Herald, and General Advertiser (York, England), Saturday, April 05, 1845; pg. 7; Issue 3782. 19th Century British Library Newspapers: Part II.
http://catsmeatshop.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/spa-fields-burial-ground.html
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45101&strquery=spa+fields