In keeping with this tradition, in 1665 the City of London Corporation decided to use some of the land as a common burial ground for the interment of bodies of inhabitants who had died of the plague and could not be accommodated in the churchyards.

He allowed extramural graveyard burials in what was unconsecrated soil, thus popular with nonconformists—those Protestant Christians who practised their faiths outside the Church of England; unlike Anglican churchyards it was open for interment to anyone who could afford the fees.

An inscription at the eastern entrance gate to the burial ground reads: "This church-yard was inclosed with a brick wall at the sole charges of the City of London, in the mayoralty of Sir John Lawrence, Knt., Anno Domini 1665; and afterwards the gates thereof were built and finished in the mayoralty of Sir Thomas Bloudworth, Knt., Anno Domini, 1666."

So many historically important Protestant nonconformists chose this as their place of interment that the 19th-century poet and writer Robert Southey characterised Bunhill Fields in 1830 as the ground "which the Dissenters regard as their Campo Santo".

An Order for Closure for Bunhill Fields was made in December 1853, and the final burial (that of Elizabeth Howell Oliver) took place on 5 January 1854.

Occasional interments continued to be permitted in existing vaults or graves: the final burial of this kind is believed to have been that of a Mrs. Gabriel of Brixton in February 1860.

[8] Two decades before, a group of City nonconformists led by George Collison bought a site for a new landscaped alternative, at part of Abney Park in Stoke Newington.

Upon closure of the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground, its future was uncertain as its lessee, the City of London Corporation, was close to expiry of its lease, scheduled for Christmas 1867.

[9] To prevent the land from being redeveloped by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners (who controlled the freehold) at this expiry, the Corporation formed the Special Bunhill Fields Burial Ground Committee in 1865.

The legislation enabled them to continue to maintain the site when possession would have otherwise reverted to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, provided it was laid out as a public open space with seating, gardens, and some of its most worthy monuments were restored.

[2] In the 1950s, after some debate, the City ordered: to clear the northern third (the projection) of the site of most of its monuments to open it as a public garden; and to preserve and protect the rest behind railings.

Their graves have long been sites of cultural pilgrimage: Isabella Holmes stated in 1896 that the "most frequented paths" in the burial ground were those leading to the monuments of Bunyan and Defoe.

Their settings were further radically modified by the landscaping of 1964–65, when a paved north–south "broadwalk" was created in the middle of the burial ground to display them—outside the railed-off areas, accessible to visitors, and cleared of other monuments.

By the 19th century, this had fallen into decay, but in the period following the closure of the burial ground a public appeal for its restoration was launched under the presidency of the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury.

[13] Although Papworth retained the basic form of the tomb-chest, he added a recumbent effigy of Bunyan to the top of it, and two relief panels to its sides depicting scenes from Pilgrim's Progress.

In 1869, James Clarke, editor of the Christian World children's newspaper, launched an appeal for subscriptions to place a more suitable memorial on the grave.

In late 1869, when the foundations were being dug, skeletons were disinterred, and there was an unseemly rush for souvenirs by the crowd of onlookers: the police had to be called before calm was restored.

[19] In the form of a ledger stone, with lettering by Lida Cardozo Kindersley, this was finally unveiled on 12 August 2018 by Philip Pullman, President of the Blake Society.

Baptist minister John Rippon—who was himself buried at the site in 1836—made transcripts of its monumental inscriptions in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, some copied while "laying on his side".