Spa Fields Burial Ground

Spa Fields Burial Ground, London EC1, located in the area around Exmouth Market and the current Spa Fields Park bordered by Farringdon Rd and Skinner Rd.

Spa Fields no longer exists as a burial ground but was originally a small area which is now known as Spa Fields Park and is managed by the London Borough of Islington. Keen genealogists and family historians will know that today’s park is just across the road from the London Metropolitan Archives.

The burial ground was originally privately owned and was then attached to a chapel used originally by the vicar of St James, Clerkenwell (the main St James Church is also nearby). Subsequently, the chapel was taken over in 1777 by by Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon who founded 'The Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion', a Calvinistic movement within the Methodist church.

The Spa Fields area, just to the north of the City of London, has a fascinating and, at times, turbulent history, having associations originally with Lady Huntingdon and her non-conformist chapel and Pantheon team room. Spa Fields was one of 64 chapels that she established across the country in the latter half of the 18th century. The Countess herself is buried at the nonconformist and nearby burial ground of Bunhill Fields, the records for which are also on Deceased Online.

In the early 19th century a different movement arrived with the Owenite “Utopian Socialist” Community establishing itself with over 200 families living and working in the area. A little later, the area was linked with political upheaval and the eponymous Spa Hill riots which threatened revolution and seizure of Parliament.

According to various accounts, the old burial ground was small and, as with many London burial sites of the 18th and 19th centuries, horribly over-crowded with burials. Some accounts talk of even recent burials being disinterred and the unfortunate deceased being burnt or ‘limed’ to make way for the new arrivals.

The records for Spa Fields on Deceased Online are The National Archives (TNA) Collection RG4 volumes 4316 to 4322, 4366 and 4367, dated from 1778 to 1849 and comprising of nearly 114,000 burials with accompanying digital scans of all the registers held by TNA.