Christianity from the 43 bus: 12. Bunhill Fields

Continuing a journey through London on the 43 bus route - with a Christian eye.  The whole series is viewable on the '43 bus route' tag below.

If you've followed through this blog series you will be starting to understand how many amazing Christian stories litter the 43 bus route.  But one place, opposite John Wesley's house, has so many stories that a long blog series would be needed to tell them.  That place is Bunhill Fields.

For people like me, at least, it contains so many figures whose writings I have come across - but most notably perhaps Isaac Watts (so many hymns), Daniel Defoe (As in Robinson Crusoe etc.) and William Blake (Author of the hymn Jerusalem).  The Wesleys mother Susannah is buried here as well as other worthies like the three Johns: John Owen, John Rippon and John Gill.  The reason for this galaxy of non-conformist names is that this was a convenient burial place just outside the City of London available to non-Anglicans for burial.

The grave that catches the eye - mainly because of its prominent position - is that of John Bunyan.

For someone who spent so much of his life in Bedford gaol - which we have to thank for his unequalled Pilgrim's Progress - this seems an unlikely place to be buried.  A preacher of such brave heroism I felt sure I would discover an amazing story, matching his writings, of how his death came about in London.  Perhaps if I were wiser I would have considered that there is probably a reason why I have never heard a story about Bunyan's actual death.

Anyhow, here it is.  He rode his horse from Reading to London in very heavy (August) rain.  He got soaked.  He fell ill at his friends house as a result.  His cold turned to a fever.  He died.  In summary, he was killed by the British Summer . . .

Christianity from the 43 bus: 10. The Leysian Mission

Continuing a journey through London on the 43 bus route - with a Christian eye.  The whole series is viewable on the '43 bus route' tag below.

The 43 heads out of the centre of Islington down City Road towards the City of London.  City Road is probably most famous for Moorfield's Eye Hospital, one of the world's major centres for eye surgery.  These days the road is populated with many contemporary high-rise glass buildings, but at its end comes this building.

Looking the part as a rival to Harrods it is an eye-turning place despite being near central London's many grand exteriors.  It was The Leysian Mission.

The Leys School in Cambridge was a Methodist School designed to prepare non-Anglicans to enter degree study at Cambridge University - something only made possible in the 1870s.  Graduates of this elite school set about the improvement of the wretched social needs of London's East End.  Originally deep in the East End, this was the second, grander property, at the very edge of the East End but wielding a wide influence.

The story is even better than the building, but perhaps inevitably it is today apartments.

Christianity from the 43 bus 9. People History

Continuing a journey through London on the 43 bus route - with a Christian eye.  The whole series is viewable on the '43 bus route' tag below.

St Mary's Church, Islington has a bus stop so it is hard to ignore from the 43 bus.  Were it not for that, though, it might be thought to be just another of a plethora of churches along the route.  It lacks the grandeur of Union Chapel, not far up the street.  

But this church has more history via its people than any short blog could ever tell.

Think Charles Wesley, for example.  The hymnwriter of such predominance that even in the fragmented Western church worship patterns of the 21st century all of us still sing his hymns in some form.  Charles, together with George Whitfield, were invited preachers by the minister of this church and preached regularly.  Complaints were made to the Bishop of London, and it was here that both of them were forbidden to preach in Churches.  Instead they adopted the open air preaching already embraced by John Wesley and the rest is (Methodist) history.

A hundred and fifty years earlier, this was the Church where Robert Browne was the preacher, the generally recognized founder of Congregationalism and therefore in some ways the inspiration for the Pilgrim Fathers setting out for the New World.  They were dubbed Brownists.  So that's two denominations that owe their identity somewhat to this parish church.

But Anglicanism too has history here.  The first black African priest was ordained here in the 1700s, that's right, the 1700s..  The man who later became the first Bishop of Nigeria was trained here.  The founder of the Lord's Day Observance Society was vicar here before becoming Bishop of Calcutta.  The England cricketer - later Bishop of Liverpool - David Sheppard was a curate here while still playing cricket for England!

And the list goes on.  This is not a church building to turn the head on a 43 bus, but its story surely would.