Bunhill Row

Bun hill, a kind of large Row, or str. with Houses only on one side; it is on the W. side of the Artillery Ground near Moorfields L. 570 Yds, and from P C. NWly 1100 Yds, and Bun hill Fields are those next to the Nd from Upper Moorfields.

[Bun Hill.] Besides the forementioned Trained Bands and Auxiliary Men, there is the Artillery Company, which is as a Nursery for Soldiers, and have been so about 80 Years. Their Place, or Field of Exercise, formerly was in the old Artillery Ground, now in Finsbury Fields, adjoyning to the upper Quarters of Moor Fields on the East, and Bun-Hill on the West.

Bunhill row, near Bunhill fields.

Bunhill-Row, St. Luke's,—the first W. parallel to Finsbury-square and the Artillery-ground, extending from 63, Chiswell-st. where the numbers begin and end, viz. 1 and 133, to Old-st. op. St. Luke's hospital, about ⅓ of a mile in length.

Bunhill-Row, St. Luke's, is the first street westward of Finsbury-square and the Artillery Ground; it extends from No. 63, Chiswell-street, to Old-street, opposite St. Luke's Hospital. In this street are the Artillery Ground and the head-quarters of the London Militia.—[See Artillery Ground.

Artillery Walk, now Bunhill Row, leading to Bunhill Fields. In this walk, the west side of the present Bunhill Row, "opposite the Artillery Wall," Milton finished his Paradise Lost, and here, November 8, 1674, he died.

He stay'd not long (in Jewin Street) after his new marriage, ere he removed (1663) to a house in the Artillery Walk, leading to Bunhill Fields. And this was his last stage in this world, but it was of many years' continuance, more perhaps than he had had in any other place besides.—Philips's Life of Milton, ed. 1694.

Milton's was a small house, with a garden back and front long since swept away. Milton's widow occupied the house six or seven years longer, when she removed to Nantwich, where she died about September 1727, having survived the poet more than half a century.

Bunhill, i.e. Bonehill, Finsbury, so called from the deposit here of "more than one thousand cart-loads of bones," removed in 1549 from the charnel-house of old St. Paul's by order of the Protector Somerset. In the earliest form of the story of Dick Whittington, it is related that the hero heard Bow bells from Bunhill instead of Highgate as in the later versions.

A kind of large row or street, with houses only on one side; it is on the west side of the Artillery Ground, near Moorfields.—Hatton (in 1708).

He [Milton] died in Bunhill, opposite to the Artillery Ground wall.—Aubrey, Lives, vol. iii. p. 449.

But he [Milton] stay'd not long after his new marriage, ere he removed to a house in the Artillery Walk leading to Bunhill Fields. And this was his last stage in this world.—Philips's Life of Milton, 12mo, 1694, p. 38.

He [Whittington] resolved with himself to run away, and for that purpose he had bundled up those few clothes which he had, and before day broke was got as far as Bun-hill, and then he sat down to consider with himself what course he were best to take, where, by chance (it being All-hallows day), a merry peal from Bow Church began to ring, and as he apprehended, they were tim'd to the ditty—

Turn again Whittington, Lord Mayor of London.
Famous and Remarkable History of Sir Richard Whittington, by T.H., reprinted 1885 (Villon Society), p. 11.