Collins Yard is so-named as it ran alongside the Collins’ Music Hall giving access to the rear of the hall.
Collins Yard referred in particular to a piece of ground circa 60 feet square at the rear of the former music hall, between Gaskin Street and Islington Green. This was called ’Jones’ Burial Ground’ also ’Little Bunhill Fields’ and the ’New Bunhill Fields’. This burial ground in connection with the New Islington Chapel (1814/15) was closed for burial purposes at the end of 1853 and by 1895 the land had been divided up.
The ground here was by tradition a plague pit during the Great Plague of London.
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