Chapel at Astley Bridge Cemetery

SD 71 SW 797-1/7/251

BOLTON EDEN STREET (South side), Chapel at Astley Bridge Cemetery

(Formerly Listed as: EDEN STREET Astley Bridge Cemetery Chapel)

11/03/99

GV II Cemetery chapel. 1883, with minor C20 alterations. By J. Simpson, architect for the Astley Bridge Local Board. Thinly-course square sandstone with ashlar dressings, rising from a low chamfered plinth. Coped gables and a slated roof covering, laid to diminishing courses.

PLAN: L-shaped complex, with principal range aligned north east-south west, with lower wing extending north-westwards at the north east end and lower entrance cross range to south west end. Decorated Gothic Revival style.

SOUTH EAST ELEVATION: tall three-bay range with raking ashlar buttresses, ashlar cill band and three, two-light windows with Decorated tracery, the window to the right a tall gabled dormer. Lower gabled cross range to south west end, with wide, pointed-arched doorway set between attached shafts with foliage capitals and below tympanum with foliage decoration. Above, hoodmould with single stop. Vertically-boarded door with decorative strap hinges.

NORTH WEST ELEVATION: lower gabled range to left with two single-light windows and tiny lancet ventilators to gable apex. Tall stone stack with coupled chimneys at junction of the two ranges. To the right, two, two-light windows and steep raking corner buttress. Doorway to cross range at right-hand end with detailing to match that of south east elevation. South west gable with rose window to apex, incorporating quatrefoil lights. Side wall of cross range with tall, two-light gabled dormer to centre and prominent gabled buttresses to ends. North east gable with wide four-light window set above ashlar panel with hood-mould.

INTERIOR: not inspected.

HISTORY: the Astley Bridge Local Board, formed in 1864 established the eight acre cemetery on land purchased from the Eden Trust. Provision was made for separate areas for Anglicans, Dissenters and Catholics but the cemetery Chapel was designed to serve all three denominations. A small, well-detailed and substantially complete cemetery chapel, designed as the centrepiece of a mid C19 cemetery design and intended to serve all Christian denominations within an expanding C19 textile manufacturing community.

Listing NGR: SD7111311384