Chapel at Astley Bridge Cemetery

The chapel at Astley Bridge Cemetery is a cemetery chapel dating from 1883, with minor alterations in the 20th century. It was designed by J. Simpson, the architect for the Astley Bridge Local Board and constructed from thinly-coursed square sandstone with ashlar dressings. The building features a coped gable and a slated roof laid to diminishing courses, resting on a low chamfered plinth.

The building is an L-shaped complex. The main range is aligned north-east to south-west, with a lower wing extending north-westwards at the north-east end and a lower entrance cross range to the south-west. The design is in a Decorated Gothic Revival style.

The south-east elevation has three bays with raking ashlar buttresses, an ashlar cill band, and three two-light windows with Decorated tracery. A tall, gabled dormer is located to the right. The lower gabled cross range to the south-west has a wide, pointed-arched doorway, set between attached shafts with foliage capitals, below a tympanum with foliage decoration. Above this is a hood mould with a single stop. The doorway has a vertically-boarded door with decorative strap hinges.

The north-west elevation features a lower gabled range to the left with two single-light windows and small lancet ventilators to the gable apex. A tall stone stack with coupled chimneys marks the junction of the two ranges. To the right are two two-light windows and a steep raking corner buttress. A doorway to the cross range mirrors the detailing of the south-east elevation. The south-west gable has a rose window to the apex incorporating quatrefoil lights. The side wall of the cross range features a tall, two-light gabled dormer and prominent gabled buttresses to the ends. The north-east gable has a wide four-light window above an ashlar panel with a hood mould.

The interior was not inspected.

The Astley Bridge Local Board, established in 1864, created the eight-acre cemetery on land purchased from the Eden Trust. The cemetery was planned with separate areas for Anglicans, Dissenters and Catholics, but the chapel was designed to serve all three denominations. It is a small, well-detailed and substantially complete example of a mid-19th century cemetery chapel, intended as a centrepiece for the cemetery design and intended to serve all Christian denominations within a growing 19th-century textile manufacturing community.