Entrance Lodges, Gates Screen And Boundary Walls At Toxteth Park Cemetery

Entrance lodges, gates, screen and boundary walls at Toxteth Park Cemetery, a municipal cemetery complex from 1856, designed by T.D. Barry, with alterations from the mid and late twentieth century.

The buildings are constructed in red brick with ashlar dressings and Welsh slate roofs. The east lodge features fishscale patterning to its roof. Clustered square chimney flues are set diagonally under heavy copings, rising prominently from external side walls and gables. The architectural style is eclectic Gothic Revival.

The two lodges are substantial structures with plinths, quoins and coped gables. Windows are of various Gothic types, with those on main fronts featuring stone mullions and transoms. The larger east lodge is of double range plan with two facing gables, the right gable slightly projecting. This right gable includes a square bay window with a pointed arched central light, above which sits a traceried panel and a canted stone oriel window with hipped stone slate roof. The left gable has plainer windows that differ on each floor, with triangular lights in the peak of both gables. The right return, facing the entrance, has a hipped two-storey projection to the right with a chamfered pointed arched door, flanked by an external stack with single light windows beside it. The left return contains a three-light window with traceried surround and a through-eaves dormer above with a two-light pointed arched window. The rear elevation shows a flat-roofed single storey projection to the left with a canted stone bay window, a hipped roof with through-eaves dormer, and a single window to the right. The projecting right gable has a square bay window.

The ground floor office features a coved ceiling, glazed wooden screens and half-glazed doors (some lettered), and a winder stair with stick balusters, all nineteenth century work.

The smaller and simpler west lodge follows a similar plan. At the time of survey, windows and doors were boarded but retained original mullions and mainly original glazing. The facing gables have single windows on each floor. To the right stands a single storey service building with flat roof and large doorway flanked by single windows. The left return, facing the entrance, has a hipped L-plan projection with a chamfered pointed doorway to the right and a three-light graduated window to the left. At the rear, a projecting gable to the right has a window on each floor. Attached to the west side is a coped yard wall with attached outbuildings.

The west lodge interior was restored in 1998 to 1999 and includes original stairs with renewed and more elaborate balusters, several imported fireplaces, some original doors, and a coped ceiling to the principal room.

The screen has a central chamfered pointed arched opening with wrought iron grille, set in a shouldered and buttressed coped gable. On each side is a pair of traceried wrought iron gates. Beyond, on each side, an enriched cross-gabled pier carries a matching side gate.

Attached to each side of the lodges are boundary walls extending approximately 200 metres to the east and 300 metres to the west. These are constructed of red brick with ashlar coping and stepped coping to alternate piers. Late twentieth century railing runs along the walls. The splayed east corner has a wide opening with cross-gabled piers, now blocked. The east wall incorporates a triangular cast-iron half-column dated 1865, forming a boundary mark.