Anglican Chapel At Toxteth Park Cemetery

The Anglican Chapel at Toxteth Park Cemetery, built in 1855-56, was designed by T.D. Barry. Constructed from rockfaced stone with ashlar dressings, it features patterned Welsh slate roofs with remnants of crested ridge tiles. The design is in the Decorated Gothic style, incorporating a plinth, buttresses, coped gables and hips, and pointed arched openings with hood moulds and tracery where appropriate. Pointed windows are cusped, though original glazing has been lost from some. The layout comprises a nave and chancel under a single roof, flanked by paired east and west porches, and an octagonal bell tower to the northwest. The east end has a three-light window, and the west end a four-light window, with small windows in the gable above each. The north and south sides feature a central buttress flanked by pairs of single-light windows. The northwest bell tower, in three stages, includes full-height buttresses, gabled setoffs, and a crenellated parapet, with a lancet window on the lower stage and four single lancet openings on the bell stage. A blocked doorway with a roll-moulded head and shafts (now missing) is present in the northwest porch. A northeast porch, functioning as a vestry, has a smaller doorway and a shouldered external stack with a coped octagonal flue on the south side. West porches have steeply pitched hipped roofs – the south one has an iron cross finial. Each has a roll-moulded doorway with shafts and double doors. Side bays feature pairs of single-light windows, with coped through-eaves dormers, featuring pierced spherical triangles, above.

Inside, the chapel has plain rendered walls with chamfered pointed arches. The nave has a scissor braced roof. The east window contains figurative stained glass, dating from the early to mid-19th century. A large moulded pointed arch is present at the west end, with shaft responds. A traceried wooden glazed screen with double doors stands within. The west porches and vestibule also have intricate scissor-braced hipped roofs. Original fittings include open-back benches, a clergy seat and prayer desk, a lectern, and trestles, all dating to the 19th century. Group value is derived from the chapel’s significance as the principal chapel within an early municipal cemetery, exhibiting characteristic functional features, distinctive architectural design of a good standard, and largely intact condition.