Municipal Cemetery Chapel

Municipal Cemetery Chapel

This chapel complex in the Grimsby Corporation Cemetery on Scartho Road dates to 1888. It was designed by Edward William Farebrother of Grimsby and built by J Thompson for the Grimsby Corporation Cemetery Committee.

The building is constructed in red brick in English bond with sandstone dressings and a green slate roof, executed in the Gothic Revival style. The plan is H-shaped, consisting of a central carriage archway with a tower above, flanked by passages leading to separate chapels on the north and south sides.

The central tower is the dominant feature. Its first stage contains buttresses flanking an ashlar section with a tall pointed moulded arch featuring banded nook shafts, a hoodmould with head-stops, and elaborately-carved spandrels decorated with scrolled foliage in relief. The second stage, which is stepped back, has quoins with angle-shafts and quadruple lancets to each side with shafted reveals. An ashlar Lombardy frieze and coped parapet with octagonal angle-turrets supporting flying buttresses lead to the third stage, an octagonal belfry with angle-shafts and pointed arched panels containing louvred lancet bell-openings on alternate faces. This stage displays a broad ashlar frieze with diaper-work and paterae. The octagonal spire is constructed of banded brick and ashlar, topped with four miniature lucarnes and a finial.

The central entrance passage features a brick quadripartite vault with stone ribs and a central roundel, with pointed moulded inner arches to the chapel entrance passages flanked by narrow blind arches. The passages to the chapels are lit by pairs of twin lancets.

Each chapel's west side contains a foundation stone; the north chapel's records the date of 5 November 1888, whilst the south chapel's records the architect and builder. Above these, each chapel has stepped lancets with nook shafts, hoodmoulds and carved stops, flush ashlar bands, a miniature blind stepped lancet at the gable apex, and a coped gable with shaped kneelers and a cross finial. The north and south sides of the chapels feature triple lancets. The east sides terminate in half-octagonal apses, each containing three pointed two-light traceried windows.

Additional features include triple lancets on the north and south sides with adjoining vestries, each vestry having an arched door to the east and a projecting gable-stack with offsets and a tall chimney shaft with quoins and corniced cap. The south vestry has had a garage door inserted into its south gable-end. Crested ridge-tiles run throughout.

Internally, the chapels are separated by pointed moulded sanctuary arches on octagonal responds, with pointed arched doors leading to the vestries. The sanctuaries contain stained-glass windows featuring figures of saints. The roofs are arch-braced, supported on foliate corbels. The south chapel is now used as storage.

The chapel forms part of a group with the Municipal Cemetery gateway and lodge.