Main Gateway And Lodges To General Cemetery

Main gateway, side lodges and supporting bridge with attached flanking and retaining walls at the General Cemetery on Cemetery Road, Sheffield. Built in 1836 by architect Samuel Worth of Sheffield, commissioned by the Sheffield General Cemetery Company. Designed in Greek Revival style using ashlar, rock-faced and horizontally-channelled sandstone.

The structure comprises a linear arrangement of a central gateway with flanking lodges, constructed upon an elongated bridge that spans the Porter Brook. Attached flanking boundary walls extend to the north and south on the west side and eastwards on the east side, forming the retaining wall for the northern boundary of the original cemetery.

The gateway and flanking lodges feature a north elevation with an entablature and blocking course. The central opening is flat-headed, flanked by angle pilasters and 2 Greek Doric columns in antis. To either side stand blind front walls to the former lodges in ashlar masonry with channelled rustication, rising from shallow plinths. The south elevation displays paired pilasters either side of a recessed and moulded semi-circular arch. Within the now roofless gateway, the inner side walls of the lodges contain 2 blocked doorways with moulded ashlar surrounds and cornices.

The bridge's west elevation features a segmental arch with massive rock-faced ashlar voussoirs and keystone, springing from massive rock-faced ashlar blocks. Above the voussoirs sits a wide channelled roll moulding upon which the side wall of the flanking lodge is set. To the north and south sides of the arch are coursed channelled sandstone walls; that to the north rises from a roll moulding and terminates at a similar moulding carrying the ashlar masonry of the rear part of the former west lodge. An angled wall to the north side of the arch has been partially demolished.

The east elevation repeats the detailing of the west arch with matching walling to the south side extending eastwards. The long bridge running between the two arch faces is constructed of finely-jointed coursed squared sandstone, with courses running parallel to the length of the bridge.

The attached boundary walls include, extending from the former west lodge on the north side, a sloping masonry wall approximately 10 metres in length, with a roll moulding at the head of the bridge arch extended to form its base. A buttressed coursed masonry wall 42 metres in length extends southwards from the south side of the west lodge, with chamfered copings and formerly equipped with railings. To the east of the east lodge, on the south side of the bridge, a battered masonry wall forms the retaining wall on the northern boundary of the cemetery along the Porter Brook, extending 170 metres eastwards. It is built of coursed squared channelled sandstone approximately 4.5 metres high, incorporating a channelled roll moulding approximately 2 metres above the base and a plain flat coping.

The cemetery was laid out and opened in 1836 by the Sheffield General Cemetery Company to designs by Samuel Worth. It became the most prestigious burial ground for Sheffield's non-conformist community and was extended in 1848 to accommodate Anglican burials. This complex and carefully-detailed entrance forms a principal component of the most complete cemetery of the 1830s surviving outside London. Late 20th-century alterations have been made to the structure.