Boston Cemetery Chapel

Boston Cemetery Chapel

This cemetery chapel, now disused, dates from 1854-1855 and was designed by James Pigott Pritchett junior of Darlington, who won first prize in a design competition held by the Boston Burial Board in 1854. It is constructed in white brick with Ancaster stone dressings, pinnacles and spire, and has a slate roof that is mainly fishscale with coped gables. The building is 36 feet long by 20 feet wide, rises to a single storey, and features a 70-foot-high tower.

The chapel is executed in Gothic style. A high open porch with quadripartite stone vault is attached to the north side, surmounted by a square tower. The tower carries a broached octagonal spire adorned with a series of adjoining tall lucarnes with narrow buttresses with set-offs. The lucarnes are fitted with louvres, though some are missing, and the spire terminates in an elaborate finial. The west side has three two-light windows separated by buttresses with set-offs. The east side contains two two-light windows with a closed porch in the middle; the porch has a doorway with a pointed arch and a door with decorative hinges, and a small trefoil window above. On the south side is a three-light window. All windows feature Decorated tracery with hoodmoulds and head-stops; all are currently boarded.

The interior comprises three bays of sexpartite wood and plaster groined vaulting springing from corbels carved with angels. The vaulting is completed by elaborate carved bosses. The original leaded diamond lattice windows with coloured glass remain, though some are damaged. The original door to the porch on the north side retains its decorative ironwork. The floor is laid in quarry tiles. The chapel was designed to seat 60 people. Originally fitted with open pews having carved ends, these do not appear to have survived.

The Burial Board Act of 1854 authorised the establishment of burial boards outside London. In that same year the Boston Burial Board agreed to purchase a twelve-acre plot to the north of the town for use as the public burial ground. In May 1854 the Board advertised a competition for designs of two separate chapels, a lodge and entrance gates, with a budget of £1,350, and for the layout of the cemetery including planting and fencing at £200. Pritchett & Sons of York won first prize; Thomas Barry of Liverpool won second prize.

James Pigott Pritchett senior (1789-1868) had taken his son James Pigott Pritchett junior (1830-1911) into partnership in 1853. In 1854, Pritchett junior succeeded to the practice of his brother-in-law John Middleton in Darlington and attended the July 1854 meeting with the Burial Board, being authorised to prepare working drawings. The construction tender was awarded to Baker & Son of Sleaford. The first stone of the Anglican chapel was laid on 7 November 1854, and that of the Nonconformist chapel on 20 November 1854. The Anglican ground was consecrated by the Bishop of Lincoln on 13 August 1855. The cemetery and both chapels opened for funerals on 15 October 1855.

James Pigott Pritchett junior went on to design more than 100 churches and chapels and was closely associated with church work in Darlington. He designed the layout of Darlington West Cemetery and some twenty other cemeteries, was a member of the Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland, a founding member of the Northern Architectural Association, and a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. His obituary in the Darlington & Stockton Times described him as an architect of considerable ability.

Pritchett's cemetery layout remains largely intact, featuring a central lime avenue walk with the Anglican chapel located on its south side. The identical Nonconformist chapel on the north side was demolished in 1961. The two chapels, positioned 200 feet apart, were designed to be viewed from the west, looking towards the entrance lodge to the east. In 1885 the cemetery was enlarged and the central walk extended to lead up to the mortuary, originally situated outside the boundary. Ownership transferred from the Burial Board to Boston Borough Council in 1933. A crematorium was built to the south-west of the original cemetery in 1966. The Anglican chapel has been redundant since 1992.