Brandwood End Cemetery Chapels At Sp 0705 7991

Brandwood End Cemetery Chapels, built in 1898 by J Brewill Holmes for Kings Norton and Northfield Urban District Council, are a pair of cemetery chapels constructed of terracotta and red brick, featuring Westmorland slate roofs with diminishing courses and pierced ridge tiles. They are designed in the Free Perpendicular style and are linked by a central tower that has a carriageway running through it. Each chapel has an apse at the northwest end and porches on the sides.

The exterior presents a symmetrical composition. The southeast elevation, which is the liturgical west side, features gables on the flanking chapels with two three-light windows that have Perpendicular panel tracery and ogee hoodmoulds. There are large buttresses topped with tall pinnacles, and above them, a cusped oculus with an ogee hoodmould and a panelled gable apex adorned with pinnacles and a lona cross. The vestries are marked by small gables in the angles, and the central tower boasts a tall moulded four-centred arch carriageway with an ogee hoodmould, weathered set-offs to the buttresses, lancet bell-openings, crocketed pinnacles, battlements, and a terracotta needle spire with small lucarnes. The northwest elevation, or liturgical east side, mirrors this design but features gabled apses with four-light windows and wheel apex crosses. The southwest and northeast sides include buttressed and pinnacled porches with lona crosses at the gable apexes and lancet windows.

Inside, the chapels have plastered walls that contrast with the terracotta window frames, doorframes, and chancel arches. The roofs are arch-braced and supported by terracotta corbels. The pews are intact and have shaped ends, and there are stained glass windows. It is noted that the northeast chapel was gutted by fire in 1995.