Pair of mortuary chapels

Pair of mortuary chapels built in 1859 to architectural designs by Robert Hutchinson.

These are single-storey structures of gault brick with stone dressings and shaped clay tile roofs. The building is T-shaped in plan, comprising a rectangular-plan Anglican chapel aligned north-east to south-west and a perpendicular Nonconformist chapel to the north-east aligned south-east to north-west. The two chapels are connected by a central archway aligned south-east to north-west.

The pair of chapels are linked by a gabled archway with a tall, octagonal, ashlar stone belfry and spire over. The spire features gabled lancet windows in pointed surrounds and the belfry has trefoil cusped openings. The Anglican chapel is gabled to the south-west and has a shallow gabled projection to each of its north-west and south-east elevations. The Nonconformist chapel is gabled to the north-west and south-east and has a shallow gabled projection to its north-east elevation. The pitched roofs of both chapels are covered with shaped clay tiles laid in three horizontal polychromatic bands and surmounted by fleur-de-lis ridge tiles. The walls feature a dentilled eaves course. The gables of the chapels and archway have carved stone parapets and finials, with kneelers and buttresses with carved stone dressings bracing the corners of the gables.

The gabled projection on the south-east side of the Anglican chapel features a pointed-arch window surround with a hood mould containing bipartite stone tracery, margined leaded lights and a quatrefoil overlight. The projection is flanked by triangular window surrounds containing trefoil leaded lights. The south-west gable has a pointed-arch window surround with a hood mould containing tripartite stone tracery, margined leaded lights and hexafoil overlight. The north-west gabled projection has a pointed-arch door surround containing a ledged timber door with decorative wrought-iron strapwork, with the central section of the door folding down vertically over the bottom section. This projection is flanked by triangular window surrounds containing trefoil leaded lights.

The north-west and south-east gables of the Nonconformist chapel each have a pointed-arch window surround with hood mould containing tripartite stone tracery, margined leaded lights and a multi-foiled overlight. The gabled projection on the north-east side of the Nonconformist chapel features a pointed-arch door surround and vertically-folding ledged timber door, flanked by triangular window surrounds with trefoil leaded lights.

Internally, the Anglican chapel has a four-truss wooden hammerbeam roof structure with punctured trefoil ornament and carved floral bosses to the hammerbeams, which rest on carved stone corbels. Two wrought-iron chandeliers, which are replicas of the originals, are suspended from the ceiling with electric lights. The walls are of rendered brick with wood panelling to dado height. The floors, margined with polychromatic encaustic tiles, are laid to a geometric pattern with three eight-pointed stars down the centre of the chapel. Drainage channels at the south-west end, installed in 1948, have latticed metal grilles. A cast-concrete former observation platform was installed on the south-east side in 1948. The triangular window openings on the south-east and north-west walls have deep chamfered reveals. The gabled projections on the south-east and north-west walls are each framed by a pointed arch with chamfered reveals, that on the north-west wall containing a 'contagion' or 'viewing' window. The contagion window has large panes of plate glass in a wooden Y-tracery surround featuring three plain engaged columns. Under the contagion window the wooden panelling has quatrefoil decoration, and behind the window stands a coffin platform constructed of wooden slats on which the coffin was displayed. The north-east wall features a central double ledged wooden door with decorative wrought-iron door furniture.

The Nonconformist chapel features an identical hammerbeam roof, tiled floor, contagion window and ledged double door with decorative wrought-iron door furniture. At the south-east end of the chapel, a wooden dais runs around the north-east and south-east sides. An enclosed WC was constructed in the north-west corner of the chapel in the mid to late twentieth century.