Jewish Mortuary Chapel at Earlham Cemetery

The Jewish Mortuary Chapel at Earlham Cemetery is a small chapel built around 1856 for the Jewish community in Norwich. It was designed by Edward Everett Benest, who served as the Surveyor to the City of Norwich.

The chapel is constructed of red brick with ashlar stone and grey brick detailing, featuring coped gables and a roof covered with Welsh slate. It is a two-bay building oriented east-west, rising from a deep brick plinth. The bays are separated by low buttresses, with red brick wall panels in between. A moulded string course runs around the building at mid-wall level. The entrance is located in the west gable, featuring a doorway beneath a shouldered stone lintel. The string course rises in two steps to form a hood mould above the door. The door itself is plain, vertically-planked, and has cover strips. Above the doorway is a shallow, pointed-arched, three-light window with cusped heads. At the east end, there is a tall, five-light window with similar detailing. The window surrounds consist of alternating clusters of grey and red bricks, while the corners and buttresses are accented with grey bricks to mimic quoining.

Inside, the chapel has a simple design with plain clay floor tiles, plastered and painted walls, and exposed rafters. A single slender arch-braced collar truss supports the purlins, and there are no fixed furnishings.

The chapel is situated at the edge of a section of the cemetery designated for the Jewish community, which features headstones of distinctive design. In a Jewish cemetery, the headstone is referred to as a Matzeivah and typically bears an inscription in Hebrew.