Hampstead Synagogue

Hampstead Synagogue is a synagogue built between 1892 and 1901 by Delissa Joseph. It is constructed from red brick and features slate roofs, with a design that combines elements of French Gothic and Romanesque styles.

The exterior includes a three-stage central tower topped with a tall hipped roof, a moulded parapet, and clasped buttresses that extend into octagonal broached turrets. The entrance has a stepped semicircular arched architrave, and the upper stages of the tower are highlighted by a moulded semicircular arch with foliate capitals on engaged shafts of three orders. This arch frames a large window set above two orders of shafts that support interlaced arches over narrow lancets. The tower is flanked by two-storey blocks, each featuring four round-arched lancets above a moulded semicircular arched doorway. The outer blocks are two-storey as well, with hood moulds over two round-arched windows, leading to single-storey ranges that each have three round-arched lancets. At the rear, a central dome has lunettes with graduated arched lights.

Inside, the entrance hall boasts a coffered ceiling and a mosaic tile floor. It features two-bay semicircular arched arcades with foliate capitals in the outer bays, along with decorative wrought-iron balusters on the staircases. Galleries surround a polygonal-plan centre, where ribs of a bolection-panelled dome rise from cast-iron columns with waterleaf capitals, supported on octagonal marble piers with moulded abaci. These piers hold panelled balcony fronts on three sides. The "sanctuary" end has a barrel vault with segmental-arched archivolts. The marble ark is designed in a Classical style, featuring decorative wrought-iron doors and an overlight set in a semicircular arch, flanked by Ionic columns and quadrants that end in coupled Ionic pilasters, topped with a dentilled entablature and a balustraded parapet. There is also a marble pulpit in a similar style, with balusters at the front and flanked by sweeping marble steps. The synagogue contains good stained glass throughout.