Main east entrance to Highgate (Western) Cemetery, mortuary chapels and railings

TQ2886NE 798-1/13/1551

CAMDEN SWAIN'S LANE (west side) Main east entrance to Highgate (Western) Cemetery, mortuary chapels and railings

(Formerly Listed as: HIGHGATE (WESTERN) CEMETERY, Main East entrance & Mortuary Chapels, Swain's Lane)

16/11/72

GV II Gateway with flanking former mortuary chapels: southern Anglican, now a shop/display area; northern Nonconformist, now offices. 1838-39. By Stephen Geary. For the London Cemetery Company. Yellow stock brick with stone dressings. Slated roofs. Tudor Gothick style. Central four-centred archway with plaque inscribed "London Cemetery" and having the City of London Coat of Arms, above which a dripmould; double cast-iron gates of cusped tracery design. Gabled upper storey with shallow canted oriel having pointed lights and ogee roof. Chapels with two storey polygonal turrets having lancet windows and polygonal terminal features flank gateway and similar blind turrets at angles; a central two storey narrow canted bay window with pointed lights to each chapel. Crenellated parapets.

INTERIORS: plain. Anglican chapel with crypt, hydraulic bier and tunnel leading under the road.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached to north and south facades of chapels, cast-iron traceried railings on brick sleeper walls with entrance gateways having octagonal stone piers with ogival finials and cast-iron traceried double gates.

HISTORICAL NOTE: the original western cemetery, opened 1839, was created by Geary's London Cemetery Company. The romantic layout, over approximately 17 acres, was designed by David Ramsay. When the eastern cemetery was opened, due to popular demand, in 1855 the Anglican chapel was fitted with a hydraulic bier which lowered coffins into a tunnel leading under the road to the new cemetery; much of this remains.

Listing NGR: TQ2854186963