Complex of Funerary Buildings at Willesden Jewish Cemetery (United Synagogue Cemetery)

Complex of funerary buildings in Gothic Revival style, built in 1872-73 by Nathan Solomon Joseph as part of the United Synagogue Cemetery. The group comprises a Prayer Hall or 'ohel', a Cohanim Room, and a Mortuary or 'bet taharah', together with a WC Range, extended in the early 20th century. An Assembly Hall or 'Portico' was added to the Prayer Hall in 1929, designed by Harry Wharton Ford, and an additional WC block was added to the Mortuary and WC Range in the early 20th century.

Materials include coursed Kentish ragstone with Bath stone ashlar dressings, and colonnettes of Mansfield stone (red sandstone) to the Prayer Hall. Each building has a deep plinth. The roofs are of grey slate with bands of green slate and terracotta ridge tiles. The Prayer Hall, Cohanim Room and Mortuary each have an octagonal stack of Bath stone with a zig-zag moulding around the shaft. The buildings retain their original diamond-leaded windows with cathedral glass, and their timber ledged and braced doors with foliate wrought-iron hinges.

The Prayer Hall stands to the south, with the Cohanim Room to the north-east and the Mortuary and WC Range to the north-west. Immediately to the north of the Prayer Hall, and linked to it, is the 1929 Assembly Hall.

PRAYER HALL: The building has a rectangular footprint set on a north-south axis, with a porch at either end. The main entrance is now through the Portico, with the southern porch providing access to the cemetery beyond.

The three-bay building has a pitched roof with projecting central dormers framed by inset colonnettes of Mansfield stone. The dormers and the southern gable each contain a rose window of coloured glass incorporating a Star of David. Other windows, to the west and east elevations, are grouped in triplets of trefoil-headed lancets, separated by offset buttresses, with angle buttresses to the corners. The gabled southern porch has side windows. The doorway has a pointed arch protected by a hoodmould, the arch supported by inset colonnettes with foliate capitals, and retains its double doors. The entrance to the northern porch has been obscured by the portico extension. An octagonal stack, originally connected to a heating stove within the hall, rises from the northern gable, supported on a corbel over an engaged colonnette.

Internally, the hall forms a single open space below a hammerbeam roof ceiled with diagonally-set matchboarding. The trusses rest on engaged columns with stiff-leaf capitals. The windows are set in segmental-arched embrasures with bead-moulding. To either side of the doors are shallow pointed-arched niches; those to the south hold timber prayer boards dating from the 1950s. Beneath are a number of memorial panels in metal. Along the west and east sides is simple bench seating with matchboarded uprights.

ASSEMBLY HALL: The rectangular footprint is set on a west-east axis, entered from the north. The Assembly Hall gives access to the Prayer Hall to the south via a covered way.

The details were designed to fit harmoniously with the existing buildings, though the roof is sprocketed with wide eaves rather than pitched, giving the building a slightly Arts and Crafts flavour. Chamfered, square-section columns rest on the plinth to either side of the entrance opening; the spaces have been filled by diamond-leaded glazed screens which can be opened completely. To either side the stone walls are pierced by paired pointed-arched windows. The east elevation has a pointed-arched doorway. On the south elevation, paired windows reflect those on the north elevation. Between these, the covered way meets the northern porch of the Prayer Hall; the columns here have also been infilled with double doors and lancet glazing.

The open, stone-flagged interior is very simple, with bench seating against the south wall. The arched doorway leading to the Prayer Hall is framed by engaged colonnettes. On the east wall is a Boer War memorial moved here in 1960 from the closed synagogue at Aldershot; this is a replica of the 1905 memorial at the Central Synagogue in Great Portland Street, lost to bombing in the Second World War. There is a First World War memorial, commemorating members of the United Synagogue and their sons, to the west wall.

COHANIM ROOM: The building has a rectangular footprint set on a west-east axis, with an entrance porch to the west.

The two-bay building has a pitched roof with an octagonal stack to the apex of the eastern gable, as on the Prayer Hall, but supported on a foliate corbel; there is a wrought-iron finial to the western gable. There are diagonal buttresses to the corners, and paired pointed-arched windows to each bay. The gabled porch, also buttressed, has a pointed-arched doorway with a hoodmould and side windows. The eastern elevation is blind.

A false ceiling currently obscures the roof, and the floor is covered with lino. The windows are set in segmental-arched embrasures with a bead-moulding. The fireplace is blocked and no chimneypiece remains.

MORTUARY AND WC RANGE: A linked group of three buildings set on a west-east axis, with the Mortuary to the east, the original WC block to the centre, and a second WC block to the west, added in the early 20th century.

The buildings now form a symmetrical composition, with the gable ends of the Mortuary and western WC block facing south, to either side of the lower, recessed, central block. Each of the outer blocks has a pointed-arched doorway with a hoodmould. The north elevations are otherwise blind, relieved by the cill band which runs around both buildings, and by the stonework to the plinth and quoins. To the apex of each gable is a wrought-iron finial, except to the south of the Mortuary, where an octagonal stack is supported on a foliate corbel. The buildings have diagonal buttresses, except to the eastern side of the Mortuary, where the buttresses have been removed to allow a passageway to the west of the Assembly Hall. To the rear (south) of the Mortuary is a late-19th or early-20th-century timber awning, sheltering a row of porcelain basins for ritual hand-washing. To the rear of the western WC block is a linked pair of pointed-arched openings, with a narrow door to the east and a window to the west – possibly a modification of an original two-light window. The central block has a pyramidal roof topped by a lantern with its own pyramidal roof. The north elevation has three pointed windows beneath a parapet decorated with recessed roundels; the building is entered through a four-centred-arched doorway to the rear.

The interior of the Mortuary retains its original white tiling throughout, and its stone-flagged floor with drainage holes. The roof is ceiled and plastered. To the south is the chimneybreast with its fireplace, though the chimneypiece has been removed. The interiors of the WC blocks were not inspected, but are understood to contain modern fittings.