Dissenters Chapel

The Dissenters Chapel, located in Highland Road Cemetery in Southsea, was built around 1854 and designed by architect Thomas Ellis Owen. This cemetery chapel is notable for its Byzantine style and is constructed primarily of yellow brick in Flemish bond, featuring red polychrome bands that create a striped effect, along with some stone dressings and a slate roof.

The building is rectangular, consisting of two bays, with a projecting porch at the west end and an apsidal east end. The west facade includes a pediment adorned with a Star of David, and the porch features an open pediment and a round-headed arch with stone impost bands. On either side of the porch are round-headed arched windows with circular glazing bars and impost blocks. The north and south sides display full-height arcading of five bays, with stone impost blocks and brick pilasters; three of the arches are blank, while the others contain cast iron circular glazing bars. The east end has a lower semi-circular apse with a five-bay arcade featuring red brick arches, stone impost blocks, brick pilasters, and a plinth. There are two boarded window openings, two blank spaces, and a central doorcase that currently has a 20th-century door.

Highland Road Cemetery is significant as it was the only cemetery designed by Thomas Ellis Owen. The Dissenters Chapel, with its distinctive polychromic brick Byzantine style, provides an interesting contrast to the Gothic style stone Anglican chapel nearby. This chapel is one of a series of cemetery buildings designed by Owen.