Mortuary Chapels At Keynsham Cemetery

The Mortuary Chapels at Keynsham Cemetery are two attached Anglican chapels built between 1877 and 1878 by Charles Edward Davis of Bath, with repairs made in 1885 by local builder Edward Harvey. They are constructed from squared and coursed rock-faced Pennant rubble, featuring Bath ashlar dressings, copings, and gabled plain tile roofs. The architectural style is Middle Pointed.

The chapels are arranged in a symmetrical layout, flanking a tall carriage archway. Each single-storey chapel has a two-light, two-centred-arched window on the north and south gable faces, adorned with trefoil-cusped lights and rose tracery sections above. The chapels also have coped parapets with kneelers, crosses at the apex, and ridge cresting, along with two single-light windows and external battered stacks on the return walls. The link buildings between the chapels feature plain three-light windows with arched heads. The tall carriage archway on both sides has a pointed-arched head with carved head stops, diagonal buttresses, and small three-light arched openings with louvres beneath the gable. At the top, there is an octagonal spirelet with a tiled base, a wooden louvred mid-section decorated with trefoils, and a tiled upper spire topped with a wrought-iron weathervane.

Inside, each chapel has a plain canted rafter roof with plaster infill and stained glass roundels of saints in the rose windows.

Historically, the cemetery is located in the middle of a large Roman villa dating back to the late 3rd century. The chapels were built by Keynsham builder H. Sheppard and were consecrated in April 1878. Although they are a late example of their style, they hold significant local historical importance, remaining entirely unaltered and designed by a prominent local architect. At the time of the survey, the chapels were noted to be dilapidated and disused.