Mortuary Chapel

This is a mortuary chapel, built in 1842 by James Wilson. It is situated on Walcot Street, Bath. Constructed from limestone ashlar with a slate roof, the chapel is designed in a restrained cruciform plan with four bays.

The exterior presents a Neo-Norman style. The open west bay forms a porch with arched openings on each face. The gables feature hybrid cornices, incorporating both modillions and billets, along with a stone cross-in-circle finial and dated shield on the west front and a bellcote with a machicolated cornice over a semicircular arched opening at the east end. Arches at the west end have scalloped capitals to engaged columns, and a moulded string course encircles the building, rising as dripmoulds over semicircular arched windows. A plinth runs along the rear and returns to meet the porch floor. The double doors have three vertically moulded panels with large studs in the frames. Buttresses extend to the string course between the windows, angled at corners. The returns have two plain 20th-century two-pane semicircular arched windows, and the rear has wider two-light windows. Within the crossings are leaded spandrels. A blind cross-loophole sits above the rear window. Below sits a splayed arch with blocked double railing gates.

The interior is plain, featuring a shallow groin vault to the ceiling. Intact fittings are limited to a small fireplace in the northeast corner, intended to warm the minister. A large vault lies beneath the chapel, exploiting the natural slope of the land.

The Walcot burial ground first appeared on maps of Bath in 1793. The Neo-Norman style was considered appropriate for cemetery buildings, similar to Manners's chapel at the Abbey Cemetery. The chapel has since been used as Walcot village hall and an exhibition venue. The burial ground contains numerous memorials, largely of Pennant Stone, which reportedly include the memorial of the writer Fanny Burney (died 1840), buried with her husband General Alexandre D’Arblay (died 1818). Other notable interments include William Hoare RA and Admiral Sir Edward Berry (died 1831), who fought at the Nile and Trafalgar. The burial ground closed in 1875, and the building was near dereliction by the mid-1970s.