Two Chapels And Gateway, Chippenham Cemetery

This is a pair of cemetery chapels and a gateway, built in 1854. The buildings are constructed from squared coursed limestone rubble with ashlar dressings, and have steeply pitched slate roofs with ashlar coping, moulded kneelers, a bellcote, angled buttresses and a low, chamfered plinth. The style is Gothic Revival.

The chapels are T-shaped, and single-storey. A steeply gabled bellcote with a cast-iron finial sits atop the central gable. Beneath it is an empty niche with an angel-head plinth over a floating cornice with lion stops. The pointed entrance arch and the three-light pointed-arched windows with geometric tracery to flanking gables have head stops to the hoodmoulds. The rear of the buildings is similar, with steeply weathered buttresses to the chapels, doors in the rear of the lower side wings and a diagonally-set square opening to the apex of the gable over the arch.

Originally separate Church of England and Nonconformist chapels, the left-hand chapel is now used as a store and is believed to be identical to the right-hand chapel, which remains virtually unchanged. The timber-framed roof features scissor braces on stone corbels to the rear. There is a pointed arch with steps up to the apse, an ashlar floor to the main block, and arcading with foliate caps. The external door is planked, and the interior is latticed with the original lock. An original lectern reflecting the architectural style, simple pews and a bier remain.

Connecting the right-hand chapel to the caretaker's cottage is an elaborate crow-stepped arch, approximately 5 meters high, flanked by about 1 meter of wall with pierced trefoil coping. The steps are steeply coped with a medieval-style stone finial over a small shield in a niche. The wrought-iron gate and the double gates to the chapels have long and short railings with spikes, fleur-de-lis finials to the shorter ones, and scrolls to the outer frame. A cast plaque indicates that they were made by HGP Hipps, engineer, Chippenham.