Mortuary chapel

Mortuary chapel built between 1878 and 1879 and opened in 1880 for the cemetery associated with Somerset and Bath County Asylum. The chapel's design is attributed to the surveyor Edwin Hippisley, based on preliminary plans by County Surveyor, Arthur Whitehead. The gate piers at the entrance to the cemetery were built in about 1875.

STYLE: Gothic Revival.

MATERIALS: constructed of squared white and red rubble sandstone laid in an irregular coursed pattern, with limestone ashlar dressings. The roof is covered in slate tiles with pierced red-clay ridge tiles.

PLAN: a single-cell plan with a projecting porch at the west end.

EXTERIOR: the chapel has steeply-pitched gable ends, and angle buttresses with offsets. To the west end is a gabled porch with a pointed-arch doorway, and an open trefoil to the centre of each side wall. To the west gable of the chapel is a wheel window of three quatrefoils. To the side (north and south) elevations are two lancet windows with cusped heads, divided by a buttress with offsets. The three-light east window is formed of three lancets with cusped heads. Each window has a hoodmould with red and white dressed-stone voussoirs above.

INTERIOR: the pointed-arch doorway has a pair of timber doors and is set within a segmental-arched ashlar doorframe. The interior has exposed stonework, a flagstone floor, dado-height matchboard panelling, and a scissor-braced roof. The raised east end, approached by stone steps to either side, has a geometric-patterned tiled floor. The upper lights of the east window, and the spandrels of the wheel window retain original blue and yellow stained glass.