Mortuary chapel

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

This chapel is designed in the Gothic Revival style and is made from squared white and red rubble sandstone laid in an irregular coursed pattern, with limestone ashlar dressings. The roof is covered in slate tiles, featuring pierced red-clay ridge tiles.

The chapel has a single-cell plan with a projecting porch at the west end. Its exterior features steeply-pitched gable ends and angle buttresses with offsets. The west end includes a gabled porch with a pointed-arch doorway and an open trefoil on each side wall. The west gable has a wheel window with three quatrefoils. The north and south side elevations each have two lancet windows with cusped heads, separated by a buttress with offsets. The three-light east window consists of three lancets with cusped heads, each window topped with a hoodmould featuring red and white dressed-stone voussoirs.

Inside, the pointed-arch doorway has a pair of timber doors set within a segmental-arched ashlar doorframe. The interior showcases exposed stonework, a flagstone floor, dado-height matchboard panelling, and a scissor-braced roof. The raised east end, accessible by stone steps on 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.