Mausoleum, Hamilton Low Parks, Hamilton

The Mausoleum at Hamilton Low Parks was begun in 1840 by David Hamilton and continued with a different design from 1848 to 1855 by David Bryce, with sculpture by Alexander Handyside Ritchie. It stands 120 feet high in a Roman style on a three-arched eastern terrace, featuring flanking lions on a podium and right-angled stairways. The keystone heads symbolize Life, Death, and Immortality. The structure has a square plan with a channelled podium and stepped base courses, a simple architraved square-headed entrance on the west, and a middle stage with pilasters and a five-bay rectangular panel in the center, flanked by arch-headed panels in the outer bays. Above, a rusticated rotunda rises into a dome. The bronze doors, created by Sir John Steell, are inspired by Ghiberti's doors in Florence. Inside, the chapel features a richly polychrome marble floor, a tall eight-bay arcade with semi-domed chambers at the angles, armorial cartouches in the spandrels, and a coupled Ionic pilastered upper drum with pedimented niches and a coffered dome with an oculus. The vaults in the terrace below include a central pillar and a segmental vault.