Church Heritage Record 619358

Two-bay single cell cemetery chapel.

There has been no archaeological assessment of the chapel or cemetery. It is not known what use the chapel and cemetery site had before they were established in the 1860s. As a site near other historic settlement and in an area of known late medieval and early modern industrial activity, there is some archaeological potential. There will be human remains considerations in the cemetery, of course but, bearing in mind when it was established, it is likely that all burials will have been mapped. The area immediately E of the E end of the chapel has been used as a Garden of Remembrance and so whilst there are no burials there, it should be considered sensitive as well.

The cemetery is in the National Forest. This character is expressed by nearby wooded areas to the E. The churchyard has a few mature trees on its E side and some more recent plantings of trees and shrubs to the S. The avenue from the entrance gates to the W door of the chapel is lined with Irish yews. These have been topped to discourage moth (NB unless the tops are shaped to form a battered profile, the flat top will put the trees at risk of windthrow). There are no TPOs nor any conservation area protection. Otherwise, the churchyard is mostly laid to grass between the headstones and monuments.

Coleorton’s parish church, St Mary, had long had a churchyard of a decent size. However, it is likely that, in common with many places in C19 England, there was enough pressure on it that there was a necessity for a cemetery to be established elsewhere. This was more an urban phenomenon but the expansion and industrialisation of coal extraction in the vicinity of Coleorton is likely to have increased the local population markedly. The architect of the cemetery chapel has not been identified. It is possible that it was Henry Isaac Stevens, the Derby architect who had supervised the partial rebuilding of St Mary’s in 1854. It may alternatively have been J P St Aubyn, an architect said to have been favoured by the Beaumont family of Coleorton Hall, the local coal magnate and landowner (Brandwood, p56, see references below). St Aubyn certainly had commissions in the area, at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Holy Trinity (see below) and Ashby Parva in 1866, the year before it is thought the chapel was built. The one item of furnishing in the chapel which stands out is the altar, which is very likely to have come from the parish church, which has a number of similar items of antique woodwork panels carved in relief. These had been acquired by Sir George Beaumont (1753-1827) and given to St Mary’s (see report PM2428). The altar may have been transferred to St John’s as part of its original furnishing c1867 or brought here subsequently when the chapel took on the wider parochial role that it has now.

The chapel is a small but robust building. The approach is from the W along a narrow yew avenue, which adds dignity and solemnity. The building presents a simple gable end topped by an open bellcote with a triangular rooflet. This is built of ashlars. Below this, the wall is of roughly dressed Charnwood granite, with bigger stones towards the bottom. There is a small round window in the gable under an arch formed by small voussoirs in alternating colours to suggest stripes. At one stage, the window opening contained a clock. At the NW and SW corners are two-step angle buttresses. Above them the corners have quoins in ashlar blocks supporting the kneelers on which the roof rests. Parapet coping. The W door is arched, within a twice-chamfered reveal and a hoodmould with foliage-carved stops. The arch is formed of stripey voussoirs like the window in this wall. The door is of vertical oak boards with strap hinges that have bold curls.

The chapel is of two bays. On the N and S sides, the bays are defined by two-step buttresses placed centrally. Construction is again granite on a dressed stone plinth. There is a window in each bay, with a muscular cusped lancet and rather outsized trefoil above. There is one chamfer to the reveal but no hoodmould. The arches are again formed of voussoirs in alternating colours. The only difference between N and S is that the windows are deeper on the S.

The E end has a plinth, angle buttresses, quoins and parapet as at the W end. Atop the gable is an elaborate cross finial. The E window is the grandest feature in the chapel: Dec-style, three lights with intersecting Y-tracery, trefoils and quatrefoils.

The interior is single-cell. The ruggedness of the exterior gives way to a more refined treatment inside. Stone, presumably sandstone, of two colours and two surface finishes are used to good effect. The predominant lining if of part-dressed, coursed ashlar blocks of similar but not identical sizes. These are buff/grey. Around the windows are properly smooth stones of the same colour. Above these, the arches are formed of voussoirs alternating the same buff/grey with red, just as outside. At the level of the springing of these arches there is a horizontal band of the red stone running the length of the wall. High up on the W wall, another red band stretches either side of the small window in the gable end.

The chancel is defined by a single low step. The E wall has panelling, which returns a short distance N and S. It is of stained softwood in two registers, plain below and a blind arcade of cusped arches above, with a dentil cornice.

Floors are deal boards. The roof is carried on scissor-braced trusses which are exposed. Behind them, the ceiling lining is of white-painted boards.