Description

CREWKERNE

ST4409 YEOVIL ROAD
876-1/7/173 (South side)
Townsend Cemetery mortuary chapels
and bell tower

II

Bell tower and cemetery chapels. c1874.
MATERIALS: Ham Hill stone bell tower, dressings and plinth
capping to chapels; limestone rubble chapels with crested
slate roofs and decorative upper courses, hipped to the outer
ends.
PLAN: the bell tower is flanked symmetrically by L-plan
chapels.
EXTERIOR: Decorated Gothic Revival style. The tower is square
with high pointed arches to front and rear with lower side
ones to entrances to chapels. The square columns to front and
rear are chamfered with plinths, stiff-leaf capitals and
set-back arches. Resting on the corners of the top are
octagonal turrets with spirlets which flank tall
pointed-arched gabled openings with quatrefoil plates in the
tympana. The spire is octagonal with pierced quatrefoils near
the top of each facet and a gilded cockerel weather vane.
The chapels, linked to the tower by short low corridors with 3
pointed-arch windows to all sides, have large cinqefoil
windows in the apexes facing the tower. The outer ends of the
chapel are canted bays; each facet is gabled with 2-light
trefoil-headed windows with quatrefoils between the tops.
Short gable wings with similar 2-light windows project forward
to far left and right; to inside left and right are 2 single
light trefoil headed windows. All windows are leaded, those to
the gables have geometric ornamental coloured glass.
INTERIOR: the interiors of the chapels are painted plaster
with stone dressings. The entrances to the gabled wings are
through tall paired pointed arches with beaded jambs, moulded
imposts and wide moulding to the arches. The wooden ceilings
are arch-braced, the braces to the bays rest on short
colonnettes, one meeting the arches at off-centre are on
bosses, and those coinciding with the central piers are on
colonnettes which reach the ground, passing throught the
impost band and a high stone dado rail which surrounds both
interiors. The floors are polychromatic tiles with a step up
to the bays.
The principal element of a fine group of Victorian cemetery
structures.

Listing NGR: ST4494109996

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26570923

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Derbyshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)