Mausoleum of Eustace Meredyth Martin, Kensal Green Cemetery

Summary

Granite mausoleum, c.1892.

Reasons for Designation

The mausoleum of Eustace Meredyth Martin is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Design interest: an imposing and well-detailed Gothic mausoleum;
* Group value: very prominently located within the Grade I-registered Kensal Green, forming a group with the other monuments surrounding the Anglican chapel.

History

Eustace Meredyth Martin (1816-92) was a barrister, traveller and writer. His books include 'A Tour through India in Lord Canning’s Time' (1881), 'A Visit to the Holy Land, Syria and Constantinople' (1883), and a children’s novel entitled 'Round the World' (1883).

The Cemetery of All Souls at Kensal Green was the earliest of the large privately-run cemeteries established on the fringes of London to relieve pressure on overcrowded urban churchyards. Its founder George Frederick Carden intended it as an English counterpart to the great Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris, which he had visited in 1821. In 1830, with the financial backing of the banker Sir John Dean Paul, Carden established the General Cemetery Company, and two years later an Act of Parliament was obtained to develop a 55-acre site at Kensal Green, then among open fields to the west of the metropolis. An architectural competition was held, but the winning entry – a Gothic scheme by HE Kendall – fell foul of Sir John's classicising tastes, and the surveyor John Griffith of Finsbury was eventually employed both to lay out the grounds and to design the Greek Revival chapels, entrance arch and catacombs, which were built between 1834 and 1837. A sequence of royal burials, beginning in 1843 with that of Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, ensured the cemetery’s popularity. It is still administered by the General Cemetery Company, assisted since 1989 by the Friends of Kensal Green.

Details

A large Gothic mausoleum of grey granite ashlar with a steep-pitched gabled roof. The entrance is a pointed arch with a deep-hollowed surround in which are set two slender red granite shafts; the doors themselves are solid granite slabs bearing elaborate strapwork hinges. Around the outer line of the arch is inscribed: ‘+ Family Tomb of Eustace Meredyth Martin +’. In the gable above is Martin’s coat of arms, surmounted by a foliated cross and a text from John 6:37: ‘Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out’. Plain crosses crown the two gable ends. The side walls are pierced with quatrefoil ventilation openings; the roof is of stone slabs with ballflower ornament under the eaves and triangular lucarnes above. Both side and end walls have small buttresses with sunken lancet panels.

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, Cherry, B, The Buildings of England: London 3 North West, (1991)
Curl, Stevens J, Kensal Green Cemetery: The Origins and Development of the General Cemetery of All Souls, Kensal Green, London, 1824-2001, (2001)

Other
The Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery, Paths of Glory or 'A Select Alphabetical and Biographical List, illustrated with Line Drawings of their Monuments, of Persons of Note Commemorated at The Cemetery of All Souls at Kensal Green', 1997,

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