Reception House, Hammersmith Cemetery

Margravine Gardens, Hammersmith, London, W6 8RL

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Reception House. Circa 1869, probably by George Saunders (1829/30 - 1907) for the Hammersmith Burial Board. Read the official list entry to find out more.

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1436663
Date first listed:: 21-Oct-2016
List Entry Name:: Reception House, Hammersmith Cemetery
Statutory Address:: Margravine Gardens, Hammersmith, London, W6 8RL

User submitted image — Uploaded by Brian Jessop This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1436663
Date first listed:: 21-Oct-2016
List Entry Name:: Reception House, Hammersmith Cemetery
Location Description:: NGR: TQ2397078245
Statutory Address 1:: Margravine Gardens, Hammersmith, London, W6 8RL

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: Margravine Gardens, Hammersmith, London, W6 8RL

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Greater London Authority
District:: Hammersmith and Fulham (London Borough)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: TQ2397078245

Summary

Reception House. Circa 1869, probably by George Saunders (1829/30 - 1907) for the Hammersmith Burial Board.

Reasons for Designation

The reception house at Hammersmith Cemetery, dating from circa 1869 and probably by the designer of the cemetery George Saunders, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Rarity: as a rare survival of a short-lived type of cemetery building; * Architectural interest: for its unusual octagonal plan and roof, complimenting the other Gothic Revival buildings of the cemetery; * Historic interest: for adding to our understanding of Victorian funeral practices and public health improvements; * Survival: the building survives particularly well.

History

Hammersmith Cemetery was founded in 1869 by the Hammersmith Burial Board to designs by the local architect, George Saunders (1829/30 - 1907) of 15 Hammersmith Terrace. Saunders designed two Gothic style lodges and two mortuary chapels, one Anglican (demolished in 1953) and one Nonconformist. It seems likely that he also designed the reception house at the same time, although its exact date is currently uncertain. The cemetery became a Garden of Rest in 1951 and is generally known as the Margravine Cemetery.

Reception houses, also known as receiving houses, were introduced as a result of concerns around the implications for public health of C19 burial practices. These were highlighted in 1842 in the ‘Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain’ by the Secretary of the Poor Law Commission, Edwin Chadwick (1800-1890). This was followed in 1843 by ‘A supplementary Report on the Results of a Special Inquiry into the Practice of Interment in Towns’. The report indicated that, due to problems raising money to pay for a funeral, it was often the case that bodies of the poor were stored in their homes, often a single room, for long periods after death. Since at that time undertakers did not provide facilities to store coffins, Chadwick advocated the creation in public cemeteries of ‘Reception Houses for the Dead’ where coffins could be stored away from the home prior to burial.

Details

Reception House. Circa 1869, probably by George Saunders (1829/30 - 1907) for the Hammersmith Burial Board.

MATERIALS: brown stock brick with red brick and Bath stone dressings. Slate roof.

PLAN: single-storey and octagonal in plan.

EXTERIOR: located in the north-east sector of the cemetery, the building sits on a brick plinth with a stone coping. There is a stone stringcourse at cill level and cornice with red brick banding above the plinth and below the cornice. The entrance (in the east elevation) is reached via two stone steps. The original plank double doors with iron strap-hinges are set in a red brick pointed-arch with a stone hood-mould. There are four, high-set, lancet windows with red brick arches, stone cills and cast-iron lattice grilles, set at regular intervals around the building. There are two original, square-section, cast-iron downpipes. The steep-pitched octagonal slate roof has four dormers with wooden louvres and a decorative metal pinnacle.

INTERIOR: stone mortuary slabs on brick supports run round five of the walls. The floor has stone slabs sloping down to a central soakaway. The boarded timber roof structure has metal tie rods radiating from a metal boss. The brickwork is whitewashed.

Sources

Websites
Hammersmith and Fulham Historic Buildings Group Newsletter, Margravine Cemetery (No. 27, Autumn 2012), accessed 8 June 2016 from http://www.hfhbg.org.uk/newsletters/Newsletter-27-Aut-12.pdf
Other
Robert Stephenson, The Reception House at Margravine Cemetery (2016)
Sally Strachey Historic Conservation, Condition Report: the Reception House, Hammersmith Cemetery (March 2016)

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.