The Reception House

A friend posted a comment a while back. Margravine Cemetery “the gift that goes on giving”.

Take a look at the picture above. The building on the left doesn’t look much but in an area of generic Victorian terraced houses it is rather special.

“A final excursion S to ST DUNSTAN’S ROAD, to another studio, No 17 (altered in 1958 for the Hungarian Reformed Church), built 1891 on a rural spot on the edge of Hammersmith Cemetery by CFA Voysey for the decorative painter WEF Britten. It is an appealingly humble cottage with studio behind, deceptively simple, but designed with Voysey’s characteristic attention to detail. Roughcast walls, battered chimney, delectably inventive iron railings. Broad central door with canopy suspended from iron brackets. To its L, the timber window of the former kitchen, and another window, formerly a large studio door. To the R the more formal stone-mullioned window of the well-lit small entrance hall. The staircase formerly rose within the hall. The studio had a gallery above a deep fireplace recess, now portioned off. The exterior was originally quite colourful; the woodwork painted green, with green-glazed brick sills to the large segmental-arched studio windows.”

(The Voysey Society, quoting Pevsner’s London 3: North West)

The octagonal brick building on the right is a reception house. These were briefly a feature of urban cemeteries in the middle of the 19th century and, apparently, this is the only one extant. It is Grade ll listed. This only happened because local historian, Robert Stephenson, identified its purpose and with the Friends of Margravine Cemetery got it restored and listed.

“Single-storey octagonal brick building with a slate roof, circa 1869, probably by George Saunders, built to provide temporary resting places for bodies prior to burial.” (Historic England)