Overview
Abney Park Chapel, is a Grade II Listed chapel, designed by William Hosking and built by John Jay that is situated in Europe's first wholly nondenominational cemetery, Abney Park Cemetery, London.
Opened in May, 1840, it was the first nondenominational cemetery chapel in Europe (and probably the world – since the chapel at Mount Auburn was a later addition). It helped pioneer the early use of the Dissenting Gothic building style, and encouraged renewed interest in the careful blending of earlier styles.
It was primarily the work of a small design team consisting of George Collison II (acting as client for the cemetery founders, with a passion for Mount Auburn Cemetery near Boston, and it is said, Beverley Minster which dominated the skyline in his ancestral town); William Hosking (architect and civil engineer with an interest in Egyptology, antiquities, and architectural writing and scholarship); the builder John Jay, and George Loddiges (botanical scientist and horticulturalist primarily concerned with the setting of Abney Park Chapel, including its nearby rosarium and a collection of American plants on the Chapel Lawn). The chapel's first minister was the Rev. John Jefferson, who officiated for more than a quarter of a century.
Location and orientation
The first matters to establish were the design principles and layout. Since this was to be the first non-denominational chapel for a European garden cemetery, there were no existing guidelines. William Hosking, in discussion with George Collison II developed a plan to site the novel chapel at the very heart of Abney Park foregoing any positioning close to the main entrance. The aim was that, once the pine trees that were planted along the Chapel Ride matured, the chapel would gradually be revealed through a sylvan landscape approach drive. The sinuously designed Chapel Ride was therefore lined with Bhutan Pine trees on its south side. Not only could nature be appreciated, but the main entrance (with its Egyptian revival building style) would not be eclipsed.
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