Wilbury Hills Chapel and Cemetery
“If there’s a model 21st-century cemetery, this is it.” Steve Rose (The
Guardian 10th December 2007) The new flagship chapel, mausoleum
and cemetery at the edge of Letchworth Garden City forms part of the
city’s wider green spaces strategy and provides local amenity space as
well as burial provision. Wilbury cemetery will eventually cover some
7.9 hectares. Following community consultation the site was designed
to accommodate various alternatives for burial, such as Eco burials,
Ashes Plots, Child Graves, Family Plots and Niche Internments.
The relationship between the rural setting and the proximity of the
historically important Garden City of Letchworth was the starting point
for the proposed site development. The cemetery takes its landscaping
cues from the field patterns bordered by hedges or sometimes copses
of trees. These form a variety of spaces of differing character, some
to be forested, some to be meadows, some lawns and one civic hard
landscaped area with raised herb bed planting adjacent to the chapel
and mausoleums.
The chapel building comprises two main volumes. A generous sheltered
porch allows for grouping of burial parties and leads to a top lit lobby
and office. The lobby acts as a transition space to the main hall, which
offers a framed view out towards the landscape.
The main hall is set at a slight angle to the volume of the entrance
and office building. The cue for this slight shift in geometry came from
observations of the way in which the agricultural barns in Bedford
are grouped together. A colonnaded mausoleum forms an enclosed
courtyard. Materials are blue grey brick, larch and zinc.
Mae project team:
Michael Howe (lead Partner)
Alex Ely
Joanne Hunter
Consultant team:
OCSP
Bristow Johnson
Churchman Landscape Architects
Ashe (Contractor)
