Carved Door with Wrought Iron Decorationm Compton Cemetery Chapel

Carved Door with Wrought Iron Decoration

Mary Seton Fraser Tytler Watts

1898

Compton Cemetery Chapel

Indoors and out the burial chapel is covered with mystic symbols. In the door itself is a wrought-iron cross copied from a gravestone at Iona. [Mee, p.80]

Exterior

Cemetery Chapel

Exterior View of Wall

Front of Chapel with Entrance

Carved door with wrought iron decoration

Interior

Angels and calligraphic designs

Pillar, capital, and window

Dedication

Ceiling

Two Angels, each with a pair of symbolic images

Photograph and text by Jacqueline Banerjee

[This image may be used without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose.]

Indoors and out the burial chapel is covered with mystic symbols. The great frieze running round the outside walls suggests in symbolical ways the idea of the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Scenes of angel faces look down, and there is a charming band of faces in the triple arch of the doorway. . . . The remarkable interior with walls of plaster has silver roots of the Tree of Life round the walls below, and in the roof the Circle of Eternity. On the walls are four great groups of angels, all carrying symbols of such things as night and day, ebb and flow, growth and decay, life and death, good and evil, joy and sorrow, labour and rest, stability and change, the real and the ideal. The walls are covered with mystical work in ruby plaster and gilded; there are over a hundred medallions and winged cherubs. [Mee, p.80]

Reference

Arthur Mee, ed. The King's England: Surrey: London's Southern Neighbour. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938.

Last modified 26 August 2011