Cover Pictures 4

When designing the front cover of a book we could reduce it to the essentials: the chosen title and the name of the person or people responsible for writing or editing the book.  However, an illustration brings an extra dimension of promise to the reader, So a montage of drawings or photographs demonstrates the breadth of content within the covers.

We have this month reached the end of the top row: the chapel which lies within the Hatfield Road Cemetery.  Only one other building lies behind the front wall: the Superintendent's house by the front gate.  As an aside, there is more modern accommodation which functions as the administration centre for the city's burial grounds.

The cemetery came about because the council at the time – around 1880 – inquired of the four parishes whether they had sufficient available burial plots in their churchyards.  Three reported various levels of shortage from modest to critical; only one, St Peter's, stated it  owned  a number of potential grave plots.  The  proposed cemetery which would result from the survey perversely ended up being located in St Peter's itself,  just outside the borough boundary in Hatfield Road.

Hatfield Road crosses the top of the photograph left-to-right.  The chapel is circled in yellow.

Although the design of the cemetery layout was quite typical of the time and would have been very attractive, only the Hatfield Road end conformed to what had been proposed.  For cost reasons you might not be surprised to hear, including the apparent need to continue  harvesting a crop until the space was required for burials, the stop-start laying out of the site resulted in the abandonment of the original design.

But the chapel survived.  It is believed this building was under threat from the beginning as questions were asked of the church authorities.  Do we really need a chapel, or two?  But the chapel went ahead, and the cost cutting went instead on retaining the stonework boundary wall only at the front; all other boundaries were downgraded to fencing.

As far as is known the chapel has received only one internal refresh during its time, and that was in 1945.  Bishop Bernard Heywood's dedication to cemetery chapels which he often labelled "drab and dreary" was well-known, with the result that most people preferred to hold the first part of a funeral service at a local church. The Bishop wanted cemetery chapels to be beautiful, suggesting the beauty of the Christian belief in the life to come.

The result at Hatfield Road was a light and bright paintwork theme and a more modern design to the alter piece.  The outstanding architectural feature of the original building being the richly colourful windows.  However, that refresh was now 81 years ago!

The Herts Advertiser gave space occasionally to the burial events of well-known and well-regarded citizens of the time.  The photographer present took an impressive picture of man hundreds of mourners who had walked along the road from other parts of the town to pay their respects to the now departed citizen.  The dominant feature of these images was always the chapel.  It was irrelevant that the little building was unable to accommodate the crowds, but these people surrounded the chapel, held it tight within the crowd's collective arms in a measure of protection and support for the family grieving.

There are few buildings within our east end which went up to represent the people who live in its vicinity.  The exception would have been the fine St Paul's Church on the opposite site of the road.  But when the chapel first appeared, St Paul's was nearly fifty years in the future.

The chapel is still in use, although these days as much for film shoots and recordings as for services of committal.  It is, however, a comforting building in a setting very much appreciated by visitors who arrive for the tranquility of a short time within the parkland-style setting.