Tag: downturned torches

In a lonely place…………..a visit to the Darnley Mausoleum Cobham Kent Part 1

On By shadowsflyawayIn Visits2 Comments
©Carole Tyrrell

Cobham Wood can feel like a haunted place. This is where the 19th century artist, Richard Dadd, murdered his father in a spot still known as Dadd’s Hole and so began his journey to a lifetime in Broadmoor. But before Mr Dadd gave into his murderous impulses, there was another place associated with death that sits alone in the woodland.  Once intended as a grand and capacious building to house the dead of the Earls of Darnley, it was never used and, for a long time during the 1980’s and 1990’s, it was surrounded by piles of burnt out cars and motorbike scramblers. The hilltop location was ideal for these nocturnal sports.

But on 5 November 1980 someone went too far and lit a pile of tyres and petrol cans in an attempt to blow the mausoleum up.  It brought down the chapel floor and the Mausoleum was open to the  elements. But it survived.

However, it was a sorry sight in 2003 when it featured on BBC TV’s ‘Restoration’ programme as an appeal was launched for funds to restore it. However, the Mausoleum’s future looked  bleak and even I thought that, due to its location, any restoration would be destroyed again. You can see how it looked at the time: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01mvbfj

But in June 2020 I made the pilgrimage through the poppy field of Ranscombe Nature Reserve and up through the woods to the Mausoleum. As I emerged from under the tree canopy I was amazed by the Mausoleum’s size. It is big, very big and was designed to hold 32 coffins in a lower crypt. It’s an extraordinary building and was originally sat at the highest point of the Darnley estate.  It became an important feature of the landscape, almost an eyecatcher folly.

The Mausoleum is square in shape with a pyramid shaped roof, a dry moat and a vandal proof fence.

An illuminated lunette hints at the style of the interior.
©Carole Tyrrell

It’s Grade 1 listed and a rather unlovely door keeps it secure from unwelcome visitors.  Just above it I could see one of the 4 lunettes or half-moon windows as the sun shone through the amber stained glass.  This was a tantalising taste of what lay inside as the light shining through them is intended to create an ethereal light inside. But, alas, the building is closed to visitors at present due to COVID-19. The building is made of brick and faced with Portland stone. It can be seen as

‘a very grand classical temple that emphasised the Age of Enlightenment’s preoccupation with a classical way of death’ according to the National Trust’s website.

It drips with symbols of death and remembrance.  The square, circle and pyramid are classical motifs of eternity, the downturned torches indicate a life extinguished and there are 4 little sarcophagi on each corner.  These were stone coffins designed to hold the dead and the word comes from the Greek for ‘flesh eater’.  I was in my element as you can imagine.

But who built it and chose its location? It was the 4th Earl of Darnley  who commissioned the fashionable and exacting architect, James Wyatt (1746-1813) to design the Mausoleum according to detailed instructions in the 3rd Earl’s will. The Earls of Darnley had always been buried in Westminster Abbey but after the 3rd Earl’s death in 1731 the Abbey was full. So the Mausoleum was to be the solution and would hold the coffins of the Earls and their family members. The 3rd Earl:

‘left detailed instructions in his will in which he clearly stated that he wanted a square stone building with a ‘prominent pyramid’ surrounded by a dry moat. He left £5000 or £10,000 if the first amount wasn’t sufficient.’ National Trust

 The source of the pyramid might have come from the Earl’s Grand Tour when he may have seen the tomb of Caius Cestius in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.  There is also a building with a pyramid roof in the background of a 1647 painting by Nicholas Poussin, ‘The Sacraments of Ordination’. He was a highly regarded painter in the 18th century and there were several paintings by him included in the sale of Cobham Hall.

As the journal of the Mausolea and Monuments Society says:

‘Pyramids were rare in in English Georgian architecture and made their first appearance at Castle Howard;….Wyatt and Darnley trying to recreate the solemn grandeur of the ancients…’ Masusolus

Another source of inspiration may have been  the famous tomb of King Mausolus at Halicarnassus in Asia Minor. He died in 353BC and such was the fame of his tomb that his name became synonymous with all subsequent stately tombs. As a result they became known as mausoleums.

The Darnleys lived at nearby Cobham Hall so the Mausoleum it would have been handy to have your loved ones nearby for eternity. Of course you may have been looking at it and wondering when you might be joining them. In 1786, at its completion, the Mausoleum cost, in total, £9000 which in today’s money is £1million. It is a lavish building with a marvellous interior from photos I have seen.

Wyatt’s designs were exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1783 and a modified design completed in 1786.  However, it was George Dance the Younger (1741-1825) who supervised the work as Wyatt was renowned for having a bad reputation in erecting his own work.  After completion, Humphry Repton (1752-1818), considered to be the last great landscape designer of the 18th century spent the next 30 years designing the landscapes around Cobham Hall for the 4th Earl.

But the Mausoleum was never consecrated and so couldn’t be used for its intended purpose.  According to Mausolus, the journal of the Mausolea and Monuments Society,

‘the Bishop of Rochester was disapproving of buildings in secular sites and refused to consecrate a building that so brazenly evoked pagan arcadia.’

 Repton himself suggested that it be converted to a viewing platform so that it could be put to some use and the views would have been amazing but it didn’t happen.

But instead of being laid out in the Mausoleum as intended the Earls of Darnley have been interred in the vaults and churchyard of St Mary Magdalene in Cobham village. There is a fine display of their memorials at the rear of the church and in the churchyard.

The Darnleys income came from a 25,000 acre estate in County Meath, Ireland. However their  fortunes declined and in 1957 they sold Cobham Hall. After the arson attack there were many suggestions and schemes for the Mausoleum’s future. A developer bought it, intending to convert it into a residence but went bankrupt.  He was presumably hoping to find a buyer who liked seclusion and could find a use for 32 coffin spaces in a crypt. The building passed into the hands of the official Receiver and HM Government became its new owner. The 4th Earl’s creation’s future looked bleak, its interior blackened from the arson attack and covered in graffiti and surrounded by a rusty junkyard.

What would happen to this fine building?

Part 2: The resurrection of the Darnley Mausoleum

©Text and photos Carole Tyrrell unless otherwise stated.

References and further reading:

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/cobham-wood-and-mausoleum/features/saved-from-the-brink—the-restoration-story contains a photo of how the mausoleum looked after the arson attack.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darnley_Mausoleum

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/cobham-wood-and-mausoleum/features/the-history-of-the-darnley-mausoleum

http://www.mmtrust.org.uk/mausolea/view/87/Darnley_Mausoleum

http://docs.gravesham.gov.uk/AnitePublicDocs/00294841.pdf

http://www.discovergravesham.co.uk/cobham/darnley-mausoleum.html

http://www.mmtrust.org.uk/assets/docs/articles/2009_mmt_news_march0001.pdf

http://www.mmtrust.org.uk/assets/docs/articles/2004_mmt_news_april.pdf

https://abinger-stained-glass.co.uk/portfolio-item/darnley-mausoleum/ – a piece about the ceration of the lunettes.

By a candle’s flickering flame  – a visit to Brompton catacombs July 2017

On By shadowsflyawayIn Cemetery excursions4 Comments
The Western catacomb which runs along the western wall of Brompton Cemetery which faces out onto the railway.
©Carole Tyrrell

Shadows move on the coffins and walls. Above you the glass orbs set into the high ceiling admit a little light into the depths but you prefer the intimate illumination of the flame.  It reflects on the brass fittings and the patterns of the nails on the coffin on the shelf beside you. Your loved one now rests eternally in Brompton catacombs as you sit by the head of the coffin in its space or lochulus.  Family news, world events: you talk to them as if they were alive with your voice the only sound in the silence. Then you open the book that you have brought with you at the bookmarked page, and then read the next chapter of what was their favourite novel.  It’s almost like having your own private mausoleum.

Finally, almost reluctantly, you close the book, after having marked next week’s chapter and pick up the candleholder.  As you walk towards the cast iron entrance gates, your footsteps echo behind you and the candle finally goes out as you open them.   The sun outside temporarily blinds you as you pull the gate closed and then lock it with your own key. The symbols of eternity and mortality on them remind you of the other world behind.  Then you ascend the flight of steps and return into Brompton Cemetery and the noisy world again.   You have been ‘communing with the dead’ as our guide, Nick, explained.

Brompton Cemetery isn’t holding an Open Day in 2017 due to the ongoing restoration project but, instead, on 15 July they held catacomb tours. These are not usually open and I haven’t visited these for some time so eagerly took up the opportunity. It was a drizzly day so it was good to be under cover. The catacombs have the most magnificent cast iron doors featuring snakes, downturned torches, an ouroboros and a winged hourglass – all symbols of mortality and eternity. You know that you are entering the realm of the dead once you step inside.

I have visited several catacombs located in large London cemeteries and what has always remained with me is the special and unique atmosphere that each one has: Kensal Green, Highgate, Brompton and the Valhalla that is West Norwood. One of Nunhead’s catacombs has now become the Anglican chapel crypt and is only open on certain days.

Catacombs never became popular in England and most of the coffin spaces available were destined to only have dust as an occupant. These are known as loculi or loculus in the singular. Even Highgate was unable to sell all theirs in the Egyptian Avenue and I would have thought that they would have been snapped up. However, there is reputed to be a cemetery in Cheshunt which is doing a roaring trade in selling them as they have an Italian and Greek community who view catacombs differently.

There is another set of catacombs under Brompton’s western colonnades with an identical set of doors on the other side of the circle but these have remained unused.  The other Western catacombs on the boundary side were never used and when reopened were crammed floor to ceiling with spoil which took a year to remove.

We were visiting the Eastern colonnade crypt and a flight of steps led to the iron doors.  As Nick said imagine six pallbearers carrying a coffin on their shoulders down them on a wet day.  The coffin would have been triple lined: wood, lead, wood so a heavy load indeed.  Brompton, unlike other catacombs, such as West Norwood or Kensal Green, didn’t have a chapel above the catacombs with a handy hydraulic catafalque to transport the coffin down into the darkness.

Nick indicated an interment in the first chamber behind the doors. This was sealed in with a plaque and epitaph dedicated to Captain Alexander Louis Ricardo of the Grenadier Guards.  For me, it was a reminder of the still unsolved Victorian Charles Bravo murder.  Captain Ricardo was Florence Bravo’s first husband who died young from alcoholism in Cologne. I noticed ferns growing from a family vault beneath him and wondered about damp as a perennial problem.

Lit candles had been placed on the coffin shelves to light our way which added to the ambience.  Victorians were fascinated with the idea of an afterlife and seances and mediums were big business. Sir William Crookes of the notorious Katie King case is also buried in Brompton.   Nick added the Victorians were a heady mix of hardheadiness and sentimentality.

 

The glass inserts that allowed some light into the catacomb have long gone and been bricked up.  Brompton’s original owners, The Westminster and West London Cemetery Company initially offered 4000 loculi for sale but of these only 700 were sold. So if you have a hankering for going underground they still have at least 3300 spaces available. Nick informed us that the last request for a catacomb space was in 1926.

 

English catacombs were based on the ones in Rome. Cremation was illegal until well into the 19th century so it was either under or over ground burial until then. Catacombs at Brompton were also called upon as a temporary mortuary when necessary. A visitor noticed that one coffin was just under the roof above four other coffins stacked on shelves and asked how the cemetery workers got it up there. Nick indicated the pulley blocks that they could have used to lift it up and manoeuvre it into place. Quite a feat.

 

Nick indicated the plumber’s diaper mark on the exposed side of one coffin which indicated that he had sealed it properly and there would be no leakages.  He also pointed out the wreaths, somewhat desiccated by now, that mourners often left by the coffins, and there was a small elegant urn containing ashes placed on a shelf next to one.

 

Our visit lasted 30 minutes and we filed out towards the light of the outside world again leaving Brompton’s catacomb’s incumbents to eternally sleep on.

 

The attractive colonnades of Brompton are above the catacombs and have plaques on their walls. These were to enable friends or other relatives without keys to pay their respects to the deceased at the plaque.  These are reputed to be affixed directly above the departed’s place within the chamber.

 

A word of caution for anyone considering visiting a catacomb for the first time: if you feel uncomfortable about seeing coffins, and a lot of people do, then don’t visit or think carefully about it first.

Please note:  Photography is not permitted in the Brompton catacombs.

©Photos and text Carole Tyrrell