community/cultural, religious
Sir Arthur Blomfield, 1875
Richmond Cemetery, Grove Gardens, Lower Grove Road, TW10 6HP
A small, charming Gothic Revival cemetery chapel in Richmond Old Burial Ground. Recently conserved and back in public use, Grove Gardens Chapel made from Kentish ragstone, with plate tracery and a mosaic altarpiece. It was deconsecrated in the 1960s and then restored for community use in the 1990s.
Richmond
North Sheen
371, 33, 493, 337
North Sheen Station is only accessible via footbridge. For a step-free route please travel to Richmond Station. Buses run regularly.
The chapel is located in a cemetery. The Fixery - Richmond Council's new volunteer repair and swap centre will be operating during the day
Grove Gardens Chapel is a Church of England mortuary chapel built around 1877 in the Gothic Revival style. It was one of two chapels built for the Richmond Old Burial Ground, the Nonconformist chapel is now located outside the cemetery walls. These replaced temporary tin structures that were erected when the cemetery first opened in 1856. The Old Burial Ground closed during the First World War, with the cemetery expanding towards Sheen and Barnes. Grove Gardens Chapel has been disused since 1964 and was declared redundant in 1996.
Sir Arthur Blomfield was commissioned by Canon Charles Tickell Proctor to build the chapel in Kentish ragstone and Bath stone. The entrance arch bears a quote from John 19:41 ‘In The Garden There Was a New Sepulchre, There Laid They Jesus’. The east end has three-panelled mosaic reredos by Daniel Bell, portraying the annunciation, with Gabriel on the left presenting lilies to Mary on the right. One panel of Heaton & Butler’s stained glass altar window survives, showing the ascension of Jesus.
The design of Grove Gardens Chapel was by Sir Arthur Blomfield, a celebrated ecclesiastical architect and restorer of the time who specialised in the Gothic revival style. He worked across Britain and the British Empire, including as far afield as the Falkland Islands. Knighted in 1891, Blomfield was also awarded the gold medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects for his distinguished works.
Blomfield notably rebuilt the nave of Southwark Cathedral and restored Salisbury Cathedral spire. His other designs include: Queen’s School at Eton College, the Law Courts branch of the Bank of England in Fleet Street, and Christ Church in Kew Road in 1893.
Grove Gardens Chapel was restored in the 1990s by the Environment Trust as part of a four-year National Lottery Fund project, bringing it back into use for the community and for a long time was a children's nursery. Since 2020, the condition of the building was deemed too unsafe to operate in due to structural issues and subsidence. In 2026, the Chapel was reopened after major stabilisation works.
For more information, please visit our website:
habitatsandheritage.org.uk/get-involved/our-projects/grove-gardens-chapel/