In Sympathy
Project: Wilbury Hills Cemetery
Location: Wilbury Hills, Stotfold Road, Letchworth SG6
Architect: mae LLP Architects
Bricks: Hanson - Dagas Light Grey; Ketley - Staffordshire Blue
It’s not often one thinks about sustainability when it comes to burial sites, but for mae, a young architectural practice based in north London, this was a component of its brief for the Wilbury Hills Cemetery on the edge of Letchworth Garden City in Hertfordshire.
Mae was presented with the challenge of developing a burial site in a sensitive agricultural landscape. The client brief stressed that the design should be sympathetic to its natural surroundings. Mae consulted with local faith groups to ensure that the chapel could be used by the widest cross-section of the community.
The design and set-out of the chapel building came from observations of the manner in which black timber-clad barns in Bedford are grouped together. The main hall is set at a slight angle to the volume of the entrance and office, helping to produce a softer building silhouette in the landscape.
The chapel forms an intimate space to accommodate 100-120 mourners. The main hall window faces west-north-west out to the landscape; this orientation delivers a clear wall east-south-east, so Christians and Muslims have an orientation to Jerusalem and Mecca. The outer face of this wall forms a space for a timber bench, protected from the prevailing wind, and memorial plaques for those whose ashes are buried in the herb garden adjacent to the chapel.
The building is non-denominational and is also used as a classroom for local school children for nature studies, and as a prayer and celebration space for families. The external walls each have a gable to reinforce the multi-orientation of its function; this allows the roof pitch to be dropped in an informal manner, lowering it into the 1m fall between the hard landscape and the children’s burial area behind.
A colonnaded mausoleum structure was included in the first phase of site development as a result of a request from Letchworth’s local Sicilian community, whose cultural preference is for this form of internment rather than burial below ground.
The major material used for the buildings at Wilbury Hills was stack-bonded brick with colour-matched mortar. A hard-fired blue/grey iridescent brick complements the normal material for mausoleum niche closers and memorial plaques, usually highly polished black or grey granite or slate and in some cases white marble.
The client and design team felt this type of brick would be more suitable than the more locally prevalent soft red brick as it was important to present a high-quality finish. The density of the hard-fired bricks also minimises water ingress from driving rain on the exposed and windy site.
Due to the size of the mausoleum, the openings and columns all needed to be stack-bonded. This technique is continued throughout the chapel externally and internally for the main hall, giving an urban feel despite the building’s rural setting.
Timber was used throughout the chapel, main hall and mausoleum to soften the look and to reflect the feel of Bedford’s barns. A large slatted timber shutter, used for the entrance area, slides on the sort of rail one would find on a barn. All the doors, which are large enough for coffins to be carried in and out, are simple boarded larch timber. The mausoleum building features a grey zinc standing-seam roof – like that of the chapel – supported on a brick colonnade with a simple timber structure.
The burial ground will be developed over the next 100 years and so far only a quarter of the mausoleum has been built – meaning the Wilbury Hills Cemetery will be an ongoing project for mae.