The Mortlake Crematorium is a crematorium in Kew, near its boundary with Mortlake, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. It opened in 1939, next to Mortlake Cemetery. The crematorium serves the boroughs of Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham, Hounslow and Richmond upon Thames in the west and south-west of London. It is managed by a board made up of three elected councillors from each of these four boroughs. Citing it as "a rare example" of Art Deco design in the borough, Richmond upon Thames Council has described it as "a building of exceptional quality and character". Environmentalist Colin Hines describes it as "probably the most undiscovered deco treasure in London". Hilary Grainger, writing in Encyclopedia of Cremation, describes the architectural style as Italianate and the building as having "beautiful cloisters with discrete brick detailing". It has been a Grade II listed building since 2011, being assessed by Historic England as having "a distinctive Art Deco design that survives little altered in a compact and practical composition".
Location
The crematorium is on Kew Meadow Path, Townsmead Road, Kew. It is situated on the south bank of the River Thames by Chiswick Bridge and in Clifford Avenue, adjoining Mortlake Cemetery in the angle of Mortlake Road and the A316 road. The nearest train stations are Kew Gardens and Mortlake.
History
Mortlake Crematorium was built on the site of Pink's Farm, which had belonged to Richard Atwood, whose family were prominent market gardeners in the area. It was licensed in 1936 under the Mortlake Crematorium Act 1936, thereby becoming the first to be established under its own Act of Parliament. Designed by Douglas Barton, borough surveyor to Hammersmith Metropolitan Borough Council, the building was constructed in three years at a cost of £27,000. It was also equipped with a Garden of Remembrance for the burial or scattering of ashes, and also offered panels and niches in which ashes could be deposited. When the facility was finally opened in January 1939 by Lord Horder, the then Physician to the King, he said: "You seem to have eliminated the sombreness of atmosphere which sometimes shrouds buildings such as these". After that, there was very little change in Mortlake Crematorium's outward appearance until 1982, when Colin Gilbert, an architect from Ealing, designed additional gardens between the crematorium and the River Thames. Since 2015 the crematorium has had a memorial garden dedicated to the memory of babies and children, based on Doris Stickley's story "Water Bugs and Dragonflies". Three new, larger cremators were installed in the crematory in 2012.
