SOS Grove Gardens Chapel

The Victorian Grove Gardens Chapel in Richmond Old Burial Ground is suffering from severe subsidence attributed to climate change. Without immediate intervention this delightful building will fall into disrepair. Help Habitats & Heritage to stabilise the structure and make it available again for community use.

  • Raised £25.00
  • Target £5,000.00

The Grove Gardens Chapel has sat in Richmond Old Burial Ground since 1877 – functioning originally as the Church of England burial chapel for the cemetery. It was designed by the celebrated architect Sir Arthur Blomfield whose work scatters the globe, with structures as far as the Falkland Islands and with buildings closer to home at Cambridge University and the law courts branch of the Bank of England in Fleet Street.

The chapel remained active for a century before being decommissioned in the 1960s. By the 1990s the building was declared redundant and had fallen into severe disrepair. In the late 1990s, The Environment Trust for Richmond, predecessor to H&H, restored the chapel to its former glory and adapted it for community use.

In 2016, cracks began to form in the nave where the transepts intersect. The deterioration reached such a severe level by 2020 that the children’s nursery which was occupying the building had to vacate. Thorough monitoring has been undertaken subsequently with weekly inspections carried out and bi-monthly measurements of the cracks undertaken by structural engineers.

Interior of Grove Gardens Chapel

The Grove Gardens Chapel project is proudly supported by

Habitats & Heritage is working with Richmond Council and Historic England to remove this building from the Heritage at Risk register and once again make it available to the community. To realise this, the building will require underpinning and restoration works. Our first phase of works is due to take place in the spring of 2025 under the direction of Cymes Conservation Architects, Conisbee Structural Engineers and DBR Limited. More funds will be required to undertake our second phase which will secure the building in its entirety.

Habitats & Heritage has so far  secured £266k from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and the Aurelius Charitable Trust to carry out capital works. We still require an additional £125k to undertake further underpinning works to the transepts to remove the building from the at-risk register. Can you help us reach this target?

All efforts will be made to restore the chapel. However, if for some reason this is not possible, the charity reserves the right to use donations for other charitable purposes unless stated by the donor.

Heritage programme and project proudly supported by

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