Lovelace Mausoleum

The mausoleum stands north east of the church, enclosed on two sides by walls which separate the churchyard from land formerly owned by the Earl. The building is hexagonal, with a projecting porch which makes it keyhole- shaped on plan. It is covered by a tiled conical roof capped with a small lead lantern. All the cut-brick and flint patterning would seem quite bizarre if the churchyard walls and other surrounding buildings were not all treated in a similar way.

Architect(s) Probably the Earl himself.

Listing Grade II (England and Wales)

Year Created 1873

History The mausoleum was built by William King-Noel, 1st Earl of Lovelace (1805-1893). His first wife was Byron’s daughter, Augusta Ada (d.1852), a mathematician and pioneer of computing, but she died some years before the mausoleum was built and is buried elsewhere. The Earl was a keen amateur architect. Between 1855 and 1860 he transformed the family house by the addition of an extraordinary collection of flint and brick towers, and then went on to construct castellated gateways, lodges, cottages and miles of elaborately patterned wall in the same polychrome style throughout the village. The date of the mausoleum is not known but was clearly part of the same building campaign. The Earl was laid to rest in the mausoleum in 1893, followed by his second wife, Jane, in 1908.

Condition Good. The mausoleum was restored in 2008. Generally open to the public on Heritage Open Days.

Sources BoE: Surrey (1971) 204; Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage; S Tudsbery-Turner, ‘William, Earl of Lovelace 1805-1893’, Surrey Archaeological Collections, 70 (reprinted 2001).