Peacock Mausoleum

This sumptuous mausoleum takes the form of a Gothic shrine with a steeply pitched roof and arched openings filled with tracery and surmounted by gablets. The statues standing on slender pedestals at the four corners of the monument represent a Blacksmith, a Draughtsman, an Engineer and the architect himself. Further carved embellishments include head-stops, bats and twining ivy.

Architect(s) Thomas Worthington

Listing Grade II* (England and Wales)

Year Created 1875

Style Gothic Revival

History Richard Peacock (1820-89) was one of the giants of railway engineering. He was educated in Leeds and, at the age of eighteen, was locomotive superintendent of the Leeds and Selby Railway. In 1841 he came to Manchester to manage the locomotive division of the Manchester and Sheffield Railway. Having set up the Company’s works at Gorton, he was thereafter heavily involved with the development of this part of Manchester. He was a Liberal MP and prominent member of the Unitarian community, building the magnificent Brookfield Unitarian Church in Hyde Road between 1868 and 1871. The list description says the mausoleum in the churchyard there was built in memory of Joseph Peacock, Richard’s son, who died in 1875, while Anthony Pass gives the date of construction as 1890, following the death of Richard himself. The earlier date seems more likely.

Condition Still sound, though the bronze angels that used to stand on the gables at either end were stolen some years ago (1997).

Sources BoE: South Lancs (1969), 328; A J Pass, Thomas Worthington (1988), 127-8.