Sutherland Mausoleum, Trentham

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No 12 - Sutherland Mausoleum, Trentham

Mausoleum at Trentham, (the Seat of the Marquis of Stafford).

Showing a solid building in the Egyptian style, with landscaped gardens around it.

[Reproduced by permission of the
Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford]

"The isolation is a shame; for the building is so overpowering that it needs a good deal of elbow room. It has one door and, at the back, one window. There are also four small top windows. The material is all ashlar. The walls have a strong batter, and indeed (just as the architects do it today) canting is done everywhere. The middle part rises above the rest. Inside that is not marked. The plan there is a Greek cross with tunnel-vaulted arms. The origin of a design so cyclopean, and so ruthless, is the most radical French architecture of the Boullee-Ledoux period. The architect was indeed Charles Heathcote Tatham, who had spent three years in Rome in the 1790s, at a time when the pensionnaires of the Academic de France in Rome were intoxicated with the ideas of Piranesi and Boullee.
The mausoleum was built in 1807-8."

Pevsner - Buildings of England

"Situated beside the busy A34, directly opposite the main entrance to Trentham Gardens, stands this impressive and somewhat sinister-looking building known as Trentham Park Mausoleum. It stands in cramped surroundings which, for such an overpowering and monumental concept, is rather unfortunate. The whole structure is made from large blocks of stone; the inside plan, I believe, is based on the Greek Cross, with vaulted tunnels, which were originally the catacombs used as the last resting place for descendants of the Sutherland family. In 1907 the bodies of the five or six members of the family who had been placed in the catacombs were removed and laid to rest in special lead coffins which were buried in the ground within the compound; descriptive tablets were placed above each of the graves.

The mausoleum was built during 1807-8 and was the work of the architect, Charles Heathcote Tatham, who had spent three years in Rome during the 1790s. Tatham was employed quite considerably by the Sutherland family and was responsible for the Orangery, built in 1808, and the main entrance, which has two lodges and gate-piers large enough to contain small room."

Neville Malkin 2nd October 1974

Opposite the main gates of Trentham Gardens is the only grade I listed building in Stoke-on-Trent. It features a solid oak door at the front, a window at the rear and an upper storey with four louvered windows, one on each flank. The gloomy interior, with its Greek Cross plan, has tunnel-vaulted arms. The ashlar walls slope inwards on all sides.

This mausoleum was built in 1807-8 to the design of Charles Heathcote Tatham of Trentham. In 1907 the bodies of the half-dozen members of the Levison-Gower family laid to rest in the catacombs were removed and buried in special lead coffins elsewhere within the cemetery compound; descriptive tablets were placed above each grave.