History
Mortlake Crematorium was licensed in 1936 under the Mortlake Crematorium Act 1936, thereby becoming the first to be established under its own Act of Parliament. The building was designed by Douglas Barton, an employee of the Hammersmith Metropolitan Borough Council, and 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". Mortlake Crematorium's outward appearance changed little over the following years until 1982, when Colin Gilbert, an architect from Ealing, designed additional gardens on the area of land between the crematorium and the river Thames.
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