The Architect, the Gates, and the Missing Plans

If you pass through the Bath Road gates today, you’re walking through the work of a man who lies buried in the grounds beyond them.

His name was Charles Underwood, an architect and the designer of one of the country’s most remarkable Victorian garden cemeteries. Nearly two centuries after the gates at Arnos Vale Cemetery were built, a mystery remains: where are his original plans?

A life shaped by ambition and adversity

Charles Underwood was born in London in 1790. Charles had two brothers Henry and George Allen, and by the early 1820s, all three brothers had moved west to Cheltenham establishing their careers as noted builders and architects.

After a bumpy start and a period of bankruptcy, Charles Underwood settled in Bristol. Here, in the late 1830s, he secured the commission that would define his legacy: the design of a new, modern cemetery on the outskirts of the city.

A new kind of cemetery

Arnos Vale Cemetery was conceived in 1837 as part of a new movement in Britain. Victorian cemeteries were not just burial grounds; they were designed landscapes and places of beauty and civic pride.

Taking inspiration from Pere La Chaise cemetery in Paris and Kensal Green in London, Underwood planned the site in the style of a classical necropolis, with landscaped terraces, chapels, and a ceremonial entrance.

Between 1839 and 1845, several Bristol tradespeople contributed to the project: iron founders, builders, carpenters, masons, nurserymen and painters. Each played a part in turning Underwood’s plans into reality.

Visitors arriving at the Bath Road gates would now pass into a carefully composed landscape of paths, monuments, and trees.

And the gates were the threshold to this grand site.

The architect’s final resting place

Charles Underwood had a long and active career in Bristol, designing the interiors of the Royal West of England Academy and several residential terraces in Clifton. He was one of the founding members of the Bristol Society of Architects. He died in 1883 at the age of 93. By then, the cemetery he had designed decades earlier was a well-established part of the city.

Charles was buried at Arnos Vale Cemetery and his grave can be visited today on a winding path that climbs the hillside behind the Anglican Chapel. He did not have children, and being already widowed, his estate was bequeathed to a relative through marriage, Anne Bere Barry.

The mystery of the missing plans

And yet, for all we know about Underwood’s life and work, an important piece of the story is missing.

We do not have the original architectural drawings for the Bath Road gates.

We know the names of the tradespeople involved. We know roughly when the gates were constructed. But the detailed plans or drawings that would show exactly how Underwood imagined them have never been found.

• Did they exist as a formal set of architectural drawings?
• Were they kept by one of the iron founders or contractors?
• Did they travel with a family when a business closed?
• Could they still be sitting, unnoticed, in a box in someone’s loft?

In the 19th century, drawings were often kept by the trades who carried out the work, or passed down through families. It’s entirely possible that the plans were never formally archived. They may still be out there, waiting to be rediscovered.

A community-led search

As we work to restore the Bath Road gates, we’re asking for your help.

• Do you have old papers connected to a Bristol ironworks such as Room, Grazebrook and Company or masons by the name of Godwin & Higgs who between them manufactured the gates?
• Are there architectural drawings or notebooks in an attic or workshop?
• Do you know of local archives or collections that might hold material belonging to Charles Underwood or the builders that we don’t know about?

Even the smallest clue could help us piece together the story. If you have any information you think might help us, get in touch.

Restoring the gates

The Bath Road gates were designed by a determined architect who rebuilt his career, built by local tradespeople and later saved by a community that refused to let them close.

Now, nearly two centuries on, they need help again. Help us raise £40,000 to bring the Bath Road Victorian gates back to life – preserving nearly 200 years of local history and protecting our cherished cemetery for generations to come.