Watts chapel and cemetery

This Grade 1 listed chapel was designed and created by Mary Watts along with the help of local villagers.

When Compton parish council created a new cemetery one of their residents, Mary Watts, offered to design and build a mortuary chapel. Mary, an artist, was the wife of Victorian artist and sculptor George Frederick Watts and it was he who financed the project.

Mary started to host 'terracotta home arts classes' in her studio, for local people. Her husband suggested that if they held a pottery class people might like to make simple patterns to decorate the Chapel and in  doing so would have a deeper connection with the building. Almost every villager was involved with the decoration of the Chapel under Mary's guidance

The whole of the interior is linked by the Tree of Life from the roots up to the Dome of Heaven, where the branches become vine-like and weave together in Celtic designs.