Rothschild Mausoleum

The Rothschild Mausoleum is a mausoleum in the Jewish Cemetery at West Ham, England. [1]

Architecture

The circular, domed, mausoleum was built in 1866 by Ferdinand James von Rothschild for his late wife Evelina de Rothschild who died in childbed at age 27. The architect was Matthew Digby Wyatt. It is fashioned of marble in Renaissance revival style. [2][3] Nikolaus Pevsner notes the "dome of Eighteenth-century detail on attached Corinthian columns" and praises the ironwork and stone carving, calling it worthy of "the attention of the student of mid-Victorian detail." [4]

Anti-Semitic attack

In 2005 in what the police described as "a despicable racist attack" by anti-Semitic vandals, the doors of the mausoleum were pounded with heavy iron bars until they were bashed in, then they were torn from the building. [5][6]

References

  1. ^ Defaced, the Rothschild mausoleum that has stood for 140 years By Louis Jebb, The Independent, 16 June, 205 [1]
  2. ^ Sharman Kadish, Jewish Heritage in England : An Architectural Guide, English Heritage, 2006, p. 35
  3. ^ Mausoleums, Lynn F. Pearson, Osprey Publishing, 2001, p. 21
  4. ^ Studies in Art, Architecture, and Design: Victorian and after, Nikolaus Pevsner, Walker, 1908, v. 2, p. 101
  5. ^ The shocking face of anti-Semitism At a West Ham cemetery yesterday: the 117th attack on a Jewish graveyard in 15 years, By Marie Woolf, June 16, 2005 [2]
  6. ^ Defaced, the Rothschild mausoleum that has stood for 140 years By Louis Jebb, The Independent, 16 June, 205 [3]