Lutyens became acquainted with the Hannen family in about 1897 and from 1902 to 1905 employed
Nicholas Hannen as an architectural trainee. The Hannen Columbarium was built in 1906–07 to house the ashes of Nicholas's father,
Sir Nicholas Hannen, a
barrister,
diplomat and
judge who died in
Shanghai in 1900. Lutyens was commissioned in 1905, and produced a columbarium design combining
Byzantine Revival with
Arts and Crafts and with
classical architectural lines, in the form of a square building of red-brick, red-tile, glass-tile and stonework, sited in the south-east of the graveyard of St Mary's Church, Wargrave. Within – in Lutyens's words – is "a circular
cella within four
piers, which carry intersecting arches forming
pendentives and completed by a saucer dome." It was restored in 1985, but concerns exist as to its condition. It forms Lutyens's earliest mausoleum design, and (with
Heathcote in
Ilkley), is recognised as an embodiment of the point at which he fully incorporated classical architecture in his designs. ==Interments==