 It is the earliest example in European architecture of a cemetery building (as opposed to monuments or gates) being designed and built in "Egyptian Revival" style.The presence of George Loddiges, nurseryman and scientist, on the garden cemetery's design team, may account for Hosking's final choice of the Sacred Lotus flower for the decorative motifs at the tops of the Abney Park entrance pylons; a plant closely associated with the Nile and Egyptian religious symbolism.Botanical iconography was evidently preferred to "sphinxes" and other populist or polychromatic Egyptian revival designs; and from Bonomi's accurate studies and drawings in Egypt, both the "flower heads" / "seed heads" and petals/sepals of the Sacred Lotus could be perfectly carved as pylon decorations that survive to this day (see photo).