Default Image Place of Worship has been
Demolished.
Image by courtesy of
openclipart.org

St Owen's Church (Demolished),
Southgate Street,
Gloucester, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

This Church had a graveyard.

Note: any church within an urban environment may have had its graveyard closed after the Burial Act of 1853. Any new church built after that is unlikely to have had a graveyard at all.

Church History

This Place of Worship was founded before 1100, but we understand it was closed in 1643.

St Owen's Church was situated just outside the South Gate, and the old city walls - now Southgate Street, near its junction with Commercial Road, and opposite the old Hospital. The Victoria County History for Gloucester suggests it was founded by Roger of Gloucester, and further explains that it was destroyed just before the Siege of Gloucester in 1643, when the area outside the south gate was attacked. The parish was united with St Mary de Crypt in 1646, though after the Restoration in 1660 it again became a separate parish, with one churchwarden and one overseer, but without a church. Registration for the parishioners was at St Mary de Crypt, the rector of which acted as curate of St Owen's.

In 1730, Southgate Congregational Church was built on the site, and subsequently the graveyard was incorporated in the North East corner of the docks development, building of which commenced in 1794. It is thought that the graveyard had included bodies from the old Hospital as well as parishioners. The site of the burial ground is shown on a map of 1843, situated behind Southgate Congregational Church [labelled as 'Independent'], near the corner of Southgate Street with the then proposed Commercial Road.

The site is now (2010) providing car parking for the Docks development that is taking place. Some bones were found, though it was thought they may have been Roman. [Sources: John Williams, and Rosemary Lockie - from the Victoria County History series: A History of the County of Gloucester, Volume 4: The City of Gloucester (1988), pp.292-311 (Churches and Chapels), and I. Gray & E. Ralph, Guide to the Parish Records of the City of Bristol and the County of Gloucester (1963), who quote from Rudder, A New History of Gloucestershire (1779), p.203]

Denomination

Now or formerly Church of England.

If more than one congregation has worshipped here, or its congregation has united with others, in most cases this will record its original dedication.

Maps

This Church was located at OS grid reference SO8293118302. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• St Owen's Church (Demolished), Gloucester shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Gloucester shown on a Google Map.
• Streetmap.co.uk (arrow on map shows the Place of Worship's location) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Bing (Ordnance Survey option) (verified 2018-10-13)
• Bing Maps ('Bird's Eye' View) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Ordnance Survey "getamap" (NB some of the 'Change Map' options may require a subscription) (verified 2018-10-15)
• OpenStreetMap (Maps © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA) (verified 2018-10-15)
• A Vision of Britain Through Time - useful for Boundary Changes (verified 2018-10-15)
• www.magic.gov.uk (Modern Maps with various overlays) (verified 2018-10-15)

Resources

I have found many websites of use whilst compiling the information for this database. Here are some which deserve mention as being of special interest for Gloucester, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• The Victoria County History series: A History of the County of Gloucester, Volume 4: The City of Gloucester (null) (verified 2018-11-06)

The above links were selected and reviewed at the time I prepared the information, but please be aware their content may vary, or disappear entirely. These factors are outside my control.