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Salem Methodist Church,
Factory Road, BS36 1QL,
Watleys End, Winterbourne, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

This Church has (or 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 in 1787, and we understand it is still open.

This building is admirably described by Non-Conformist Chapels and Meeting Houses, Gloucestershire (1986) as opened 1790, with rubble walls and a slate roof. The broad west front has three round-arched windows with altered glazing and a late 19th century gabled porch. There are two similar windows in the rear wall, and one upper window in the north end. There is a small two-storey Sunday School attached to the south, and another two-story addition to the north. Inside is a 19th century north gallery. The monuments in a large burial ground at the front of the building date from 1830.

The return to the Religious Census of 1851 (HO 129/330/6/4/16) records it as "Wadleys End Chapel", a separate building, erected "about 1786" with a congregation of "Wesleyan Methodist Reformers", and used exclusively as a place of worship. There were 150 free, and 200 "other" sittings. The average congregation was 140 at morning service, and 180 in the evenings, with 90 Sunday Scholars to morning and afternoon classes. The return was completed by Isaac Budgett, the Chapel Steward, whose address was "Winterbourne, near Bristol".

The list of places of worship recorded in the leaflet South Gloucestershire Nonconformist Heritage Trail (PTE050151.pdf) available (in 2013) on South Gloucestershire Council website records that John Wesley himself laid the foundation stone in 1787. Their account also mentions that Factory Road was so named after a Hat Factory once worked here.

Denomination

Now or formerly Wesleyan Methodist.

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 is located at OS grid reference ST6581881056. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Salem Methodist Church, Watleys End, Winterbourne shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Winterbourne 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 Watleys End, Winterbourne, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• The Local Government website of South Gloucestershire Council (null) (verified 2018-11-09)

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.