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

Winterdown Room (Demolished?),
Mill Road,
Winterbourne Down, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

We believe the Church did NOT have 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 1840, but we understand it was closed in 1876.

The return to the Religious Census of 1851 (HO 129/330/6/4/14) records a place of worship called "Winterdown Room" for a congregation of Wesleyan Methodists, which was erected "before 1840". It was a separate building which was also used for an Infant School. There were 150 sittings, all free, and on March 30, an estimated 50 worshippers attended evening service. There were no services in the morning or afternoon. The return was completed by its Chapel Steward John Amos, who lived at "Winterbourne Down near Bristol". The surname "Amos" overwrote an earlier surname beginning with "B".

This was probably not the building in Winterbourne Down which is marked as a School on Old Maps, as according to A History of Winterbourne by H.W.N. Ludwell (1972) on the Winterbourne - South Gloucestershire website, it was not built until 1866, some years after the Census was taken. It was built on a piece of ground given by the Rev F.W. Greenstreet, as a Church of England School. Bourne House, in Winterbourne itself, was built in 1815, as a National School, but I feel this is less likely to have been the meeting place, and more likely to have been another, smaller school, perhaps near the present day Methodist Church, which was built in 1876.

Old Maps continued to show the Winterbourne Down School until at least the 1930s, but today, obviously, the building is in private ownership. Its history is however recorded in a house sign - "The Old School House".

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 was located at OS grid reference ST6513379699. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Winterdown Room (Demolished?), Winterbourne Down shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Winterbourne Down 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 Winterbourne Down, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• “A History of Winterbourne, by H.W.N. Ludwell (1972) - one of the many topics on the Winterbourne - South Gloucestershire (null) (verified 2018-11-14)

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.