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St John the Evangelist's Church,
Whiteladies Road / Apsley Road,
Clifton, Bristol, 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 in 1841, but we understand it was closed in 1984.

"St John the Evangelist Church, Durdham Down, was built about twenty-five years ago; but, in consequence of the inhabitants of the district having so greatly increased, it was found too restricted for its congregation. A subscription was set on foot, and it has recently been enlarged by the addition of transepts and extension of the chancel. The flat ceiling has been removed, showing the timbers of the roof; and the church has been reseated throughout, the cumbrous high pews being replaced by comfortable open benches. The living is a perpetual curacy, annual value £120, in the patronage of the Bishop, and held by the Rev. H.G. Walsh, M.A." [Extract from Webster & Co.'s Postal and Commercial Directory of the City of Bristol, and County of Glamorgan, 1865]

Phil Draper, on his ChurchCrawler website says it was built in 1841 to a design by S.J. Hicks, with a chancel added in 1864 by S.B. Gabriel. It became redundant in 1984 and has since been converted to auction rooms and offices for a media company.

Even so, it is an impressive, and unusual building. It stands on the south-west corner of the junction of Whiteladies Road with Apsley [NOT Aspley!] Road, and is a mixture of red and paler sandstone. It is oriented north north-west to south-east, so what should be the west front, with twin 'towers', and slender octagonal turrets, faces north west. There is a nave of 4 bays, with the aforementioned "north" and "south" transepts, and a chancel. There was also a graveyard, to the south and west of the building, but this now appears to have been cleared. Available parish registers cover the periods 1841-1979 (baptisms), 1845-1978 (marriages) and 1842-1925 (burials). There is a War Memorial, which may have been within its grounds originally, but is now stand-alone, set back from the pavement on the south-west corner of Whiteladies Road and Apsley Road.

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 ST5747974514. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• St John the Evangelist's Church, Clifton, Bristol shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Bristol 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 Clifton, Bristol, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• The Church officiando's “Bible” - Phil Draper's ChurchCrawler (null) (verified 2018-10-16)

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.