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

Ebenezer Chapel (Demolished),
Old King Street,
St James, Bristol, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

We believe the Chapel 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 in 1794, but we understand it was closed in 1954.

The Bristol Town Plan of 1885 shows the Ebenezer Chapel was built on the west side of Old King Street (now pedestrianised), one block down from its junction with the Horsefair, and at right angles to the New Room, separated from it by a Sunday School building, with which it shared part of its west wall.

It is described in Non-Conformist Chapels and Meeting Houses, Gloucestershire (1986), as built in 1794-5 "for a Wesleyan society formed by secession from the New Room. "This followed a refusal of the trustees to allow preaching by a minister without episcopal ordination who had assisted in administering the Lord's Supper at Portland Chapel". Their account adds that it stood 80 yards north of the New Room.

The chapel had a front of five bays with a pediment, shaped parapet, and two tiers of round-arched windows. The interior, which was partly refitted in 1859, had a gallery around four sides, rounded at the back.

The following notice in The London Gazette of 29th September 1863 (p.4698) recorded its registration for marriages:

NOTICE is hereby given, that a separate building, named Ebenezer Chapel, situate at Old King-street, in the parish of Saint James, in the city and county of Bristol, in the district of Bristol, being a building certified according to law as a place of religious worship, was, on the 23rd day of September, 1863, duly registered for solemnizing marriages therein, pursuant to the Act of the 6th and 7th Wm. IV., cap. 85. Dated 24th September 1863.

Note: according to Kelly's Directory of Bristol of 1914, the two sides of Old King Street were in separate parishes - the west side was in St James, whilst the east side, where Old King Street Baptist Chapel stood, was in St Clement. The latter was created in 1855, from the parishes of St James, and St Paul.

It was closed and demolished in 1954, but it can be seen on a photograph of "1950s Corner of Horsefair with Old King Street, Bristol", on Paul Townsend's Photographic Archive of Old King Street. The photograph shows it had a tall roof with a bell chamber, and a central porch. Phil Draper's ChurchCrawler website has a copy of a similar (or the same?) photograph. He also mentions that Ebenezer was the mother church from which many of the Bristol's Methodist congregations were seeded, as for example, Bishopston.

Its organ is now in St Andrew's Methodist Church, Filton.

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 Chapel was located at OS grid reference ST5911773415. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Ebenezer Chapel (Demolished), St James, 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 St James, Bristol, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• What can I say? Paul Townsend's collection of photographs, old and new, of Bristol is spectacular, focussing on his Photographic Archive of Old King Street (null) (verified 2018-11-13)
• The Church officiando's “Bible” - Phil Draper's ChurchCrawler (null) (verified 2018-10-16)
• Notices of Civil Registration of Places of Worship for marriages are published in the London edition of The Gazette. Hint: search for registrations from 1998 by choosing 'Church' notices, and the option 'Registration for solemnising marriage'. (verified 2018-12-11)

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.