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Hebron Chapel,
Hebron Road (Hebron Place),
Bedminster, Bristol, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

This Chapel 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 1854, but we understand it was closed in 1968.

Phil Draper, on his Church Crawler website, describes this former chapel as built "in a very grand and ornate classic style". It has two stories, and a west front of 5 bays, the central 3 bays projecting, above which is a small pediment. There are tall round-arched windows on the first floor, with a central doorway, and round-arched windows on the ground floor with capstones. The sides are five-bay, with plain oblong windows on the ground floor, and round-arched windows on the first. A building attached to the rear (as shown on Old Maps) was a former Sunday-school.

According to 'ChurchCrawler', "the Methodists vacated the premises in 1968 and after years of neglect the church became Bedminster Spiritualist church". It was sold by the Spiritualists in 2002 when they moved to smaller premises, and converted into flats - "Hebron Court" - in the same year.

There is a burial ground to the north, "set amongst miners terraces" which, at the time of Google StreetView drive-past in 2012 still had a large number of gravestones. The presence of workmen at the site suggested this was around the time of the rebuilding of its boundary walls (July 2012) - described in a report "Hebron Burial Ground, Bedminster" by Bristol & Region Archaeological Services, who were present at the dig. Their account mentions that "although no burials were disturbed during this work, we did find several previously-hidden burial monuments... many of the inscriptions on the burial monuments [had been] recorded by Members of the Bristol and Avon Family History Society (BAFHS) in the 1970s, however only two of the eight legible inscriptions recorded during the watching brief could be matched with names in their inscription index". Such is life....!

Note: prior to Maps of 1904, this part of Hebron Road is unnamed. Maps of 1904 label it "Harold Terrace", which is curious to say the least, as Kelly's Directory of Bristol of 1902 suggests it was then named Hebron Place. However by the time of publication of Kelly's Directory of 1914, Hebron Place had become part of Hebron Road, the latter extending from 34 West Street to 67 North Street, crossing Victoria Road at a staggered junction.

Victoria Road has since been renamed as British Road, but it appears from Ashmead's Maps of Bristol of 1855 it was originally "Back Lane", as the following notice in The London Gazette of 17th April 1855 (p.1498) also indicates:

NOTICE is hereby given, that a separate building, named Hebron Chapel, situated at Back-lane, in the parish of Bedminster, in the counties of Bristol and Somerset, in the district of Bedminster, being a building certified according to law as a place of religious worship, was, on the 12th day of April, 1855, duly registered for solemnizing marriages therein, pursuant to the Act of 6th and 7th Wm. IV., cap. 85. Dated 13th April 1855.

A corresponding notice of cancellation was published in the Gazette of 13th June 1968 (p.6659), by which time it was referred to as "HEBRON CHAPEL, Hebron Road". And to confirm Phil's statement of the building taken over by Spiritualists, "BEDMINSTER SPIRITUALIST CHURCH, Hebron Road, Bedminster" was registered in January the following year.

Denomination

Now or formerly Free/United 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 ST5812571382. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Hebron Chapel, Bedminster, 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 Bedminster, Bristol, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• The Church officiando's “Bible” - Phil Draper's Church Crawler (null) (verified 2018-10-16)
• Website providing information about Bristol & Region Archaeological Services (null) (verified 2018-11-16)
• 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.