Gloucestershire Places of Worship

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Wesleyan Methodist Chapel (Ruins), Kingswood, Bristol
Wesleyan Methodist Chapel (Ruins),
Blackhorse Road,
Kingswood, 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 1843, but we understand it was closed before 1978.

This chapel was built in 1843 for a society founded by George Whitefield, and John Wesley, in 1739. It was a replacement for the Colliers School Chapel in Britannia Road, recorded elsewhere in this database. It is said in Non-Conformist Chapels and Meeting Houses, Gloucestershire (1986) to have been built 'largely by the efforts of Samuel Budgett', and has "rendered walls and a slate roof. The north front has an open pediment, three cojoined round-arched windows over a central porch, and two side entrances. The side walls, of four bays, have tall arched upper windows and smaller openings below. The interior has an original gallery around three sides... Mid 19th-century box-pews remain throughout most of the chapel with some open-backed benches in the gallery". There are (or perhaps were) monuments inside the chapel to Samuel Budgett, 1851; and Edwin, son of Samuel & Ann Budgett, 1849.

The return to the Religious Census of 1851 (HO 129/327/2/2/17) was possibly completed by his successor, Charles Clay, who signed himself its Minister, living at "Kingswood near Bristol". He declared that the meeting place was erected in 1844, as "separate and entire", and "used exclusively as a place of worship". There was free seating for 600, and 600 "other sittings", the average congregation being 670 mornings and evenings, with 30 in the afternoon; and 200 Sunday Scholars. On March 30 however there were only 231 at morning service, 180 in the evening, and 32 Sunday Scholar; which gave Charles cause to remark that "the numbers of hearers is below the average in consequence of a secession".

The chapel was closed in 1978, and its congregation united with that of Zion Chapel, Two Mile Hill Road, now Kingswood Methodist Church. Since then, according to Phil Draper, on his ChurchCrawler website, it was used for a time as a dance studio, but became derelict in the late 1990s, and a major fire in 2004, has left a burnt-out shell.

The burial ground was on the west side of the chapel. A solitary obelisk can be seen from Waters Road, but the rest of it appears to be very overgrown.

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 ST6448573783. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

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 Kingswood, Bristol, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

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.

Information last updated on 13 Jul 2013 at 12:30.

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This Report was created 17 Nov 2024 - 10:50:14 GMT from information held in the Gloucestershire section of the Places of Worship Database. This was last updated on 13 Oct 2021 at 14:13.

URL of this page: https://churchdb.gukutils.org.uk/GLS1377.php
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