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Moravian Chapel (Kingswood United Church),
88 Regent Street, BS15 8HU,
Kingswood, Bristol, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

This Chapel has (or 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 about 1748, and we understand it is still open.

This Chapel was founded by John Cennick and his followers about 1748. Cennick was initially a disciple of John Wesley, and was appointed master of Wesley's Colliers' School Chapel in Kingswood in 1739. He left his post in 1741 and began a separate society based on Calvinistic principles, and with the support of George Whitefield, founded the Kingswood Tabernacle. He had a change of heart again about 1748, and, according to Non-Conformist Chapels and Meeting Houses, Gloucestershire (1986, pp.85-87), he and his followers were "dispossessed of the Tabernacle". They removed to temporary premises, then built a new chapel in 1756-7. This was "a plain building with two round-arched windows and a gabled porch at one side and a two-storied minister's house attached at one end".

The return to the Religious Census of 1851 (HO 129/327/2/2/19) for the "Moravian Chapel" at "Kingswood Hill" is for a place of worship erected in 1757 with free seating for 180. The average attendance to morning service was 43, with 68 in the afternoon, and there were 37, and 38 Sunday Scholars respectively. There was no service in the evenings. The return was completed by its Minister, Revd. Peter Cornelius West, whose address was "Kingswood Hill, Bristol".

This entry would of course refers to the first chapel. The present chapel was built shortly after this, in 1856-7, and comprises nave, transepts, and a south apse. In the burial ground are rectangular marker-stones of varied design dating from the 18th century; there are also other buildings, one of which looks older, and may be the first chapel, perhaps in service as a church hall, on the corner of Moravian Road and Cecil Road.

The congregation was joined in the 1992 by that of Kingswood's Whitefield Tabernacle, thus becoming Kingswood United Church.

There is more information on the Moravian Church British Province website (in 2019, choose "Congregations" and "Western District")

Denomination

Now or formerly Moravian.

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 is located at OS grid reference ST6484173779. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Moravian Chapel (Kingswood United Church), Kingswood, 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 Kingswood, Bristol, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• You may want to visit Moravian Church British Province website for present-day information.

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.