Bourne Chapel (now Bristol Community Church), Kingswood, Bristol, Gloucestershire, Church History

Gloucestershire Places of Worship

Default Image Sorry, we do not have an Image of this Place of Worship

We do not have a
Photograph at present.
Image by courtesy of
openclipart.org

Bourne Chapel (now Bristol Community Church), Kingswood, Bristol

Bourne Chapel (now Bristol Community Church),
Two Mile Hill Road / Waters Road,
Kingswood, Bristol, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

We believe the Chapel does 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 1841, and we understand it is still open.

This is a large building, with a three-bay front. The outer bays are set back and each have a tall slim window, above a blanked lower recess. The middle bay has 3 matching doorways, above which is a Venetian style window, with pediment above - all openings have round arches, and venetian windows and doorways have radial bars at the top. The pediment has a recessed dedication plaque, but it is impossible to see what it says.
The Chapel was named after Hugh Bourne (1772-1852), one of the founders of the Primitive Methodist Movement. According to Phil Draper, on his ChurchCrawler website, it was built in 1873. Possibly however it replaced an earlier building, as there is a return to the Religious Census of 1851 (HO 129/330/3/1/13) for an "Ebenezer Chapel" in Two Mile Mill, erected in 1841 for a congregation of Primitive Methodists. It had free seating for 130, and 48 "other" sittings, but seemingly some of the congregation at morning service on March 30th would have had to stand, as there were 200 attendees, with 90 in the afternoon, and 120 in the evening (no Sunday Scholars). The return was completed by John Butcher, its Minister, who lived at "42 Edward Street, St Philips, Bristol".
A notice published in The London Gazette of 21st March 1980 (p.4475) records its closure as Bourne Chapel, and for a while thereafter, according to Phil's account, it was wholly in secular use. Since 1995, however the upper floor is in use once again as a place of worship, as the home of Bourne (Bristol) Community Church, and very nice it seems too:
"Upstairs the church is a very pleasant room, lit by the large upper tier of windows and with the feature of the eastern arch to act as a focus to the building. Some beautiful plasterwork remains in the ceiling, and this is cut away from the three stepped western windows in a most unusual and attractive feature". [Source: Phil Draper's ChurchCrawler website]
Note: the name "Bourne Chapel" has been retained on a sign on the side of the building facing Waters Road.

Denomination

Now or formerly Primitive 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 is located at OS grid reference ST6429073901. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

Bourne Chapel (now Bristol Community 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.

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.

Information last updated on 16 Jul 2013 at 15:49.

Search for other Places of Worship in Gloucestershire, or in another County in this Database

Please choose a County by selecting one of the Tabs below.
Note: you MUST choose a County - searching all four at once is not an option!

Derbyshire

Gloucestershire

Herefordshire

Worcestershire

Photo	Place or OS GridRef	Dedication (optional)	Street (optional)	How Many	Denomination

Search Tips:

You can specify either a Place, or OS Grid Reference to search for. When you specify a Place, only entries for that place will be returned, with Places of Worship listed in alphabetical order. If you specify a Grid Reference, Places of Worship in the immediate vicinity will be listed, in order of distance from the Grid Reference supplied. The default is to list 10, but you can specify How Many you want to see, up to a maximum of 100.

You can further refine your search by supplying other search terms.

You can specify entries with ('Yes') or without ('No') photographs.

You can specify a church or chapel's Dedication, to restrict entries to those containing the term you supply as a dedication. So for instance, 'John' would return 'St John', 'St Mary and St John', 'St John the Divine' &c.

You can specify a Street address, and likewise 'George' will return George Place, St George's Street, George and Dragon, &c.

You can restrict the search to classes of Denomination. The exact denomination is always shown in the results, although the search is for broad types. Thus you can search for 'Methodist', but not 'Wesleyan Methodist' or 'Primitive Methodist'. 'Multi-denominational' includes Ecumenical Partnerships, and 'Miscellaneous' means anything not covered by other broad classes.

Please note the above provides a search of selected fields in the Gloucestershire section of the Places of Worship Database on this site (churchdb.gukutils.org.uk) only. For other counties, or for a full search of the Database, you might like to try the site's Google Custom Search, which includes full webpage content.

Further Information

This site provides historical information about churches, other places of worship and cemeteries. It has no affiliation with the churches or congregations themselves, nor is it intended to provide a means to find places of worship in the present day.

Please also remember that whilst the above account may suggest that Bourne Chapel (now Bristol Community Church) remains open and accessible, this may not remain so.

Do not copy any part of this page or website other than for personal use or as given in our Terms and Conditions of Use.

You may wish to take a look at our About the Places of Worship Database page for an overview of the information provided, and any limitations which may be present.

This Report was created 17 Nov 2024 - 21:27:40 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/GLS1382.php

Logo by courtesy of the Open Clip Art Library