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

Gloucestershire Places of Worship

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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This Report was created 22 Dec 2024 - 03:51:07 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

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