Default Image Place of Worship has been
Demolished.
Image by courtesy of
openclipart.org

New Jerusalem Chapel (Demolished),
Terrell Street / Lower Bedford Street,
St James, Bristol, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

We believe the Chapel did 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 1878, but we understand it was closed in 1899.

Phil Draper, on his ChurchCrawler website has provided a comprehensive account of the places of worship belonging to "The Bristol Society of the Swedenborgian or New Church", which was founded in 1792. The building which opened in Terrell Street on 7th April 1878, was their 4th, or maybe 5th building in the city. "It was built of iron, with small gothic windows", and after some years received a stone facade.

According to Ashmead's Maps of Bristol of 1874, an "Iron Church" was in existence by then. The Bristol Town Plans of 1884-1885 show more detail - a rectangular building, entered from Terrell Street, surrounded on 2 sides by what were probably the grounds of Camden House. It adjoined Beaufort House, which had a comparable "green" area surrounding it. It would seem as though the plot was taken out of the Camden House grounds.

In later years, Camden House and Beaufort House were combined into one building - "Beaufort House" - to become the Nurses' Home for Bristol Royal Infirmary. It has survived to the present day, totally surrounded by the ever-expanding Bristol Royal Infirmary complex. The B.R.I. bought the Chapel site in 1898, but "allowed services to continue there until the church was reprovided". The new church, still open in the present day, was built in Cranbrook Road, Bishopston; its first service being held on Christmas Day 1899.

Beaufort House and Camden House are believed to have been built in the early 1800s - "the configuration of the building (i.e. double bow-fronted) was considered typical of Regency/early Victorian period architecture". [Source: "Beaufort House and Nos 7-10 Bedford Row" (Archive 2011) on the Bristol & Region Archaeological Service website]

Denomination

Now or formerly Swedenborgian.

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 ST5861973464. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• New Jerusalem Chapel (Demolished), St James, 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 St James, 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)
• Website providing information about Bristol & Region Archaeological Service (null) (verified 2018-11-16)

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.