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Free Methodist Church ("Mount Zion?),
102 Gloucester Road / Berkeley Road, BS7 8BN,
Bishopston, Bristol, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

We believe the Church 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 1865, but we understand it was closed in 1959.

Here is a spectacular building, with an east-west aligned nave, with an Italianate tower at its south-east corner. The south transept, oddly placed in relation to the body of the church, was added at a later date.

The tower originally had a small spire on top, but this was removed in 1966. There is a photograph of it beforehand shown (next to "Bristol North Swimming Baths") on Paul Townsend's Photographic Archive of Bishopston.

So far as I'm able to tell, it is not a Listed Building, which is a pity, as the overall design appears to be quite unique.

Phil Draper's ChurchCrawler says it was built in 1865, but I wonder if its congregation predates this. Prior to 1862, the Bishopston area was part of the parish of Horfield, and there is a return to the Religious Census of 1851 (HO 129/330/2/2/7) for a building named "Mount Zion" in Horfield parish, built in 1846, with a congregation of Wesleyan Methodist Reformers. It had free seating for 80 and 30 "other" sittings, with an average congregation of 40 to morning services and 90 in the evenings. It also had a Sunday School, with morning classes attended by 19 pupils, and 20 in the afternoons. It was completed by "Henery Hodges", the Chapel Steward, of "10 Elton torres, Horfield, Bristol". It would be a logical progression for the congregation, as the bulk of the Wesleyan Reformers joined the United Methodist Free Churches in 1857, thus becoming the "Free Methodist" on Old Maps. See also Bishopston on the About Bristol website.

Note: the building is now (as of Google StreetView 2012) in commercial use - a showroom for "Nailsea Electrical", at 102 Gloucester Road, BS7 8BN.

Denomination

Now or formerly Free/United 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 Church was located at OS grid reference ST5902875318. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Free Methodist Church ("Mount Zion?), Bishopston, 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 Bishopston, Bristol, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• What can I say? Paul Townsend's collection of photographs, old and new, of Bristol is spectacular, focussing on his Photographic Archive of Bishopston (null) (verified 2018-11-13)
• The Church officiando's “Bible” - Phil Draper's ChurchCrawler (null) (verified 2018-10-16)
• “History, Architecture, Churches, Statues, Landmarks”… About Bristol (null) (verified 2018-11-10)

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.