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Downend Baptist Church (Foster Chapel),
Salisbury Road, BS16 5RA,
Downend, Mangotsfield, 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 in 1786, and we understand it is still open.

The great expansion of Bristol towards Downend and Mangotsfield began in the late 19th century, but the history of this Baptist Chapel can be traced to a century before that. The return to the Religious Census of 1851 (HO 129/327/2/1/9) describes a place of worship in "downend, in the parish of Mangotsfield" erected "about the year 1790" as a separate building used exclusively as a place of worship by a Baptist congregation. There were 250 sittings, all free, and the estimated congregation on March 30th was 140 in the morning, and 200 in the evening, with 90 Sunday Scholars attending an afternoon class. The return was completed by Joseph Mitchell, its Pastor, of "downend near Bristol". He reported the "dimensions of the Chapel [were] 48 feet by 36 [and] free sittings nearly two thirds of the Chapel".

There is a photograph of the Chapel, and its schoolroom, as it looked in the 1960s, in Paul Townsend's Flickr Photostream. Paul records the Chapel's foundation by the Rev. Caleb Evans, minister of Broadmead Baptist, in Bristol. It became independent of Broadmead in 1814, and in 1862, the present schoolroom to the right of the Chapel was opened. The most recent addition was the Vestibule, built onto the front of the church in 1980, which gives it a decidedly modern look.

Old Maps of the early 1900s show it was then called "Foster Chapel". They also show it had a burial area on the east side, and at the rear. From above, it looks as though some stones may remain in place, but Paul's account says it has been converted into a well-kept garden.

Denomination

Now or formerly Baptist.

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 ST6512276569. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Downend Baptist Church (Foster Chapel), Downend, Mangotsfield shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Mangotsfield 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 Downend, Mangotsfield, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• Overview of Paul Townsend's Flickr Photostream (null) (verified 2018-11-07)

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.