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Primitive Methodist Chapel,
60 Broad Street, BS16 5NP,
Staple Hill, Mangotsfield, 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 1872, but we understand it was closed in 1964.

The entry in Kelly's Directory of 1923 for Downend parish, which then included Staple Hill and Upper Soundwell, mentions Wesleyan, Primitive, Independent Methodist, and United Methodist chapels. A building at this position is marked as a Primitive Methodist Chapel on Old Maps of 1882. Thereafter, and until 1951-1952, it is labelled simply as "Chapel", but it seems safe to say that it was the one recorded by Kelly in 1923.

So far as I am able to tell in the present day, the shell of the building has survived, being a long rectangular building, with a gabled front facing the road; however there are no other remains to identify it as such. To the west, on its right, is a Tesco Metro store, which interestingly, on Maps of 1951-1952 is labelled as a Bakery!

Its closure, as "Methodist Chapel, Staple Hill, Mangotsfield", may have been recorded in The London Gazette of 5th June 1964 (p.4869) in a list of buildings which "have wholly ceased to be used as places of worship by the congregations on whose behalf they were certified"... as the Gazette record is otherwise unaccounted for. Its original certification was dated 26th January 1872, which fits in with the known facts.

When I first prepared this account in 2014, signage on the front of the building indicated it was in use as a New & Used Furniture Store, for Compass Project Bristol, an organisation who operate a series of Charity Shops in Bristol. This is still the case in 2018, so if you have a FaceBook account, you may wish to visit Compass Project Bristol (a non-profit organisation) to see photographs.

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 was located at OS grid reference ST6513275886. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Primitive Methodist Chapel, Staple Hill, 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 Staple Hill, Mangotsfield, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• The FaceBook page for Compass Project Bristol (null) (verified 2018-11-07)
• 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.