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Wesleyan Methodist Chapel (now Spiritualist),
123 Soundwell Road,
Soundwell, 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 1843, though it is now closed, but we don't yet know when.

This place of worship was first noted on Old Maps of 1882, labelled as "Methodist Chapel (Wesleyan)". It is built of stone, with two tall round-arched windows on either side of a central doorway, which in recent years, has been enclosed in a porch. It is separated from the road behind a low wall, which has wrought iron railings on top.

It was described in a return to the Religious Census of 1851 (HO 129/327/2/1/6) as the Wesleyan Chapel in "Soundwell, parish of Mangotsfield" as a separate building, used exclusively as a place of worship. There were free sittings for 34, and 36 "other sittings", and the average congregation was given as 60 to afternoon service, and 40 in the evenings. The return was completed by Charles Clay, its Minister, of "Kingswood, near Bristol", who remarked that "no service is conducted at present in consequence of a secession".

There is no date of its foundation in the return, but according to an account of the Kingswood Whit Walk, in a book Religion in English Everyday Life: An Ethnographic Approach, by Timothy Jenkins, published in 1999, Soundwell Road Spiritualist Church, as it was then, was "built in 1843 as a Wesleyan chapel".

Its closure was 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"... Its original certification was dated 9th July 1862.

A similar notice, published in the Gazette of 1st March 1984 (p.3037) recorded the registration of the building, as Soundwell Spiritualist Church, for marriages.

Denomination

Now or formerly Wesleyan 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 ST6482375263. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Wesleyan Methodist Chapel (now Spiritualist), Soundwell, 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 Soundwell, Mangotsfield, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• 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.