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

St Brendon's Catholic Church (Demolished),
St Andrew's Road,
Avonmouth, Shirehampton, 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 1924, but we understand it was closed in 2004.

A moving account - Parishioners Say Farewell in Avonmouth published in the April 2004 edition of Clifton Catholic News, described the foundation of St Brendon's, and its closure on 1st February that year…

It was on the last Sunday of January 1956 Bishop Rudderham opened and blessed the new church which had replaced the wooden hut which had been in use since 1924; and one of the altar boys on that day was also there at the last Mass".

The wooden hut had been provided originally by the National Smelting Corporation, as a Mass centre for their workers at the new plant they'd opened in Avonmouth that year. Then "in 1946 a site was purchased in St Andrews Road where a wooden church dedicated to St Brendan, the Navigator was constructed, and was blessed by Bishop Lee later that year".

The following notice in The London Gazette of 15th February 1957 (p.1070) records the registration of the 1956 building for marriages:

A Building certified for worship named ST. BRENDAN ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, St. Andrew's Road, Avonmouth, in the registration district of Bristol, in the county borough of Bristol, was on 8th February, 1957, registered for solemnising marriages therein pursuant to section 41 of the Marriage Act, 1949. Dated 11th February 1957.

A photograph in Phil Draper's Flickr Photostream shows it was built of several shades of brick, and had a gabled entrance, with a circular window, above a round-arched doorway, and a tower with an open belfry attached to the south-west corner of the nave. No corresponding record of its closure was found, but Google StreetView shows the site has since been redeveloped, and a block of flats now occupies the site.

Denomination

Now or formerly Roman Catholic.

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 ST5179378109. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• St Brendon's Catholic Church (Demolished), Avonmouth, Shirehampton shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Shirehampton 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 Avonmouth, Shirehampton, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• Overview of Phil Draper's Flickr Photostream (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.