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

Castle Green Independent Chapel (Demolished),
Castle Green,
Bristol, 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 1640, but we understand it was closed in 1901.

The congregation of the former Castle Green Independent Chapel (later Congregational) is credited as being the oldest in the City. John Latimer, on pp.150-151 of his Annals of Bristol in the Seventeenth Century (1900) records the year 1640 as "locally notable for the first open secession from the Church of England... One day... a farmer of Stapleton, a butcher of Lawford's Gate, a farrier of Wine Street, and a young minister named Bacon, living in Lewin's Mead, met together in Broad Street, at the house of Mr. Hazard, the incumbent of St. Ewen's and St. Mary Redcliff ... it was agreed after grave deliberation to separate from the worship of the world, and to go no more to the services set down in the Book of Common Prayer".

His first reference to Castle Green Chapel is on p.370, when "on February 10th [1675], [Bishop] Carleton, four parsons, two Aldermen and some military officers, with a noisy rabble, surrounded Castle Green Chapel whilst service was proceeding, arrested the minister, John Thompson, a Master of Arts of Oxford". The Bishop, acting as prosecutor, committed him to gaol for six months, but Newgate was rarely free from epidemics, arising from the foulness of the cells", and he died there on March 4th.

This building appears to have been superseded by a later Chapel, as on p.388 "the Corporation, in September, 1678, granted to Ichabod Chauncy, a professor of physic and a prominent Dissenter, a lease for four lives of a piece of void ground in Castle Green at a rent of £2 6s. 8d. A new chapel for the congregation worshipping in that locality was soon afterwards erected on part of this site".

According to Non-Conformist Chapels and Meeting Houses, Gloucestershire (1986), in its description of Brunswick Chapel, it was rebuilt in 1815. Its position is shown on Maps prior to 1900 on the south side of Castle Green, in a block bounded on the west by Cock & Bottle Lane, on the south by Castle Street, and on the east by Tower Street. It was closed in 1901, when a new Church was opened in Greenbank, and demolished shortly after.

Note that there were two Tower Streets in Bristol at this time. The other was in the Temple area, and still exists, whereas the one mentioned above has been cleared, and lies under Castle Park, its line, perhaps following the line of one of the southern entrances to the park.

Two further sources of information are available, firstly Phil Draper's ChurchCrawler website, which includes old photographs, and secondly, sketches in the Loxton Collection in Bristol Reference Library (E453 & E454), for which see Bristol - Pinpoint Local Information. The exterior is shown as a two-storey building with a three bay front, and a pediment above the central doorway, whilst the view of interior is similar to the photograph on Phil's site, where he notes that the white ironwork in front of the altar was preserved in the new building in Greenbank.

Denomination

Now or formerly Independent/Congregational.

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 ST5930573148. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Castle Green Independent Chapel (Demolished), 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 Bristol, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• The Church officiando's “Bible” - Phil Draper's ChurchCrawler (null) (verified 2018-10-16)
• The “Google Maps Experience” for the past - Bristol - Pinpoint Local Information (null) (verified 2018-11-11)

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.