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St Mark's Church,
St Mark's Road / High Street,
Easton, Bristol, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

This Church 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 1848, but we understand it was closed in 1984.

Kelly's Directory of Bristol of 1902 describes St Mark's Church, in Lower Easton, as "an edifice of stone in the Norman style, consisting of chancel, nave and a western tower containing 2 bells". All windows were said to be stained, and there were sittings for about 420, of which 348 were free. The living was a vicarage, in the gift of the Bishop of Bristol, and had been held since 1873 by the Rev. Thomas Henry Barnett K.C.L.

It was designed by Charles Dyer (1794-1848), who died before it was completed. The remaining work was supervised by S.B. Gabriel, and the building was consecrated on 18th May 1848. A separate ecclesiastical parish of Easton was created the same year, from parts of the ancient parishes of St George, and Stapleton. This was followed, in 1893, by the creation of the ecclesiastical parish of All Hallows, Easton, from the area of Easton west of the Clifton Extension railway. This was said by Kelly to relieve St Mark's of 5,500 of its population.

Sadly, during the early 1980s, St Mark's became impossible to maintain, as dry Rot was discovered, so a decision to close it was taken. The Church Commissioners Report on Pastoral and Closed Churches in Bristol Diocese, on the Church of England website records this occurring on 1st October 1984, after which the parish was united with that of St Anne & St Thomas, in Eastville. In 1989, it was made available for residential use, and in the present day, it has become supported housing.

Sadly, as a consequence, the interior has been lost; but some of the fixtures and fittings have been preserved - further information, and an account, provided by a former vicar of St Anne, with photographs, may be found on Phil Draper's ChurchCrawler website.

Note: Old Maps of 1918 show it had a graveyard.

Denomination

Now or formerly Church of England.

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 ST6087174358. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• St Mark's Church, Easton, 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 Easton, Bristol, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• The Church Commissioners Report on Pastoral and Closed Churches, found on the Church of England (null) (verified 2018-10-04)
• The Church officiando's “Bible” - Phil Draper's ChurchCrawler (null) (verified 2018-10-16)

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.