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Clifton Down Congregational Church,
Suspension Bridge Road, BS8 4AN,
Clifton Down, Bristol, 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 1868, but we understand it was closed after 1984.

Clifton Down Chapel was built in 1868 for Congregationalists who were meeting in the Bridge Street Chapel in the City, a congregation whose origins lay back in the 17th century, when Charles II. granted a licence to John Weeks to preach in St James's Back. John Latimer, in his Annals of Bristol in the Nineteenth Century (1887), records that it was opened on 11th November 1868 by the Rev. S. Martin, of London. "The new building, which is in the fourteenth century style, cost nearly £10,000. Funds were not available for raising a highly ornamental spire". He adds that (at the time), the license was carried over, and was still exhibited in the vestry.

The following notice in The London Gazette of 20th May 1870 (p.2661) recorded its registration for marriages:

NOTICE is hereby given that a separate building, named Clifton Down Congregational Church, situated at Clifton Down, in the parish of Clifton, in the county of Gloucester, in the district of Clifton, being a building certified according to law as a place of religious worship, was, on the 17th day of May, 1870, duly registered for solemnizing marriages therein, pursuant to the Act of 6th and 7th Wm. IV., cap. 85. Dated 18th May 1870.

No corresponding notice of its closure has been found, but evidently this was after 1984, as the Bristol Record Office Parish Register catalogue lists baptism records to that date. When I first prepared this account in 2014, I discovered it had been redeveloped into a block of apartments for the over-60s, known as "Guardian Court". This was managed by a group known as the Anchor Trust which has now (2018) been rebranded as The Anchor Group.

Note: "Suspension Bridge Road" is shown on Google Maps in two sections, called "Gloucester Row" and "Beaufort Buildings".

Denomination

Now or formerly 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 Church was located at OS grid reference ST5697373231. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Clifton Down Congregational Church, Clifton Down, 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 Clifton Down, Bristol, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• A link to an article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, on The Anchor Group (null) (verified 2018-11-22)
• 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.