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St Lawrence's Church,
Lawrence Hill Roundabout,
Lawrence Hill, 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 1885, but we understand it was closed in 1954.

Kelly's Directory of Bristol of 1902 records that St Lawrence's ecclesiastical district was created in 1883 from the parishes of St Philip & St Jacob Without, the consolidated chapelry of St Matthew, Moorfields, and Holy Trinity. The church was built in 1885, and consecrated the same year. It was described as "an edifice of stone, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles and a western tower, with a hexagonal spire 116 feet high and containing one bell". There were memorial tablets to the Rev. T.G. Luckock, a former vicar of Emmanuel, Clifton, and to William Marritt Webb esq. There were 718 sittings, and the parish records date from 1885. The living was then a vicarage, in the gift of the Bristol trustees, and had been held since 1883 [sic] by the Rev. James David Figures, of Queen's College, Birmingham.

Phil Draper, on his ChurchCrawler website says it was designed by J. Bevan Senior, "damaged slightly in the war, restored but closed in 1954 and demolished 1956".

Lawrence Hill is the name of a street, a railway station, and a parliamentary ward. Paul Townsend, in his Photographic Archive of Lawrence Hill & Moorfields, says the name derives from an old leper hospital, built about 1200, remains of which could still be seen as late as 1820.

There is an old photograph showing a part of St Lawrence's Church on the Barton Hill History Group website, captioned "The Glass House". Originally a beer house, The Glass House was a beerhouse and inn, and was in existence by 1793, before Lawrence Hill was developed. Though originally surrounded by alleyways, "by the end of the 19th century, it was in between two other Lawrence Hill landmarks, the Co-op buildings and St Lawrence's Church". Sadly, however the area was cleared in the 1960s, and now lies beneath the Lawrence Hill Roundabout, and its surrounding blocks of flats.

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 ST6051773461. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• St Lawrence's Church, Lawrence Hill, 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 Lawrence Hill, 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)
• What can I say? Paul Townsend's collection of photographs, old and new, of Bristol is spectacular, focussing on his Photographic Archive of Lawrence Hill & Moorfields (null) (verified 2018-11-13)
• “Dedicated to the history of Barton Hill & surrounding districts”… the Barton Hill History Group (null) (verified 2018-11-23)

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.