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

Counterslip Baptist Chapel (Demolished),
Victoria Street,
Bristol, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

This Chapel 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 1804, but we understand it was closed before 1948.

Counterslip Baptist Chapel was founded in 1804 by a group of seceders from the Pithay Baptist Chapel. Their new building opened in 1810 "in the Corinthian style and could seat 1250 persons". In 1834, some members of the congregation moved back to the Pithay, where they were led by the preacher Evan Probert, who was instrumental in their move to City Road Baptist, in 1861, described elsewhere in this database.

Kelly's Directory of Bristol continues the story, of Counterslip chapel in Bath street, being superseded by a chapel in Victoria street, "erected in 1878, at a cost of £10,000, to seat 900, with a lecture hall for 400, the old chapel being used as a warehouse". The Bristol Town Plan of 1884-1885 does indeed show a Baptist Chapel on the west side of Victoria Street, opposite Colston School (Boys & Girls), with a Sunday School at the rear.

Meanwhile, according to John Latimer, in The Annals of Bristol in the Nineteenth Century (1887), Counterslip Chapel, and adjacent schools had been purchased in 1876 by Messrs. Finzel & Sons, sugar refiners, for about £10,000, and converted into warehouses. The firm went into liquidation the following year, and in 1878 an attempt was made to revive the business, but "the manufactory was finally closed in April, 1881".

Latimer doesn't describe the foundation of the building, but he refers to burials in "Counterslip Baptist chapel" being prohibited in 1854, following the 1853 Act.

The conversion of the chapel to a warehouse occurred too early for it to be identified on Old Maps, but there is a photograph, of what I assume is the original building in Richard Walker's Flickr Photostream. The photo shows a building with a rounded front, and Corinthian columns, whereas the building in Victoria Street would appear to have been rectangular. Sadly, the latter was hit by a bomb in 1940 and for a time services continued in the ruins - a state of affairs which obviously couldn't continue, and a new building was opened in Wells Road, registered for marriages on 19th November 1948.

Note: "Bath Street" was the original name for the street now named "Counterslip" - between Victoria Street and Passage Street, crossing the Avon at St Philip's Bridge. Latimer's Annals of Bristol in the Eighteenth Century records that Bath Street was opened in 1786 - "the new thoroughfare ... ran for the most part over the site of the ancient Tucker Street - one fragment of which still remains to attest its narrow and sinuous character". He also refers to a Tucker Street Chapel, which was swept away under the powers of the Act for building the street, which had been obtained by the Bristol Bridge trustees.

Denomination

Now or formerly General Baptist.

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 ST5930672578. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Counterslip Baptist 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.

• Overview of Richard Walker's Flickr Photostream (null) (verified 2018-11-07)

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.