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

Anvil Street Chapel (Demolished),
Anvil Street,
St Philip, 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 1830, but we understand it was closed by 1986.

Anvil Street Chapel is recorded in the book Bristol and Its Environs (1875), published by the British Association, as beginning life in 1830 as a Ragged School. Its subsequent history is ably described by Phil Draper on his ChurchCrawler website. The Chapel was opened in 1834, and "largely run under the care of Highbury Chapel". Phil also notes that in the early 1890s it joined forces with the Broad Plain Mission, and in 1909, the Anvil Street premises became the gymnasium of the Broad Plain Rugby Club. Does this indicate that Anvil Street Chapel closed? I presume so, but in any case, the Anvil Street premises, Phil says, were demolished in 1986.

Phil's account also includes a photograph. It shows a building with a three-bay front, with an upper tier of 3 round-arched windows above a central doorway. There may have been windows on either side of the doorway.

The following notice in The London Gazette of 15th December 1837 (p.3286) recorded its registration for marriages:

NOTICE is hereby given, that a separate building, named Anvil-street Chapel, situated at Anvil-street, in the parish of Saint Philip and Jacob, late in the county of Gloucester, but now in the city and county of Bristol, in the district of the Clifton Union, in the county of Gloucester and city and county of Bristol, being a building certified according to law as a place of religious worship, was, on the 12th day of December 1837, duly registered for solemnizing marriages therein, pursuant to the Act of 6th and 7th William 4, chap. 85. Dated 13th December 1837.

This makes it one of the first buildings to be registered under the 1836 Act. Unfortunately, however, no corresponding cancellation notice has been found; and surviving records of baptisms cover the period 1868-1877 only, so that provides no indication when exactly it was closed.

Note: Highbury Chapel was founded in 1843, so might that have been from Anvil Street, and did the child become the parent?

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 Chapel was located at OS grid reference ST5981672787. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Anvil Street Chapel (Demolished), St Philip, 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 St Philip, 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)
• 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.