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

Milk Street Methodist Chapel (Demolished),
Milk Street,
St Paul, 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 1853, but we understand it was closed in 1929.

Milk Street was (I assume) once a prosperous thoroughfare. The book Bristol and Its Environs (1875), published by the British Association, records it as the site of Blanchard's Almshouses, founded by Miss E. Blanchard in 1722, for "five poor old maids, whose labour is done; and, for want of such poor maids, for widows, of the Baptist persuasion", and Ridley's Almshouses, founded by Miss Ridley, and built in 1739 for "five bachelors and five maids". The Bristol Town Plans of 1885 show Blanchard's lay at the south-east corner of Milk Street and its junction with Old King Street. The Methodist Church was situated on the opposite side of the street, several doors along from the corner, labelled as "Methodist Chapel (United Free)", with seating for 620.

Kelly's Directory of Bristol of 1914 records it as "Milk Street United Methodist Chapel", between #7-11, premises of Robert Clarke & Co., wholesale clothiers, and #13, Bromhead & Son, ironmongers. The street also included "Milk Street United Methodist Chapel House", at #15, the Crown & Cushion, and the Sugar Loaf public houses, a Pillar Letter Box, the the Pillar Box Tavern next door to it, the Bunch of Grapes, the Salvation Army Men's Metropole, another public house, the Lamb and Anchor, and various retail outlets - clothiers, ironmongers, newsagents, grocers, fruiterers, refreshment rooms, china dealers, drapers, hairdressers, &c.

Phil Draper's ChurchCrawler website notes the Chapel was built in 1853, and closed in 1929. Thereafter members joined the Old King Street Wesleyan congregation - "one of the first amalgamations of a United Methodist and Wesleyan Society before the complete union of 1932".

The following notice in The London Gazette of 13th September 1929 (p.5922) recorded its closure:

NOTICE is hereby given that the Building formerly known as UNITED METHODIST CHURCH, situated at Milk-street, in the civil parish of Bristol, in the registration district of Bristol, in the county borough of Bristol, which was duly registered for Marriages pursuant to the Act of 6 & 7 Wm. IV, c.85, Sec. 18, is now no longer used as a Place of Meeting for religious worship by the congregation on whose behalf it was so registered, and that the registry thereof was therefore on the 10th day of September, 1929, formally cancelled by the Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages for England and Wales. Dated 11th September 1929.

Its demolition took place soon after, but its organ has been preserved, and is now in Eden Grove Church, Horfield.

Milk Street itself has also been cleared, but a thoroughfare of shops does still remain in its stead. The line it followed is approximately that of the The Horsefair, which together with Union Street, Newgate, Broad Weir, and Penn Street, encircles Broadmead, Bristol's major shopping centre.

Denomination

Now or formerly Free/United Methodist.

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 ST5915773485. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Milk Street Methodist Chapel (Demolished), St Paul, 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 Paul, 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.