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

St James's Mission (Demolished),
Great James Street / West Street,
St James, 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 before 1885, but we understand it was closed before 1914.

This place of worship is shown on Bristol Town Plans of 1885 on the south-west corner of the junction of West Street and Great James Street. It is labelled as "Mission Hall (Nonconformist)" and had seating for 200. The street directory section of Kelly's Directory of Bristol of 1902 records it as "St James' Mission", from which one might deduce it were attached to the Church of St James, but that was not the case, and in fact under the list of "Mission & Gospel Halls", it is recorded as undenominational.

This description appears to match an entry in the list of Places of Worship on the Bristol & Avon Family History Society website, which their research indicates was founded in 1874.

James (or Great James Street) Street, in the parish of St James, ran from Lower Montague Street to Earl Street. West Street ran between Whitson Street and James Street, parallel to, and to the south of, Earl Street. Note: this was a separate "West Street" to the one which survives today, a continuation eastwards of Old Market Street; and it appears to have been swept away by 1914, along with (apparently) all the buildings on the west side of James Street. In 1902, besides the Mission Hall, there was the Little Ship public house, and at #6, Thurston Bird, a furniture decorator; and on the east side, a shop, run by Henry Gosling.

Denomination

Now or formerly Non-denominational.

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 ST5887173535. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• St James's Mission (Demolished), St James, 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 James, Bristol, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• Parish Histories, Burial data, &c. on the Bristol & Avon Family History Society (null) (verified 2018-11-04)

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.