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

St Luke's Church (Demolished),
York Road / Spring Street,
Bedminster, 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 1861, but we understand it was closed in 1968.

St Luke's Church, Bedminster, was on the south-east corner of the junction of York Road with Spring Street. York Road runs parallel with the "New Cut", an artificial channel excavated between 1804 and 1809 to divert the River Avon from its course through the centre of the City, and as part of the "Floating Harbour" project.

John Latimer, in The Annals of Bristol in the Nineteenth Century (1887), records that "St. Luke's Church, Bedminster", was consecrated on the 23rd January 1861. This was the day following the consecration of the ill-fated St Bartholomew's Church, in Union Street. The latter was demolished in 1890 as a consequence of "an offer that its patrons could not refuse" from Messrs. Fry & Sons, the cocoa manufacturers, who needed the site to extend their premises.

Kelly's Directory of Bristol of 1902 records that an ecclesiastical parish of St Luke was formed in 1861 from the parishes of Bedminster and St Mary Redcliff[e], Bristol. "The church, in the York road, is a fine building of stone in the Decorated style, erected in 1859, at a cost of about £7,000". It was said to consist of apsidal chancel, nave, aisles and a tower at the west end of the north aisle, containing 6 bells. There were 1,200 sittings, and the parish records date from 1861. The living was a vicarage, in the gift of trustees, and had been held since 1891 by the Rev. William Frederick Jepson M.A. of Pembroke College, Cambridge.

Phil Draper's ChurchCrawler website reports that it was closed in 1968, and demolished in 1970. At the time of his writing, a filling station occupied the site, but a Google StreetView of 2012 shows blocks of apartments. The upper floors must have a good view, looking over the New Cut!

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 ST5933771923. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• St Luke's Church (Demolished), Bedminster, 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 Bedminster, 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)

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.