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The Headingly Building, Wesley College,
College Park Drive, Henbury Road,
Henbury, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

We believe the Church does/did not 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 after 1946, but we don't know whether or not it is still open.

Recorded on Old Maps of 1953-1954 as "Didsbury Theological College (Methodist)", this building has an interesting and complex history. Briefly, the name "Didsbury College" derives from the foundation of Didsbury College, Manchester, in 1843. During WWII, the latter became a military hospital, and was never reopened for training. Instead, it was sold, and the proceeds used to purchase the Henbury Hill site, where in 1946, an existing Georgian house became the basis for what became known as "Didsbury College, Bristol". Further buildings on the site were financed by the remainder of the proceeds of the sale, and by 1953, a new main building was completed.

Wesley College in Headingley was closed in 1967, and its educational foundation effectively merged with that at Bristol, adopting the name "Wesley College, Bristol". Funds from the sale of the Headingley site were used to build a new tutorial block at Bristol - to be called the "Headingley Building". It also housed the college's new chapel, thus allowing the previous chapel in the college's main building to be converted into a library.

A fuller account, entitled "Wesley College, Bristol: A report from the Methodist Council" is available on the Methodist Church in Britain website - which also, incidentally, reports on a recommendation from the Methodist Conference of 2011 that Wesley College, Bristol should be closed, and its training facilities devolved to other institutions.

The following notice in The London Gazette of 4th August 1999 (p.8410) recorded its registration for marriages:

A Building certified for worship named THE HEADINGLEY BUILDING, Wesley College, College Park Drive, Henbury Road, Bristol, in the registration district of Bristol, in the non-Metropolitan County of Bristol, was on 22nd July 1999, registered for solemnising marriages therein pursuant to section 41 of the Marriage Act 1949 as amended by section 1(1) of the Marriage Acts Amendment Act 1958. Dated 29th July 1999.

No corresponding notice of the cancellation of its registration has been found; nor has it been possible to ascertain the status of the buildings which constituted Wesley College in the present day (2014).

Denomination

Now or formerly 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 Church is/was located at OS grid reference ST5693178293. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• The Headingly Building, Wesley College, Henbury shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Henbury 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 Henbury, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• “The mother church to Methodists worldwide” - the Methodist Church in Britain (null) (verified 2018-10-10)
• 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.