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

Tucker Street Chapel (Demolished),
Tucker Street,
Bristol, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

We don't know whether this Chapel had 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 1686, but we understand it was closed in 1786.

The Tucker Street Meeting provided the foundation for at least two other congregations in Bristol. Its location can be seen on Rocque's Map of Bristol of 1750, labelled as "Prebyt Meet." (Presbyterian Meeting), on a sharp, almost right-angled bend in the former Tucker Street.

Non-Conformist Chapels and Meeting Houses, Gloucestershire (1986), in its description of Lewin's Mead Chapel, notes that meetings had begun originally in 1672, when a licence was granted to John Weeks, a former clergyman who had been ejected from the living of Buckland Newton in Dorset, as a 'teacher', and "'a room or rooms in the house of John Lloyd, lying on St James's Back' was allowed as a meeting place". This place remained in use until 1681, when the contents were destroyed, and the congregation forced to meet elsewhere. The place chosen was a converted theatre building in Tucker Street, and meetings began there in 1686 - "but the rapid growth of the society appears to have necessitated the provision of a second place of worship in the north part of the town in 1693-4 [in Lewin's Mead]. The two congregations formed a single society at least until the death of Weeks in 1698, but had divided by the early 18th century when the former is credited with 500, and the latter with 1,600 hearers". The Tucker Street society remained largely orthodox, whereas the Lewin's Mead society supported the contrary position, and by the early 19th century became regarded generally as Unitarian.

The Tucker Street Chapel was "swept away", to quote John Latimer, in The Annals of Bristol in the Eighteenth Century (1903) by the making of a new street from Bridge Parade to the bottom of Temple Street. "The new thoroughfare (Bath Street) ran for the most part over the site of the ancient Tucker Street - one fragment of which still remains to attest its narrow and sinuous character". This was under the powers of an Act of 1786, obtained by the Bristol Bridge trustees, which also enabled them "to demolish Temple Cross, and to remove from the centre of Temple Street to another site the figure of Neptune and the fountain on which it was placed. The last named change took place in December, 1787, when the fountain and figure were erected at the corner of Bear Lane".

The congregation subsequently moved to a new chapel in Bridge Street, for which see the separate entry in this database.

The Bristol Record Office hold records of baptisms at the Chapel (annotated 'later Bridge Street, then Clifton Down') for the period 1701-1731.

Denomination

Now or formerly Presbyterian.

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 in the town/village nearest OS grid reference ST5921572791. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Tucker Street Chapel (Demolished), 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)