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New Roman Catholic Chapel (Holy Cross Church),
Bedminster Parade,
Bedminster, 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 1854, but we understand it was closed in 1872.

The location of this place of worship, optimistically named "New Roman Catholic Chapel" in official sources, can be seen for the first time on Ashmead's Maps of Bristol of 1855. It was situated on the north-west side of Bedminster Parade, between a Temperance Hall, on the corner of its junction with Regent Street, and the Police Station. The latter is now Bottelini's restaurant, and the site where the Chapel stood is now occupied by Bedminster Public Library. According to Phil Draper on his ChurchCrawler website, the Library building still contains a part of the Chapel, but as far as I can tell, this is not visible from outside, and it is not mentioned elsewhere.

The present Library Building, according to the British Listed Buildings website, was designed by Frank Wills, and dates from 1914, but evidently this replaced an earlier building, as Maps dated after the Chapel had moved to Victoria Street, in Bristol, in 1874, show a Free Library where the Chapel used to be.

The following notice in The London Gazette of 24th November 1871 (p.4911) recorded its rather late registration for marriages, given that a transfer of premises was imminent:

NOTICE is hereby given, that a building, named the New Roman Catholic Chapel, situate at Bedminster Causeway, in the parish of Saint Mary, Redcliff, in the city and county of Bristol, in the district of Bristol, being a building licensed and used for public religious worship as a Roman Catholic Chapel exclusively, was, on the 20th day of November, 1871, duly registered for solemnizing marriages therein, pursuant to the Act of 6th and 7th Wm. IV., cap. 85. Dated 21st November 1871.

A comparable notice, published in the Gazette of 1st September 1876 (p.4829) registered "a separate building, named Holy Cross, situate at Victoria-street, in the parish of Temple ... being substituted for the building known as the New Roman Catholic Church, now disused". The latter is described elsewhere in this database.

Denomination

Now or formerly Roman Catholic.

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 ST5883671852. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• New Roman Catholic Chapel (Holy Cross Church), 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)
• Learn more about Buildings of special or historical interest on the British Listed Buildings (null) (verified 2018-09-19)
• 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.