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

Sargent Street Chapel (Demolished),
Sargent Street / Willway Street, BS3 4BG,
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 1850, but we understand it was closed after 1914.

Ashmead's Maps of Bristol of 1855 show a building labelled as a Chapel opposite the west end of Sargent Street, which at that time was a no-through-road, but now meets Willway Street at a T-junction. I have assumed this corresponds to a return to the Religious Census of 1851 (HO 129/328/1/1/8) for "Sargeant Street Chapel", in Bedminster, which was "opened for Divine Worship in September 1850". It was a separate building, used exclusively as a place of worship by an Independent congregation, with seating for 300 (all free); and the average number of worshippers was said to be 100 in the afternoons, and 300 in the evenings. The return was completed by Henry Kingdon, who styled himself "City Missionary & Minister", and lived at "Victoria Place, Bedminster, Bristol". He remarked that "this place of worship is situated in the midst of a poor & very populous neighbourhood, and has arisen out of the Labours of the Bristol City Mission Society. Sunday nights it is always crowded with attentive congregations. There are also three services held in it on other evenings of the..." [the photocopy is cut off at this point]

According to Maps of the 1880s, it had become a Congregational Chapel by then, and by Maps of the 1900s, it has the appearance of becoming part of a school - the main entrance of which faced Stillhouse Lane. The same association is suggested in Kelly's Directory of Bristol of 1914, which lists a City Mission Chapel both in Sargent Street, and in Stillhouse Lane, the latter adjacent to Bedminster Bridge Council Schools. Possibly the two entries may refer to front and rear access to the same building, but equally, they may have been separate premises.

It is not know what happened to the Chapel after this time. In the present day, a building still exists on the site, but it appears to be newer, and further back from the road than the Chapel, and is part of a complex named "Ferodo House".

Denomination

Now or formerly City Mission.

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 ST5900671806. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Sargent Street Chapel (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)