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Totterdown Baptist Church,
Wells Road, BS4 2AX,
Totterdown, Bristol, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

We believe the Church does 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 1881, and we understand it is still open.

Totterdown Baptist Church is a solid building, of stone which appears dark for Bristol. The central bay of the 3-bay front, which projects slightly, has 6 narrow round-arched windows at the lower level, and above them a set of 3 similar windows, in venetian formation. There is a doorway in each side bay, with a mock porch above it, containing a circular window; and on the upper level a pair of windows matching those in the central bay - most unusual. In comparison, the sides of the building are quite plain. It was designed by Alfred Harford.

It is situated in between the junctions of Wells Road with Cemetery Road and Sydenham Road. The street directory section of Kelly's Directory of Bristol of 1902 lists it as "Totterdown Baptist Chapel (Knowle Hill)", between #186 and #188 Wells Road.

Phil Draper's ChurchCrawler website notes that it was built in 1880. The following notice in The London Gazette of 1st September 1882 (p.4075) recorded its registration for marriages:

NOTICE is hereby given, that a separate building, named the Totterdown Baptist Chapel, situate at Totterdown, in the parish of Bedminster, in the county of Somerset, in the district of Bedminster, being a building certified according to law as a place of religious worship, was, on the 12th day of August, 1882, duly registered for solemnizing marriages therein, pursuant to the Act 6th and 7th Wm. 4, cap. 85. Dated 15th August 1882.

For those interested in finding more, an account The Beginnings of the Church in Totterdown, by Rev. W.V. Welch, written for the Church's Centenary Year in 1981, is available on Totterdown Baptist Church website.

Denomination

Now or formerly Baptist.

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 located at OS grid reference ST6029571302. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Totterdown Baptist Church, Totterdown, 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 Totterdown, 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)
• You may want to visit Totterdown Baptist Church website for present-day information.
• 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.