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

Gospel Hall (Demolished),
Hartcliffe Road,
Knowle West, Bristol, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

We believe the Church 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 by 1947, but we understand it was closed by 2002.

"Gospel Hall, Hartcliffe Road, Knowle West" first came to my attention in a notice published in The London Gazette of 11th November 2002 (p.13621), as one of a list of buildings which "are no longer used by the congregation on whose behalf they were registered for marriages"... At a later date, I located the notice of its original registration, published in The London Gazette of 18th April 1947 (p.1733):

A Separate Building, duly certified for religious worship, named GOSPEL HALL, situated at Hartcliffe Road, Knowle West in Bristol registration district in the county borough of Bristol, was on the 10th April 1947, registered for solemnizing marriages therein, pursuant to 6 & 7 Will. IV, c.85. Dated 12th April 1947.

I was unable to find a building labelled as such on Old Maps, but in the present day, a block of apartments named "Gospel Gardens" occupies a plot at the north-east end of Hartcliffe Road. Looking at the same plot on Maps of 1949 shows a building set back from the road, named "Hartcliffe Hall", and a building of that name is recorded in the list Places of Worship available on the Bristol & Avon Family History Society website as a Mission Hall.

By way of additional confirmation that they were one and the same, the Bristol Record Office hold records of marriages at "Knowle West, Hartcliffe Road: Gospel Hall" for the period 1949-1978. Interestingly, it is one of only three buildings used by the Christian Brethren in Bristol for which records have been deposited. The other two are Bethesda in Great George Street (baptisms 1822-1837), and Abingdon Road Hall, in Fishponds (marriages 1937-1996).

Denomination

Now or formerly Christian Brethren.

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 was located at OS grid reference ST5971669740. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Gospel Hall (Demolished), Knowle West, 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 Knowle West, Bristol, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• Parish Histories, Burial data, &c. on the Bristol & Avon Family History Society (null) (verified 2018-11-04)
• 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.