Ryecroft Wesleyan Chapel, Gloucester, Gloucestershire, Church History

Gloucestershire Places of Worship

We have 2 Images

Ryecroft Wesleyan Chapel, Gloucester (1) (70k)

Above Photograph(s)
Copyright of John Williams

Ryecroft Wesleyan Chapel, Gloucester

Ryecroft Wesleyan Chapel,
Conduit Street / Ryecroft Street,
Gloucester, 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 1870, but we understand it was closed in 1955.

"The beginning of Ryecroft started about the year 1846, when a branch church of Northgate Street was opened in Victoria Street"... Ryecroft Wesleyan Chapel was built in 1870, on land purchased from the Methodist New Connection where a Countess of Huntingdon Chapel was standing. It provided for the needs of worshippers who had been attending the Victoria Street Chapel, together with those from nearby Tredworth Chapel.
It was opened 8th May 1871, when the existing chapel became a schoolroom. The Gloucester Journal, in its announcement of the opening ceremony, reported the building was "lit by gas, and heated by hot air from a huge cylinder in the base of the tower".
A decline in worshippers followed WWII, so in 1955 the Trustees decided to try to sell the premises. Discussions took place with other Chapels nearby in hope of amalgamation, but these were not successful. Eventually the internal furnishings were sold off, and in 1957, the building was leased to the Local Authorities for 14 years. However in 1999, it was taken over by the Barton and Tredworth Community Trust.
One of the items in the 1955 sale was the organ, built for Ryecroft in 1898 by Sweetland of Bath, for £400. It was bought by St Nicholas's Church in Ashchurch for £100, and is still in use there today. The War Memorial, and other fittings which could be used were transferred to St Luke's Methodist Church in Stroud Road.
The above account was prepared in 2010 with the assistance of a description of the building on a website belonging to the Barton and Tredworth Community Trust, who as indicated above had taken it over in 1999. The Trust became a Registered Charity (#1089540) in 2001, but now (in 2018) I have discovered it no longer exists. Indeed, according to the Charity Commission website, it was removed from their register in 2013. It is assumed therefore that they are no longer using the building, but the former chapel may well have been adopted by now for some other cause!

Denomination

Now or formerly Wesleyan Methodist.

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 SO8364517711. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

Ryecroft Wesleyan Chapel, Gloucester shown on a Google Map.
Places of Worship in Gloucester 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 Gloucester, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

See St Luke's Methodist Church elsewhere in this database.
Government website listing Registered Charities in England and Wales - Charity Commission (null) (verified 2018-11-10)

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.

Information last updated on 27 Nov 2018 at 08:39.

Search for other Places of Worship in Gloucestershire, or in another County in this Database

Please choose a County by selecting one of the Tabs below.
Note: you MUST choose a County - searching all four at once is not an option!

Derbyshire

Gloucestershire

Herefordshire

Worcestershire

Photo	Place or OS GridRef	Dedication (optional)	Street (optional)	How Many	Denomination

Search Tips:

You can specify either a Place, or OS Grid Reference to search for. When you specify a Place, only entries for that place will be returned, with Places of Worship listed in alphabetical order. If you specify a Grid Reference, Places of Worship in the immediate vicinity will be listed, in order of distance from the Grid Reference supplied. The default is to list 10, but you can specify How Many you want to see, up to a maximum of 100.

You can further refine your search by supplying other search terms.

You can specify entries with ('Yes') or without ('No') photographs.

You can specify a church or chapel's Dedication, to restrict entries to those containing the term you supply as a dedication. So for instance, 'John' would return 'St John', 'St Mary and St John', 'St John the Divine' &c.

You can specify a Street address, and likewise 'George' will return George Place, St George's Street, George and Dragon, &c.

You can restrict the search to classes of Denomination. The exact denomination is always shown in the results, although the search is for broad types. Thus you can search for 'Methodist', but not 'Wesleyan Methodist' or 'Primitive Methodist'. 'Multi-denominational' includes Ecumenical Partnerships, and 'Miscellaneous' means anything not covered by other broad classes.

Please note the above provides a search of selected fields in the Gloucestershire section of the Places of Worship Database on this site (churchdb.gukutils.org.uk) only. For other counties, or for a full search of the Database, you might like to try the site's Google Custom Search, which includes full webpage content.

Further Information

This site provides historical information about churches, other places of worship and cemeteries. It has no affiliation with the churches or congregations themselves, nor is it intended to provide a means to find places of worship in the present day.

Do not copy any part of this page or website other than for personal use or as given in our Terms and Conditions of Use.

You may wish to take a look at our About the Places of Worship Database page for an overview of the information provided, and any limitations which may be present.

This Report was created 26 Dec 2024 - 20:45:52 GMT from information held in the Gloucestershire section of the Places of Worship Database. This was last updated on 13 Oct 2021 at 14:13.

URL of this page: https://churchdb.gukutils.org.uk/GLS238.php

Logo by courtesy of the Open Clip Art Library