We have 4 Images Above Photograph(s)
Copyright of Phil Draper/John Williams

St Michael's Church (St Michael the Archangel) (part Demolished),
The Cross, Eastgate Street,
Gloucester, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

This Church had 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 before 1150, but we understand it was closed in 1940.

St Michael the Archangel church dates back to the 12th century, though the bulk of the old church was demolished, and in 1849 rebuilt. The new church incorporated the tower from the old one, but in 1955/6 this in turn was demolished, and today only the tower remains. It stands in solitary splendour on the corner of Southgate Street and Eastgate, an unforgettable landmark in town.

St Michael's had a graveyard on the south side of the church (behind the buildings of Southgate). This can be seen on one of the accompanying images, taken from "An Original History of the City of Gloucester", by Thomas Dudley Fosbrooke (1819). When it was closed, in preparation for the land being used for redevelopment, the burials were exhumed and reinterred in the Old Gloucester Cemetery ("B Ground"), on Tredworth Road. A record of this is available at Coney Hill Cemetery, which now holds records of all Gloucester's Cemeteries.

Today (2011), St Michael's tower is in use once again by the community, as the base for the Gloucester Civic Trust. [Sources: John Williams, and City of Gloucester Places of Worship on Stuart Flight's "Glosgen" website]

Denomination

Now or formerly Church of England.

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 SO8316818529. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• St Michael's Church (St Michael the Archangel) (part Demolished), 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.

• Stuart Flight's webpages of City of Gloucester Places of Worship (null) (verified 2018-11-08)

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.