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Holy Trinity Church,
23 Park Road, BS16 1AZ,
Stapleton, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

This Church has (or 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 about 1000, and we understand it is still open.

Kelly's Directory of Gloucestershire in 1897 describes Stapleton as a parish and village on the river Frome, 1½ miles north from Stapleton Road station on the Great Western, and 1½ west from Fishponds station on the Midland railway. The parish was then said to form a suburb of Bristol, and included Eastville.

The church of Holy Trinity was described as "a building of local Pennant stone, erected in 1856, by the late James Henry Monk D.D. Bishop of Gloucester (1830-36), and of Gloucester and Bristol (1836-1856)". It consists of chancel, nave of five bays, aisles, north porch and a western tower with spire 180 feet high, containing a clock and 6 bells. A large choir vestry was added in 1892, and there were then sitting for 500 persons. The parish registers date from 1720. The living was a rectory, in the gift of Sir John Henry Greville Smyth bart., and had been held since 1890 by the Rev. William Henry Shaw M.A. of Trinity College, Dublin.

Holy Trinity stands at the top of Bell Hill, on a triangle of land sandwiched between Park Road, and 2 sides of Colston Hill. Dr. Monk's church, referred to above was in fact a rebuilding, between 1856-7 by John Norton, on a medieval site. The first known building, served by the Priory of St James, was dedicated to St Giles, but this was demolished 1691-1720, and replaced by a new church, dedicated to Holy Trinity.

The oldest fitting in the church is the Old Font, situated in the West porch, which has been dated to around 1000 A.D. There is a lovely, and heartwarming story about it, told (in 2014) on the website of Frenchay Church - how it was sold to Bishop Monk's former butler, who kept the Bell Inn, where it was used as a geranium pot. It was rediscovered, and returned to the church by the Rev. William Henry Shaw, rector 1891-1908.

Note: the ancient parish of Stapleton was abolished in 1898, to become part of a newly created civil parish of Bristol, and today (2014) it constitutes part of Bristol City and County.

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 is located at OS grid reference ST6156775977. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Holy Trinity Church, Stapleton shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Stapleton 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 Stapleton, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• Information provided on the Frenchay Church website. (verified 2013-05-06)

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.