Gloucestershire Places of Worship

We have 2 Images Sheep Street Chapel, Cirencester (1) (72k) Sheep Street Chapel, Cirencester (2) (115k) Above Photograph(s)
Copyright of John Williams/John I. Jones
Sheep Street Chapel, Cirencester
Sheep Street Chapel,
Sheep Street, GL7 1QW,
Cirencester, 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 1833, but we understand it was closed before 1888.

A large rectangular 5-bay building, with 2 floors and a basement, with steps leading up from street level to a Doric portico. The Chapel was built in 1833 on land leased from Lord Bathurst. Some 50 years later, in 1888, Lord Bathurst arranged to have it converted into a public hall, when it became known as Apsley Hall. Memorials commemorating those who died in WWI were added to either side of the front porch in about 1919; then in 1921, Lord Bathurst gave it to the Memorial Hospital, on the opposite side of the street. In 1990, it became Cirencester Memorial Centre, providing mental health care.

Jerome Clapp (1807-1870), the father of 'Three men in a Boat' author Jerome K. Jerome was reputedly the builder, and the minister of the Chapel. [Sources: the British Listed Buildings, Rosemary Lockie, and John Williams]

Denomination

Now or formerly Independent/Congregational.

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 SP0206901808. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

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 Cirencester, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

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 9 Jan 2011 at 13:52.

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

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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.

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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.

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This Report was created 15 Nov 2024 - 04:52:40 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/GLS588.php
Logo by courtesy of the Open Clip Art Library