Bethel Baptist Chapel (now Christadelphian Hall), Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, Church History

Gloucestershire Places of Worship

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Above Photograph(s)
Copyright of John Williams

Bethel Baptist Chapel (now Christadelphian Hall), Cheltenham

Bethel Baptist Chapel (now Christadelphian Hall),
Knapp Road, facing St James's Square, GL50 3QQ,
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

This Chapel 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 in 1702, but we understand it was closed in 1951.

This is was formerly Bethel Baptist Chapel. It was built in 1820-1 for a section of the Tewkesbury church which began meetings in 1690, and became autonomous in 1753. Their first meetings were in a former malthouse, then from 1703 in a small chapel, probably on the present site.
The church lost some of its congregation a consequence of secessions (break-away groups) in 1835 and 1866, but survived until 1951, when it was closed for Baptist worship. It was then used by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and latterly by the Christadelphians. It is now a Listed Building - see also the British Listed Buildings website.
The development of Chapel Street (which lies between Knapp Road and New Street, and to which Bethel Chapel gives its name), post-dates the original chapel by over 100 years. No. 1 Chapel Street and adjacent lot was apparently up for auction on 14th June 1810), and street lamps were installed soon after in the same year. [Source: Cheltenham - Current and Former Places of Worship on Stuart Flight's "Glosgen" website, Non-Conformist Chapels and Meeting Houses, Gloucestershire (1986) and An Historical Gazetteer of Cheltenham]

Denomination

Now or formerly Baptist.

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 SO9457122622. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

Bethel Baptist Chapel (now Christadelphian Hall), Cheltenham shown on a Google Map.
Places of Worship in Cheltenham 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 Cheltenham, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

Learn more about Buildings of special or historical interest on the British Listed Buildings (null) (verified 2018-09-19)
Stuart Flight's webpages of Cheltenham - Current and Former Places of Worship (null) (verified 2018-11-08)
Find the information referred to via the search interface to An Historical Gazetteer of Cheltenham (null) (verified 2018-11-11)

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.

Information last updated on 8 Nov 2018 at 16:54.

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This Report was created 15 Nov 2024 - 23:45:13 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/GLS619.php

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