Default Image Place of Worship has been
Demolished.
Image by courtesy of
openclipart.org

St Ursula's Chapel (Demolished),
Lower Westgate Street,
Gloucester, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

We don't know whether 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 before 1189, and it has since been demolished, but we don't know when.

We understand there was a chapel dedicated to St Ursula in the Hospital of St Bartholomew, which was built originally to provide lodgings for the masons building the Westgate Bridge. This was at a period in history when a hospital was a place of "hospitality" for travellers, and the poor - rather than a place of caring for the sick, though sometimes these two functions would have been combined, as for instance with the Chapels of St Margaret's and St Mary Magdalene's which were refuges for the leper community.

Revd. Thomas Dudley Fosbrooke's An Original History of the City of Gloucester (1819) says that the builder of the Westgate Bridge, Nicholas Walred (a chaplain), formed the workmen into a College of Hermits. He also states that it was endowed by Henry III. in 1229, and in later years those entitled to accomodation were "Indigents above the age of 52, 22 Men and 36 Women", who were given an allowance of "Lodging and 4s.6d. per week".

An account of St Bartholomew's Hospital is also provided in Gloucester in National History, by Francis Adams Hyett (1924), which states it was built on the site now occupied by St Bartholomew's Almshouses (today, a retail outlet), and "persons of both sexes took up their abode there, 'leading a life of retirement, subject to fixed rules and under the control of a priest'". Subsequently, Henry III granted it the advowson of the adjacent St Nicholas's church in 1229, and later empowered it to elect a prior. "Thenceforth the house was known as the Hospital of St Bartholomew the Apostle, and the Church of St Nicholas became little more than its chapel". He adds that there was in addition a chapel within the hospital itself, which was dedicated to St Ursula.

According to the Victoria County History series: A History of the County of Gloucester, Volume 4: The City of Gloucester (1988), pp.242-245 (Bridges, gates and walls), the Westgate Bridge was begun in the reign of Henry II. (1154-1189), so at least 40 years before Henry III's endowment. [Sources: as stated, with John Williams and Rosemary Lockie]

Denomination

Now or formerly Roman Catholic.

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 SO8261018948. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• St Ursula's Chapel (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.

• The Victoria County History series: A History of the County of Gloucester, Volume 4: The City of Gloucester (null) (verified 2018-11-06)

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.