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

St Mary's Square Chapel (St Mary's Hall) (Demolished),
St Mary's Square,
Gloucester, 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 1788, but we understand it was closed in 1958.

This large building on the south side of St Mary's Square was acquired by Selina, Countess of Huntingdon in 1788, and registered as "St Mary's Square Chapel", for followers of George Whitefield. It had been built originally as a theatre. In the late 1820s it was said to be frequented by a large and respectable society, but by the 1860s following a fall in attendance, and competition from chapels elsewhere it had fallen into decline, and in 1869 it was closed. By this time, the Trustees had decided to build a new Memorial Church to Whitefield elsewhere, in Park Road; this was opened in 1872.

Later in 1869, St Mary's Square Chapel was renovated, with help from the Independents, as an interdenominational mission station, but this was not a success. It was reopened in 1870 by J.F.T. Hallowes, a Congregationalist Minister, who built up a large congregation, but attempts to continue the mission after he left in 1876 were also unsuccessful, and in 1877 the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion ended its involvement.

It was then taken over by a group of Independents, who converted it into a mission hall known as St Mary's Hall. It was run by a committee, which including members of the Southgate Congregational Church, and in 1905 Southgate Church took over entirely, paying for a conversion to the inner gallery to provide a second floor, with five classrooms.

Services were held there until 1958, when it came up for demolition as part of a slum clearance programme. The congregation then moved to a new building in St Mary's Street - where they still meet today, as St Mary's Congregational Church - and the old hall was demolished.

Note: Revd. Thomas Dudley Fosbrooke's An Original History of the City of Gloucester (1819) states Lady Huntingdon's Connection chapel was situated in the Lower North-gate Street, citing the premises as one of eight non-conformist chapels in Gloucester at that time. [Other Source: the Victoria County History series: A History of the County of Gloucester, Volume 4: The City of Gloucester (1988), pp.319-334 (Protestant Nonconformity)]

Denomination

Now or formerly Huntingdon Connexion.

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 SO8293018864. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• St Mary's Square Chapel (St Mary's Hall) (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.