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Longhope Baptist Church (Zion),
A4136,
Longhope, 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 in 1846, and we understand it is still open.

This building is listed in Places recorded by the Registrar General under the provisions of the Places of Worship Registration Act 1855 (2010) as "Zion Baptist Church". However the sign on the church itself is simply "Longhope Baptist Church".

The Baptist Handbook for 1896 (available from The eBook and Texts Archive) (p.217) records Longhope, Zion Baptist Church as dating from 1846, with seating for 220. At the time of their survey it had 35 members, 10 Sunday-school teachers, 140 scholars, and 2 local preachers.

The return to the Religious Census of 1851 (HO 129/334/2/7/14), five years after its foundation, names it as "Zion Baptist Chapel", erected in 1846, for a congregation of "Baptists". The return also records that it was a separate building "with burial ground", and that "the day and Sabbath Schools are kept in the Chapel". There were 130 sittings, all free, and the estimated attendance on March 30th was 71 at morning service, 84 in the afternoon and 102 in the evening, with 52 Sunday Scholars in the morning and 49 in the afternoon. The statement of average attendance indicates this was less than usual. This seems to have happened a lot in other parts of the country too, where it was frequently attributed to the "inclemency" of the weather! The return was completed by Henry Clement Davies, who styled himself "Baptist Minister", giving his address as Zion Cottage, Longhope, Gloucestershire. His parting remark was that "we are much inconvenienced from being compelled to teach the Sunday and day Schools in the Chapel for want of a proper School Room".

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 Church is located at OS grid reference SO6963318422. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Longhope Baptist Church (Zion), Longhope shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Longhope 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 Longhope, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• The “Wayback Machine” Internet Archive of The eBook and Texts Archive (null) (verified 2018-11-07)
• Places recorded by the Registrar General under the provisions of the Places of Worship Registration Act 1855 (2010) is available as a "Freedom of Information" document on the website What Do They Know. (verified 2018-10-14)

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.