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St Thomas's Church,
St Thomas Street / Thomas Lane, BS1 6JG,
Bristol, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

This Church 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 the 15th century, but we understand it was closed before 1956.

"St Thomas's Church (Thomas-street) is a very ancient building. The living is a vicarage in the patronage of the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, value about £120 per annum." [Extract from Webster & Co.'s Postal and Commercial Directory of the City of Bristol, and County of Glamorgan, 1865]

St Thomas's Church is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust (CCT), and though now closed for worship is open daily to visitors (weekends excluded). It retains a 15th century tower, but the remainder of the church is a late 18th century replacement for a medieval building which had become unsafe. The CCT website says it was designed in 1789 by local architect and carver James Allen, and has "one of the best interiors in Bristol".

There are parish records covering the periods 1552-1979 (baptisms), 1558-1976 (marriages), and 1553-1854 (burials). The Bristol Town Plan of 1884 shows a medium sized graveyard on the north side of the Church, but there may have been additional allocation elsewhere, as information on Local Burials on the Bristol & Avon Family History Society website records "St Thomas's Chancel, Churchyard and new Burial Ground" as one of the locations to be closed by 1854 under the Burial Act of the previous year.

Ironically, it was to be almost exactly one hundred years later that the Church itself was forced to close. The Church Commissioners Report on Pastoral and Closed Churches, on the Church of England website records that by 2nd March 1956 it was in "civic, cultural or community" use.

Denomination

Now or formerly Church of England.

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 was located at OS grid reference ST5912172773. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• St Thomas's Church, Bristol shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Bristol 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 Bristol, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• Preserving “irreplaceable examples of architecture, archaeology and art from 1,000 years of history” - Churches Conservation Trust (null) (verified 2018-10-07)
• Parish Histories, Burial data, &c. on the Bristol & Avon Family History Society (null) (verified 2018-11-04)
• The Church Commissioners Report on Pastoral and Closed Churches, found on the Church of England (null) (verified 2018-10-04)

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.