Broadmead Baptist Church Explained

Denomination:Baptist
Pushpin Map:Bristol
Pushpin Mapsize:200
Map Caption:shown within Bristol
Coordinates:51.4574°N -2.5914°W
Country:United Kingdom
Location:Bristol
Website:broadmeadbaptist.org.uk
Completed Date:1969
Architect:Ronald Hubert Sims

Broadmead Baptist Church is a Baptist church in the Broadmead area of Bristol, England.

The church was the first dissenting church in Bristol, founded by Dorothy Hazard and four other dissenters in 1640.[1] In its early years the church was persecuted and met in various locations around Bristol, but in 1671 the members of the church secured four rooms at the end of Broadmead, which were quickly converted into one large room for use as a chapel.[2] Records of the Bristol Quakers suggest that these 4 rooms may have been their meeting house between 1656 and 1670 when they moved to a new meeting house at Blackfriars. If so George Fox and Margaret Fell, key founders of Quakerism, were likely married in one of the four rooms in 1669.[3] The chapel continued in use until the 1960s. When the Broadmead area was redeveloped the church sold the ground lease for shops and built a new church above. The new church was designed by the architect Ronald Hubert Sims and opened in 1969.[4] It features many brutalist elements,[5] with the widespread use of raw concrete alongside timber panelling. When first opened, it featured a laminated timber spire that was removed due to being unsafe.

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: A brief history of the church. Broadmead Baptist Church. 12 July 2019.
  2. Book: J. G. Fuller. The Rise and Progress of Dissent in Bristol; Chiefly in Relation to the Broadmead Church, Etc. 1840. Hamilton, Adams and Company. 49.
  3. Book: Butler, David . The Quaker Meeting Houses of Britain . 1999. Friends Historical Society. Friends House London . 0-900469-44-7 . 516.
  4. Web site: Broadmead Baptist Chapel. Looking at Buildings. 12 July 2019.
  5. Web site: Broadmead Baptist Church, Bristol - Inside A Brutalist Gem. 2020-04-19. The Spoonster Spouts. en-US. 2020-04-25.