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Bond Street Baptist Chapel/Meeting House

Margie Edmonds

proper brummie kid
Hi, I am trying to research my Edmonds ancestors who were buried in the Bond Street Meeting House churchyard. I have looked up Google Street maps and can see a fenced area of greenery on the corner of Constitution Hill and Bond Street. I was wondering if anybody could tell me if this is the old churchyard, and whether the graves are still there under all that greenery? Or, were they moved? Street view shows the red brick remnants of the old meeting house next to a factory in Bond Street.

Any information about this site during it's time as a Baptist church would be appreciated.

Thank you,
Margie Edmonds.
Melbourne, Australia.
https://www.google.com/maps/search/...hire/@52.4875498,-1.9034878,65m/data=!3m1!1e3
 

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I can't answer your question about the Church but I do know that the Cedar Club was on that plot of land on the corner, it was demolished years ago but the plot has never been redeveloped.
City Snow Hill The Cedar Club Constitution Hill.jpg
 
Ah, ok. If it was there then the Cedar Club would have been built over it. That building looks pretty old though. I guess my hopes that there were headstones somewhere are now put to rest. Thanks for your reply!
 
You can see from the c1889 map that the chapel seems to have occupied the part of that greenery furthest away from constiution hill. Then there seems to be very little churchyard, but the c1824 map shows what must be the churchyard to the left of the building. This seems to have been partly built over by the late 1880s

map c 1824 bond st.jpgmap c1889 bond st.jpg
 
In 1861 the main man at the Baptist Chapel was leaving for America. It was said that his work had revived the ancient church. In 1879 it was still referred to as Baptist Chapel but by 1890 was referred to as the United Methodist Free Church,
probably a split in the Religion. The chapel was listed in the 1897 Kelly but then seems to disappear.
 
You can see from the c1889 map that the chapel seems to have occupied the part of that greenery furthest away from constiution hill. Then there seems to be very little churchyard, but the c1824 map shows what must be the churchyard to the left of the building. This seems to have been partly built over by the late 1880s

View attachment 147165View attachment 147166

All very interesting, I had no idea there had been a chapel in that block.
 
In October 1924 the Birmingham Gazette has an article New Churches for old, and describes the many old churches that are now used for alternative means.

"Bond Street Chapel... have been abandoned and turned into factories."
 
isnt it amazing...you can research certain areas for years and yet still find new things about it....had no idea that there was a chapel in bond st...such a shame that the old building that housed the cedar club was demolished made even sadder by the fact that the land has just been left for years :( i agree with you margie those old red bricks could very well be the remnants of the old chapel...soon as i can i will get down there to try and take a better look at bond st...update think its pretty cerntain now that those old red bricks on the edge of the green land do belong to the old chapel...margie if you click on the link below it will take you to the scottish maps site where you can clearly see the chapel marked out in bond st...just slide the blue dot along to the left and the map will fade out to reveal what is now on the site of the chapel but i still want to take a closer look next week...hope this helps....lyn


 
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According to British History Online the Chapel existed in 1961. In its latter years it was used as a factory by Proctor Avery & Wood. Their address was Chapel Works, Bond Street, Birmingham 19 and they were dealers in brass and metal goods. Viv.

A98AAFE5-96D2-4073-A937-E0071F795716.jpeg
 
I suspect this might be part of the Chapel wall - you can see tiered red brick, adjoining Larkshill Engineering. Viv.
 

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thanks for all that info viv and yes we had already decided that the red brick wall was the remnants of the chapel....i will get down there asap to take a closer look..oh i noticed that the info says nothing about a burial ground being there

margie do you have proof that your edmunds ancestors were buried in bond st?? and was edmund edmunds mentioned in vivs post 10 one of your ancestors or is this just a coinsidence?

lyn
 
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viv just added to my post 12...trying to find out if there was a burial ground attached...will await margies reply but looking at the maps i cant see one

lyn
 
Not sure I’ve got this right, but isn’t the churchyard the large area directly behind the church on Mike’s first map #5 ? Is that what Mike means ? Looks like it’s marked with a regular layout of tombstones. That would put it under the brassworks complex marked on the second map. Viv.
 
Ok thanks Mike. Thought they looked like tombstones with curved tops !! Viv.

Yes, I wondered that too!

Well done for finding the information about the Chapel. Do chapels usually have a burial ground? I can't think I've ever seen one, at least not in a city area. If there had been graves on that plot, might they have been moved to Key Hill?
 
viv i dont think they are tombstones i think its just the way the fields were denoted ..if you look at this old map of st georges in the fields which also shows the bond st chapel it also shows many fields with the same tombstone shapes...dont think they can all be graveyards..edit sorry mike did not see you post but i may as well leave this map on anyway

st george in the fields1824.jpg
 
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