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Bond Street Baptist Chapel/Meeting House

viv this info is from one of your earlier posts..if it is correct burials possibly ended at bond st in 1837 which is strange as that is when parish records ended i believe...


Don’t know how reliable this info is but found this on Midland Ancestors site which (I think) seems to suggest there were burials at Bond Street Chapel from 1784 until at least 1837. So we can be sure the burial ground was still in use until 1837. This just lists known records of course and might not mean it’s all the records.
 
Lyn,

The first Birmingham Cemetery, Key Hill, opened in 1836, more or as burials for Bond Street were coming to an end. Is it possible that they were buried at Park Street I wonder, although this was opened as an extension to St Martin's in 1810. I don't know of any other possibilities.

However, many at Park Street had to wait until the HS2 excavations to be discovered - perhaps they are still at Bond Street. Someone at Birmingham Archives must know, surely?

Maurice :cool:
 
Been doing a lot of ‘wondering’ about this and the earlier connection with Cannon St Chapel. If I understand this correctly, the Bond Street Chapel was, I think, a breakaway group from Cannon Street Chapel, under the leadership of Edw Edmonds. Now if Cannon Street already had it’s own burial ground, did Bond Street just continue to use it ? After all they were still Baptists.

(An aside. Might be way off here, but where then was Cannon Streets burial ground ?)

Another unanswered question I have is, I notice when Bond Street burials started in 1794 (until1837) there are no records for Cannon Street burials after 1794 (burials from 1786-1794 only). Coincidence?

Viv.
 
As I understand it Maurice I think they could only be buried at either of those if there was an allocated Dissenters section. Viv.
 
these overhead shots showing the chapel still wont prove if there was a burial ground there but at least we get an idea of what the chapel looked liked...i have scoured everything looking for ground level photos to no avail...these are all dated 1938...thanks to oldmohawk for finding them and emailing them to me..i find the 2nd one very interesting and have a few thoughts about it

bond st above 3 1938.jpgbond st above.jpgbond street above 2.jpg
 
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Helpful photos from Oldmohawk. Thanks Lyn. My thoughts - only ‘thoughts’ ! The chapel roof looks to have been extended at some time. And the school runs along the back of the church - which according to the maps looks to include some of the Chapel extension plus a bit more. (I think you can see a school bell on the wall with its little roof in the first aerial view). Before this work was carried out, could that area underneath have been the burial ground ? Like I say just thoughts. Viv.
 
nothing wrong with thoughts viv...if members throw a few at us sometimes the answers pop up...yes could be a chapel extention or even a roof repair job....good suggestion about the bell..oh and of course we can also see the old cedar club building which is no longer there :)

lyn
 
good photo sparks and as we can see the remains of the old red brick obscured a bit by the blue van (still there today) that was part of the chapel we know it had been demolished by 1980

lyn
 
Pedrocut said:
This may be interesting from 1873, Birmingham Burial grounds mentioned...

View attachment 147283View attachment 147284
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Certainly no mention of Bond Street burial Ground there, so it had already either been long closed, and forgotten, or the Bond Street Chapels burials were in fact in Cannon Street. I read somewhere, (maybe here) that the Cannon Street ground was taken over by the railway, and bodies were re-interred, in Witton, I think.
 
Astoness said:
these overhead shots showing the chapel still wont prove if there was a burial ground there but at least we get an idea of what the chapel looked liked...i have scoured everything looking for ground level photos to no avail...these are all dated 1938...thanks to oldmohawk for finding them and emailing them to me..i find the 2nd one very interesting and have a few thoughts about it

View attachment 147272View attachment 147273View attachment 147274
Click to expand...
These photos are terrific! I notice there seems to be a yard of some sort between the Cedar club and the Meeting House. I wonder if there might have been graves in that area at one point in time?
 
Not Bond Street but possibly of interest in terms if it’s historical connection to Cannon Street Chapel. From newspaper reports I’ve found that Cannon Street Chapel had, until 1865, a considerable piece of land to the rear and fronting onto Little Cannon Street. This was, in the Chapels early history, used as a burial ground for its early congregation. It was built over to provide a lecture room and school accommodation. Viv
 

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Margie Edmonds said:
These photos are terrific! I notice there seems to be a yard of some sort between the Cedar club and the Meeting House. I wonder if there might have been graves in that area at one point in time?
Click to expand...

margie that is exactly what i have been thinking..photo 2 shows a clear yard space...obviously this space would be used by the properties that were on the right that are on constitution hill (now demolished)...if indeed that area was a small burial ground it would have been no problem just to brick over it...my other thoughts are if the authorities know this is a very old burial ground i wonder if this could explain why no further building has been done for many years..if this is the case then the bodies would have to be removed before any further construction on this site could start...

of course this is just my head thinking out loud and i could be way off the mark but there must be some way of finding out for sure...i am not even sure if our central library could help...we need older maps really to see if there is a burial ground marked

lyn

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Vivienne14 said:
Not Bond Street but possibly of interest in terms if it’s historical connection to Cannon Street Chapel. From newspaper reports I’ve found that Cannon Street Chapel had, until 1865, a considerable piece of land to the rear and fronting onto Little Cannon Street. This was, in the Chapels early history, used as a burial ground for its early congregation. It was built over to provide a lecture room and school accommodation. Viv
Click to expand...

This is interesting as it is dated 1865, and refers to the rear of Cannon St, fronting to Little Cannon St, being used as a burial ground. “In the ground lie the ashes of many earlier members of the congregation.”

In post 75 it states that the dead were removed from Cannon St. six years before 1885 and that this included the Rev Samuel Pearce AM. (Who had died in 1799.)

So could it be that the new schoolrooms were built over the ashes of some of the older members of the congregation, while others remained until 1879 ?
 
Margie Edmonds said:
Firstly, just want to thank everybody who responded to my question. This was my first ever post, and I am overwhelmed by how helpful you have all been! It's 2am here now so I will spend some time digesting all of this information tomorrow night.
My ancestor was the Rev. John Edmonds, and the Rev. Edward Edmonds was his brother. Another brother, Thomas, was also a Reverend. They were all part of the Canon St Baptists, but there seems to have been a break-away group at Bond St. I do have records indicating burials at both church yards.
Thank you all again and I will get back on here tomorrow night.
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Margie, when you say the Bond Street Baptists were a break-away group from Cannon Street, I assume you mean more of an expansion of the Birmingham Baptist Movement ? There is a lot of inter-sermoning between the Chapels, and a link to the Baptist pioneer work in India.
 
Astoness said:
margie that is exactly what i have been thinking..photo 2 shows a clear yard space...obviously this space would be used by the properties that were on the right that are on constitution hill (now demolished)...if indeed that area was a small burial ground it would have been no problem just to brick over it...my other thoughts are if the authorities know this is a very old burial ground i wonder if this could explain why no further building has been done for many years..if this is the case then the bodies would have to be removed before any further construction on this site could start...

of course this is just my head thinking out loud and i could be way off the mark but there must be some way of finding out for sure...i am not even sure if our central library could help...we need older maps really to see if there is a burial ground marked

lyn

www.google.com

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
www.google.com www.google.com
Click to expand...

Yes, it's interesting why the plot of land has been left undeveloped for so long isn't it? The area round the Jewellery Quarter is now up and coming again with new flats on the other side of Great Hampton Street - the land must have risen in value quite a bit.
I wonder who it actually belongs to - the Council or some old Birmingham family estate perhaps?
 
I have no experience with Birmingham Council, but with others when I have asked about ownership, I have been politely told that they can't tell me. Can the Land Registry help, I wonder, though they will inevitably charge for a search?

Maurice :cool:
 
sospiri said:
I have no experience with Birmingham Council, but with others when I have asked about ownership, I have been politely told that they can't tell me. Can the Land Registry help, I wonder, though they will inevitably charge for a search?

Maurice :cool:
Click to expand...

Yes, they generally do. I had to ask for some proof my late parents had bought the freehold of their house when we finally came to sell it - it was only a few pounds, I can't quite remember now.
 
Pedrocut said:
Margie, when you say the Bond Street Baptists were a break-away group from Cannon Street, I assume you mean more of an expansion of the Birmingham Baptist Movement ? There is a lot of inter-sermoning between the Chapels, and a link to the Baptist pioneer work in India.
Click to expand...


Pedro. I suggested the break away as some members of the Cannon Street Chapel “seceded’” from the Cannon Street Chapel to build the Bond Street Chapel. This sounds to me like they started to follow a slightly different line of Baptist thinking. Using the word seceded seemed to me more like taking themselves out of the group, rather than spreading the orthodox Baptist word, if you see what I mean.

I also think this might flag up why the Bond Street Chapel came into being in the first place and 2hy it didn’t survive as long as other Birmingham Baptist Chapels. Viv.
 
I see now from post 10 that British History Online also use the word seceded, Margie suggests break-away which would agree with this. In an old book on the history of the Baptists in Birmingham this doesn‘t seem to be mentioned, however there is a close link between Cannon Street, Samuel Pearce, and John Edmonds. I will try to relocated the book as it gives some idea as to what may have been the role of John ? Edmonds in India.
 
Pedrocut said:
I see now from post 10 that British History Online also use the word seceded, Margie suggests break-away which would agree with this. In an old book on the history of the Baptists in Birmingham this doesn‘t seem to be mentioned, however there is a close link between Cannon Street, Samuel Pearce, and John Edmonds. I will try to relocated the book as it gives some idea as to what may have been the role of John ? Edmonds in India.
Click to expand...


Pedro. Although British History Online uses the word seceded I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere else. There must be a basis for using that word, and it’s quite specific. It sounds like a group moved away from the Cannon Street Chapel in 1784 and were meeting in private houses etc. Why would they do that if they had a perfectly good Chapel in Cannon Street ? I can only think that it was no longer serving some of the Cannon Street followers needs and so they broke away to firm the Bond Street congregation.

Moving forward, the Bond Street Chapel seems to have drifted away from orthodox Baptist beliefs in 1859 when they took on the evangelist Churches of Christ tenets.This would have been an American influence. It’s doctrines have biblical foundations and practices going back to early Christian church as expressed in the New Testament.

By 1860 Bond Street Chapel returned to following orthodox Baptist beliefs,


But we could still do with confirmation and more specific info about the circumstances around why Bond Street Chapel was built.

Viv.
 
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