Blakeney Tabernacle - history (General)

by slowhands , proud of his ancient Dean Forest roots, Sunday, July 06, 2008, 11:38 (5993 days ago) @ bill15hewitt

A group associated with William Bishop, minister of the Independent meeting at Gloucester, registered a house at Blakeney in 1795. A prominent member was Richard Stiff, (fn. 70) who had come to the village in 1783 and was active in preaching to nonconformists there and in the adjoining part of the extraparochial Forest until his death in 1816. (fn. 71) In 1823 a small chapel called Blakeney Tabernacle was built by the Revd. Isaac Bridgman just inside the parish boundary at Brain's Green beside the road to Ayleford. Bridgman was a former curate at Holy Trinity church, Harrow Hill, in the Forest, who had found difficulty in confining his views to established church doctrine. (fn. 72) Anglican liturgy was at first used for the services, but in 1825 the congregation joined the Independents. Bridgman, who remained minister until c. 1828, (fn. 73) also registered a house in Etloe in 1827. (fn. 74) In 1849 the congregation left the Brain's Green chapel for a new one, also called the Tabernacle, built in Blakeney village on the Ayleford road. (fn. 75) In 1851 the new chapel, then styled Independent but later Congregational, had average congregations of 265 in the morning and 205 in the evening. (fn. 76) In 1972, when it became part of the new United Reformed Church, the church at Blakeney had 20 members and two lay preachers under a settled minister who also served chapels in nearby parishes. (fn. 77) The chapel closed in 1988. (fn. 78)

From: 'Awre', A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 5: Bledisloe Hundred, St. Briavels Hundred, The Forest of Dean (1996), pp. 14-46. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=23250. Date accessed: 06 July 2008.

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Ἀριστοτέλης A Gloster Boy in the Forest of Dean ><((((*>