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The Grove Meeting House
Zion Baptist Chapel
Conigre Hill, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
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The Grove Meeting House, now Zion Baptist Chapel, on the corner of Conigre Hill and Middle Rank. It was founded in about 1698 in The Grove -land on the hillside on the northern side of the town that was then being laid out as a housing development by Anthony Methuen. He gave the land for founding a Presbyterian meeting house to Francis Yerbury senior, Francis Yerbury junior and Thomas Bush. It succeeded the “barne of Francis Yerbury maulster att Little Ashley in the parish of Bradford” that was licensed as a Presbyterian meeting house in July 1689, with Ben Flower of Chippenham as the first Minister. This was probably, part at least, of Old Chapel House which still exists at Little Ashley. In 1692 “A barn called Kelsons Barn in the possession of Francis Yerbury” and “The dwellinghouse of Francis Yerbury” received certificates, with Benjamin Flower still as Minister. In 1695 the dwellinghouses of Thomas Bush and Thomas Powell in Bradford were licensed.
The main façade, to the south, is faced with ashlar stone and has windows with a crossed mullion and transom, except the two in the centre of the upper line, which are round-headed. Two doorways with bolection mouldings have been blocked and the entrance is now from Conigre Hill on the eastern side.
By 1739 most of the congregation had become Unitarian and the Presbyterian minister Dr Josiah Read and his followers seceded and went across the river to found Morgan’s Hill Independent Chapel, St Margaret’s Hill.
Inevitably by the end of the 18th century (and again now) the congregation dwindled, despite further endowment from some of the most prominent men of the town in the 1790s.
Meanwhile, the congregation of the Independent Chapel split again and a number moved back to the Grove and then went on to build their own new Zion Baptist Chapel on the opposite side of Conigre Hill in 1823. In 1873 the Zion Baptists took over the Grove and initially used it as their Sunday School before moving there entirely. The Conigre chapel became derelict and was demolished in 1959.
The Zion Baptist Chapel, Conigre Hill, the square building on the right with pyramid roof.
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Old Chapel House, Little Ashley. The name may preserve a memory of a barn at Little Ashley belonging to Francis Yerbury that was registered as a Presbyterian Meeting House in 1689.
A wooden board that is still in the building lists the early Ministers of the Grove chapel. Roger Flexman (1708-1795) married Katherine, daughter of Bradford clothier John Yerbury in 1747. He went on to a career in London (see his Wikipedia entry)
William Dangerfield, the earliest-known Minister, built himself a big house on Newtown which later became the Masons’ Arms public house
In the 1780s The Grove was endowed with two houses in Newtown
A Britannia Metal pewter chalice, inscribed “Zion Chapel Bradford”, made by James Dixon & Son in Sheffield in the 1820s would have been part of the original furnishings of the chapel
A silver-plated coffee pot “presented to Rev David H.H. Wassell from members of his choir at Zion Chapel, Conigre Hill, Bradford in July 1893”. This was David Havelock Head Wassell whose father, also David (1808-1873) was the Minister of Manvers Street Baptist Chapel in Bath for 34 years. The coffee pot was found in an antique shop in Hayling Island, Hampshire and given to the Museum.
The site of the Conigre Hill Chapel is now a carpark for residents of the hillside. A few traces of the chapel survive- some walling and the railings in front.