Catalogue description Lewin's Mead Unitarian Meeting

Registers

Minutes and administrative records

Financial records

Church Fabric

Societies

Schools

Burial Ground

Charities

Deeds

Maps and Plans

Printed Material

Photographs

Miscellaneous

See also: Acc. 6687(1-4) for records of Meeting from 1692, and details of records held at Dr. Williams' Library.

Acc. 39740 for records of Lewin's Mead United Schools.

Lewin's Mead Unitarian Meeting, Bristol

THESE RECORDS ARE IMMEDIATELY AVAILABLE FOR RESEARCH

Deposited by the minister, and by the trustees of Lewin's Mead Burial Ground 1980-86

"Some account of the rise and progress of the ancient society of protestant dissenters worshipping in Lewin's Mead, Bristol", compiled by Christopher James Thomas, Bristol, 1891 (Pamphlets 146)

"Side lights on the history of Presbyterian-Unitarianism from the records of Lewin's Mead Chapel, Bristol" by Dr. O.M. Griffiths, published in Vol. VI No. 2 of Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society, October 1936. (Pamphlets 160).

The typescript of this article is among the series of non-printed material in B.R.O. library, No. A3.

"The Unitarian Meeting 1691-1774" by Ruby J. Saywell, in Notes on Bristol History No. 8. 1968

• Bristol

Lewin's Mead Meeting was established as a Presbyterian society in the early 1690's, with Mr. John Weekes as the first minister. Early meetings were held in the room of a private house, but by 1706, the date of the earliest deed of the Lewin's Mead premises (39461/D/1), a meeting house and Young Men's meeting room were in existence, plans for raising money for this purpose having been formulated as early as 1693. The Old Meeting House was demolished in 1787, and the present building erected the following year.

The Meeting remained Presbyterian until the late eighteenth century, but by the beginning of the nineteenth century had changed to Unitarianism, the first reference to this change being dated 1816.

In 1722 the Stokes Croft School was established by Lewin's Mead Society, for the education of 30 boys together with an Almshouse for twelve people.

The Burial Ground in Brunswick Square was purchased by the Society in 1768. The last burial took place here in 1963, and in the early 1980's the Burial Ground was landscaped, and the headstones removed by the City Planning Department to provide a public open space.

Lewin's Mead Meeting House was closed in 1986. Some articles on its history are as follows:

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