IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Elmleigh Road, BRISTOL, BS16 9EX

An inevitable regard. This is inside the old building on the disused burial ground.

This building is the entrance to the former Dame School - a place of formal education established in the late 1700s, primarily by a Revd, Caleb Evans - a President of the Baptist Academy and Pastor of the Congregation of Protestant Dissenters in Broadmead. The Dame School (also known as also known as the National, Church School House or Charity School) was set up on land that was formerly the gardens of the first Mangotsfield Workhouse in 1770. The school taught local pupils the rudiments and religious teachings until 1872, whereupon the restricted size became a serious problem - serious enough to cause desire for a newer and bigger school to be built. However, this site seems to have simply been left and now appears more like a public place. However, the building attracted some undesireable attention so is now barred.

This small plot of land on St James Street is a former graveyard. It was established as a new ground for the nearby St James church and opened in around 1802 on what used to be the gardens of the old Mangotsfield Workhouse, but was disused by the later nineteenth century and as now largely unrecogniseable. Only a few headstones remain to mark it as a place of rest. Oddly, it has not been reused or built on for well over a century.

The old burial ground has not seen a new resident for well over a century. A few stones line the wall but there is otherwise little to suggest its purpose. It has more the feel of a small public park. There is no church in the immediate vicinity, although the ancient St James is just a short distance up the road.

The old Dame School building is now blocked with some unusually ornate bars. The space inside is all but empty and open to the elements; a picnic table suggests this may be used as storage.

This modern development of apartments stands on what was the old Mangotsfield Church of England school. That was itself derived from earlier attempts to school local children in what, was at the time, a rural location. There were several attempts to organise education, with some church schools and Dame schools founded, including use of the former workhouse gardens. But the real thrust occurred with the opening of Mangotsfield Church of England School on January 10th, 1876. By 1899 a Mission Room was added; the school served as an air raid centre in WWII, and later found use by the Scouts. However, the school was closed in 1999 and the pupils sent elsewhere. It was left to rack and ruin, later for a developer to build these houses in 2018. To mark the site of the old school, a sculpture was commissioned - see Image

The Red Lion in Mangotsfield has taken up the challenge of arousing national support in the (delayed) Euro football championships. At this point in time, England had finished top of the group and were headed for a showdown with Germany at Wembley in the first knock-out round.

An unusual sort of statue: two children reading a book. This monument was created by a former local artist, Tom Whitehead, and cost £15,000; it marks an old entrance to the former Mangotsfield Church of England School that stood along this road from 1876 until 1999. The site remained derelict until deomlition in 2018, whereupon Cotswold Homes built a large housing block on it, and as part of the works paid for this memorial.

Mangotsfield United Reformed Church is situated on Cossham Street. It was originally a congregational Chapel built in 1827. It was enlarged in 1858. (Dates on the upper plaque).

One of the drain grotesques has had its old sheeting replaced by some awkward looking modern pipe.