Pro-Cathedral of the Holy Apostles

By Catholic emancipation, and the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, the Roman Catholics in Bristol used places of worship in private houses or above a Public house. They had used a third party to discretely buy a plot, known as Stoney Fields, on Honeypen Hill (now Park Place, Clifton).

Under Bishop Peter Augustine Baines, Vicar-Apostolic of the Western District, in 1834, work commenced on the building. The parish priest of the Trenchard Street Chapel, Fr. Edgeworth laid the foundation stone. The Georgian Palladian design was by Henry E. Goodridge, a Bath architect employed by Bishop Baines at Prior Park. A nave, on an imposing basement storey in Bath stone ashlar was to be surrounded by Corinthian three-quarter Columns, with further Corinthian columns on the Transepts. No drawings survive of the planned sanctuary end or interior, but a circular lantern tower surrounded by Corinthian columns was to light the sanctuary from above and the main entrance was through a…