St Agnes Church, Bristol

The origins of the church date to 1869, when John Percival, the headmaster of Clifton College, resolved to use the school's chapel offertories for a mission in a deprived area of Bristol. After initially supporting a ragged school, the College Mission Committee refocused its efforts in 1875 on the large and "neglected" parish of St Barnabas. The district the church now exists in, once known as Newfoundland Gardens, was then described as an area of garden plots inhabited by squatters that had become a "convenient no man's land" for the "roughest class of the population". The mission was officially established in 1876 under its first curate, the Rev. H. D. Rawnsley, in a rented carpenter's…

.]]The architect was W. Wood Bethell of Westminster. The interior is described by the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner as "unmistakably eclectic", distinguished by a very high nave and bold arcades of square section with small chamfers. The nave piers are tall and cylindrical, contrasting with their square capitals which are richly carved with figures. The capitals on the south aisle represent the Old and New Testament, with carvings representing the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and evangelists. The capitals on the north aisle depict different periods of English ecclesiastical history, beginning with the first English martyr, St Alban, and including modern figures such as John…