IN PLAIN SIGHT
» IN keeping with the religious nonconformism elsewhere on these pages … Methodists don’t have cathedrals, but when the Methodist Central Hall opened on Old Market Street in April 1924, it was compared to one.
And small wonder. It could accommodate over 2000 people under its roof, which included an ornate dome with decorative roundels. There was a huge organ, too. But it was never conceived as a church in the traditional sense. It was a mission hall.
Sir William Howell Davies, former local Liberal MP, businessman, Wesleyan Methodist and anti-drink campaigner, made this very clear in his speech at the grand opening. The new £50,000 building was not, he said, for the glorification of the church, but because “an open door was required in Old Market Street for the people wandering aimlessly in our streets.”
It was to provide a “free and unconventional service” to the masses. Sir William added that he was concerned about the amount of alcohol consumed in Bristol, and noted that the country’s annual drink bill would pay off the interest on the national debt.
The formal opening was performed not, as some accounts have it, by the Princess Royal (the royal family are no Methodists!) but by the Hon. Mrs Arthur Rank. That is, the wife of J. Arthur Rank, the movie and cinema magnate who was himself a devout Methodist. J. Arthur had put up £25,000 towards the cost. The rest was raised locally, some of it by children going door to door selling paper “bricks” from perforated sheets.
The Hall occupied the site of a former Methodist chapel and for decades to come would play
a prominent role in the life of the community, hosting regular, often informal, services as well as public meetings and concerts. Brass band performances on Sunday evenings were very popular.
This being a Methodist establishment, it occasionally attracted controversy because of its leftward leanings. During the General Strike of 1926 trade unionists were allowed to hold meetings here, and during the Jarrow “Hunger March” to London, a contingent of Welsh miners stayed here overnight and were provided with food. The minister then walked several miles with them in solidarity.
By the 1980s it was becoming too expensive to heat and maintain and it was sold. There was talk of it becoming home to a circus school, but nothing came of it and it was converted into flats. All that remains is the façade which impressed all of Bristol one hundred years ago.