Dursley Tabernacle
Dursley Tabernacle
The Tabernacle on Parsonage Street, Dursley, is a Grade II United Reformed church whose congregation traces its origin to George Whitefield’s preaching in the 1740s.
- Location
- Dursley, Gloucestershire
- Country
- England
- County
- Gloucestershire
- City / town
- Dursley
- Address
- Parsonage Street, Dursley, Gloucestershire, GL11 4BW
- Postcode
- GL11 4BW
- Built
- 1808; interior 1872
- Architect
- T. Thomas of Swansea (1872 interior)
- Denomination
- United Reformed Church
- Grade
- II
- Style
- Gothic Revival chapel
- Materials
- Coursed rubble limestone, ashlar dressings, Welsh slate roof
- Grid reference
- ST 754 982
- Opening hours
- Family Cafe is open from 10am to 1pm on Wednesdays in term time. To visit at other times please contact us.
- Access
- Accessible toilets nearby. Level access to the main areas
Overview
Calvinistic Methodist meetings after Whitefield’s visits led to a first Tabernacle of about 1760. The present building, dated 1808 in its pediment and opened in 1809, stands on a rise at the west end of the town centre. It is of coursed rubble limestone with ashlar dressings and a Welsh slate roof, pointed Y-tracery windows, and a lean-to south-east lobby. T. Thomas of Swansea enlarged the interior in 1872: a three-sided gallery on cast-iron columns, Gothic Revival pulpit, and box pews. Memorials include late eighteenth-century tablets. The society founded an early Sunday school under the mill-owner William King. The church remains in use as Dursley Tabernacle URC.