Operated by East Boldre Community Stores Limited, a voluntary organisation.
Owned by it members, predominantly local people.
Community Benefit Society, number 8481
The Chapel's Surviving Records
To collate the history of East Boldre's former Baptist Chapel for the book and permanent exhibition to be held at Chapel Stores, a variety of sources were used including those held at the Hampshire Records Office in Winchester.
To make these more accessible for our research and for local people and other historians, these records have been transcribed into electronic form so they are easily searchable by keywords and names. They are included online here so that others may benefit from this output from the Chapel Story project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
While we have also transcribed the more recent records for our research we have not shared these online where they refer to living people.
A key challenge in transcribing the records was deciphering the often faded cursive handwriting. Wherever possible, the spelling of names was cross-checked against other sources. In many cases, different spellings of the names were found largely due to the limited literacy in the area at the time.
No doubt a few transcription errors may remain, for those we apologise but we will not be held liable for any errors should you choose to make use of these documents.
The documents are shared under a 'creative commons' licence, CC BY 4.0. The authors, named in each document, should be credited where these documents are used or reproduced in any form.
Beaulieu Rails Baptist Church, Burial Register 1837 - 1894
The East Boldre (formerly called Beaulieu Rails) Baptist church Burial Register 1837 - 1894. Gravestones on site and other documents indicate that burials took place on site both before and after this period from as early as 1822 and continuing until 1915.
As part of the Chapel Story project research family trees were created on Ancestry UK for over half of the people buried in East Boldre's chapel graveyard.
Transcribed from the original record held at Hampsire Records Office, 100A22/A1
Beaulieu Rails Church Minutes 1817 - 1859
The minutes for the Beaulieu Rails Baptist Church established in Chapel Lane, East Boldre (the 'first church'). They include a short history of the founding of the Baptist church.
Transcribed from the original record held at Hampshire Records Office, 100A22/B1/1 part 1
Beaulieu Rails Church Book 1833 - 1846 (2nd church)
The minutes for the small second church (established in Factory (Masseys) Lane which split from the first church on Christmas Day, 1833). This chapel was built by Charles Kearley, owner of Hatchett Mill, on adjacent land he owned. The minister was his son-in-law John Bartlett Burt. It reunited with the first church in 1946.
Transcribed from the original record held at Hampshire Records Office, 100A22/B1/1 part 2
A Light in the Forest - A History of East Boldre's Baptist Church by Eric Smith
COMING SOON....