Stapleton
The name is from the Old English word "stapol" meaning post and "ton" meaning settlement. The antiquary John Weever, quoting the 16th-century Tuscan merchant Lodovico Guicciardini, defined a staple town "to be a place, to which by the prince's authority and privilege wool, hides of beasts, wine, corn or grain, and other exotic or foreign merchandize are transferred, carried or conveyed to be sold".In European historiography, the term "staple" refers to the entire medieval system of trade and its taxation. Under this system, the government or the ruler required that all overseas trade in certain goods be transacted at specific designated market "staple towns" or ports, referred to as the "staple ports".
The ancient parish of Stapleton covered Fishponds and Eastville and was originally within Kingswood Forest. The Saxon hamlet of Stapleton, first documented in 1208, stood at the edge of the forest, just north of the River Frome. Finds of Roman coins point to even earlier habitation. Even in the 18th century, it was still heavily wooded.
The hamlet was donated to Tewkesbury Abbey in 1174 by William, Earl of Gloucester. By the late 16th century, it was the property of the Berkeley family of Stoke Gifford, and was passed down to the Duke of Beaufort who retained the estate until the early 20th century, selling it in 1917.
Stapleton was enclosed in 1781, Stapleton Common being sold as 9 lots, mostly to the Duke of Beaufort. Stapleton, then in Gloucestershire, became a civil parish in 1866, but in 1898 the parish was abolished and absorbed into Bristol.
Mining
Coal was mined in the area, there being some 70 pits by 1700, and vast numbers of local men were employed throughout the 18th century. In the 1890s, the mines produced a thousand tons per day.
Stapleton church
This Place of Worship was founded in 1833,
Stapleton Baptist Church is described on Phil Draper's ChurchCrawler website as "a small simple rural chapel built in 1835", and "small, but elegant". It seems to me that small is deceptive, as it is built on a hillside, and the builder has exploited the lie of the land to provide a basement. The basement walls are of stone, and the ground floor walls a mix of blockwork, painted white, and pebble-dash, with 3 round-arched windows in the longer side (parallel to the road), and an entrance porch in the shorter side, facing uphill. Above the porch is a pediment, supported by embedded pilasters, with a plaque, which unfortunately, is no longer readable. Phil also mentions a stable block, and "a pleasant interior with simple pews and organ/pulpit arrangement".
The return to the Religious Census of 1851 (HO 129/330/6/2/10) for the "Baptist Chapple" describes a building erected in 1833, with seating for 200, all free. The estimated congregation on March 30th was 80 worshippers, to both a morning, and evening service. The return was completed by Enos Sparks, its Deacon, who gave his address as "Stapleton, Gloucestershire".
Some 150 years later, the Church remains in good repair, and now belongs to the West of England Baptist Association. It no-longer has pews but individual comfortable seats, it doesn't have an organ either but and electric piano. the congregation that meets on A Sunday morning now ranges from 20 to 40. it's a diverse congregation that includes multiple nationalities.