For many years the absence of a Catholic church in the neighbourhood of Avonmouth Docks (opened 1887) meant that worshippers were faced with a long walk to the church of St Ursula's Convent in Westbury on Trym to attend mass. A mass centre was established at Shamrock Villa in the village of Shirehampton in 1901 and a site for a church was purchased a year later nearby on the corner of Pembroke Avenue and Station Road. By 1903 a church seating 65 people was opened, which is the present rather lengthy chancel. The architect was Edward Doran Webb, from Salisbury, who also designed the Birmingham Oratory. A small turret was planned at the south west corner but it seems that this was never built, or it was removed when the church was enlarged.
By the mid 1920s the church was proving too small with the congregation overflowing outside. Plans were drawn up by different architects. Unsuccessful was a design by John Bevan which would have reversed the church and provided a wide new chancel. The successful plan was that of Sir Frank Wills and is reproduced below. In 1928 construction of the nave was begun but funds ran out after five bays were built and a temporary wall and a wooden porch were erected at the west end in 1929. There were to have been a further three bays, the west bay over the entrance vestibule with organ gallery, an outer baptistry at the SW angle, and an outer porch at the NW angle, as well as low bays to the west end for two confessionals.
Bristol continued to extend into the surrounding countryside after the second world war and new churches were provided at Avonmouth (St Brendan) and Lawrence Weston (Our Lady of the Rosary) out of the parish of St Bernard. The final three bays of the nave and Wills's baptistry were never built and in 1973 a new permanent porch was provided at the west end. Sadly no window was opened in the "temporary" wall and gable above. Because of the new buildings in the parish, the debts of St Bernard were not finally cleared until 1982, and as is the custom of the Catholic church this meant at last the church could be consecrated, and this took place on 24th June 1982.
At the given coordinates, look for the times of mass on holidays = A0am and BCDpm
Work out the following for the cache:
N51º 29.ABD
W002º 40.(B-A)(Cx2)A
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