St Mary le Port is a ruined parish church in the centre of Bristol, England, situated in Castle Park on what remains of Mary le Port Street. Archaeological excavations have unearthed Saxon foundations and pottery nearby, suggesting the church was founded in Saxon times. The church was rebuilt and enlarged between the 11th and 16th centuries.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the church was a very popular centre of evangelical, Protestant, and Calvinist teaching within Anglicanism. However, on 24 November 1940, the church was bombed during the Bristol Blitz. John Piper painted an evocative picture of the bombed church, which appeared on a 1/6d British commemorative stamp issued in 1968.
Today, all that remains of the church is the 15th-century tower, a Grade II listed building and scheduled monument. It is surrounded by the modernist buildings of Norwich Union and the Bank of England, which by the 2020s were empty and semi-derelict, with further redevelopment proposed.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
Written by Nicolo Ciampini
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