St Philip and St Jacob, Bristol

The Church of St Philip and St Jacob, affectionately known across Bristol as "Pip 'n' Jay", is a historic parish church in the centre of the city, near the Old Market. With origins reaching back more than a thousand years, it claims to be the oldest place of Christian worship in Bristol, and was long known as the "mother church of East Bristol". A Grade II* listed building, it has survived threats of demolition and closure across the centuries, and today, under the name of Central Church, it is one of the leading evangelical churches in the city.

The church is said to have begun as a small priory around the year 900, and it was rebuilt in the twelfth century by Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester, the powerful Norman lord who also founded the nearby priory of St James. All that survives of that early church is the font, but parts of the chancel and tower date from at least the thirteenth century, and the church was extended through the Middle Ages to create the present nave. The tower holds a fine ring of eight bells cast in 1738 by William Bilbie, of the celebrated Bilbie family of bell-founders, and the church was substantially rebuilt and restored in the Victorian period. A modern extension, with meeting rooms and other facilities, was added in the 1980s.

The church's long history has not been without danger. During the English Civil War, the demolition of St Philip and St Jacob was ordered — along with that of nearby St Peter's — to prevent the buildings being used as a fortress in an attack on the city, and the church was saved only because reinforcements arrived in time. The church once contained the upper half of a magnificent late-medieval knightly effigy of about 1470, the fragment of what had been one of the largest monumental effigies in England; long identified by local tradition, somewhat fancifully, as a son of William the Conqueror, it was sadly lost after the 1980s.

A second great threat came in the early 1960s, when the church was again faced with closure. It was saved by the determination of its then small congregation, who adopted the motto "Seek First", from the Gospel of Matthew, and the cheerful nickname "Pip 'n' Jay" by which the church has been known ever since. From 1963 the church grew into one of the leading evangelical churches in Bristol, and in the 1970s it was at the forefront of the Charismatic renewal in the Church of England. For thirty-five years, from 1974 to 2009, it was led by the much-loved Reverend Canon Malcolm Widdecombe, the brother of the politician Ann Widdecombe. The church supports many missionaries, and in 2018 it adopted the name Central Church.

As one of the original parishes of Bristol, St Philip and St Jacob once covered a vast area of the east of the city — including the Old Market, Barton Hill, Lawrence Hill and St Philip's Marsh — and the great growth of population in the nineteenth century led to the building of ten new churches within its bounds, most of them now closed. The parish opened Greenbank Cemetery in 1871 as a burial place for the whole district.

The church stands on Tower Hill, near the Old Market in the centre of Bristol. The historic Old Market quarter, the church of St James' Priory, Cabot Circus and Broadmead shopping districts, Castle Park and the floating harbour, Bristol Cathedral and the wider attractions of the city are all within easy reach.

From its origins as an early priory around 900 and its rebuilding by Robert, Earl of Gloucester, through its medieval growth, its narrow escapes from demolition and closure, to its revival as "Pip 'n' Jay" and its life today as a thriving evangelical church, St Philip and St Jacob gathers more than a thousand years of Bristol's history into one building. A Grade II* listed church claiming to be the oldest place of worship in the city, it remains a vibrant and welcoming centre of Christian life in the heart of Bristol.