There were several Baptist chapels in Frome, the most prominent of which were: Badcox Lane Baptist Chapel (from 1669, chapel from 1711), Sheppard’s Barton Meeting House (1707), Naish’s Street Baptist Chapel (from 1835) and Lock’s Lane (1855-1882). The Sheppard’s Barton Chapel was established in 1707. It was rebuilt in 1850 and re-opened by the Rev William Jay of the Independent (Congregational) Chapel, Bath (The Patriot of Thu 14 Feb 1850 p7). It was subsequently altered in 1861 (Frome Times of Wed 6 Nov 1861 p4). Burials occurred in the meeting house’s yard and also inside the building. A map shows that arrangement of 42 coffins/plots within the yard.
In 1852 the Baptist meetings were caught up in the contentious proposal by the Rev William Bennett, vicar of the St John the Baptist, Frome that marriages not performed according to the rites of the Church of England were invalid. One couple were even persuaded to marry again in an Anglican church. Signatories to a petition objecting to this included C J Middleton, Pastor of the Baptist Church meeting in Badcox-lane and Samuel Manning, Pastor of the Baptist Church meeting in Sheppard’s Barton. (Bristol Mercury Sat 20 Nov 1852 p2).
The surviving documentation consists of copies of burial registers and a grave register for the Sheppard’s Barton Meeting House. These were made in 1831 prior to the registers being surrendered to the General Register Office in 1837 but have some later additions. The entries are of variable detail. While some have ages, the majority do not. Children are not usually given forenames but referred to as ‘child of’. There are some discrepancies in the spelling of names between burial and grave registers. Many early burials just have a year rather than a date. For 10 entries there is an annotation ‘dug up again’ (some in Greek letters!), these dating from the 1760s to 1780s, presumably due to a rearrangement of the ground, although for one it was the reburial inside the meeting house. Some of these reburials are explicit, for example ‘1806 Isabella Sheppard wife of Henery Sheppard senr taken out of their vault and put in with her father Mr Wilson’ and ‘John Sheppard senr taken out of their vault at the same time & put into a vault in the meeting opposite the pulpit’.
The establishment of the Frome Dissenters Cemetery in Vallis Road in 1851 would have lessened the need for burying grounds in the individual chapels. This new cemetery was instigated by the Baptists and Congregationalists. A press report in 1864 has the body of Mrs Sarah King brought by rail from Bristol to Frome, taken to Sheppard’s Barton chapel and the following day the burial taking place at ‘the Cemetery, in Vallis-way’ (Frome Times Wed 14 Sep 1864 p2).
