Bristol

Bristol, city and unitary authority, southwestern England. The historic centre of Bristol and the sections of the city north of the River Avon (Lower, or Bristol, Avon) were part of the historic county of Gloucestershire, while the areas south of the Avon lay within the historic county of Somerset until the creation of the county of Bristol (1373–1974) and then of the county of Avon (1974–96). When the county of Avon was abolished, Bristol became a unitary authority.

Bristol is located about 120 miles (190 km) west of London at the confluence of the Rivers Avon and Frome. Just west of the city, the Avon flows into the estuary of the River Severn, which itself empties into Bristol Channel of the Atlantic Ocean, about 8 miles to the northwest. Bristol is a historic seaport and commercial centre. Area 42 square miles (110 square km). Pop. (2001) 380,615; (2011) 428,234.

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History

The medieval town of Bristol was incorporated in 1155. The harbour was improved in 1247 by diverting the Frome to the west and building a stone bridge at the point of its former confluence with the Avon. During the reign of Edward III (1327–77) Bristol imported raw wool from Ireland and manufactured woolen cloth, which it sold to Spain and Portugal in return for sherry and port wine. By the 16th century Bristol had become a major port, a manufacturing town, and a distribution centre for both overseas and inland trade. The city also played a notable part in maritime history: from its port John Cabot sailed in 1497 on his voyage to North America. In 1552 the Society of Merchant Venturers was incorporated in the city; its hall, along with a number of other historic buildings, was destroyed by German bombing during World War II. Bristol was a Royalist stronghold during the English Civil Wars until it was captured by the Parliamentarians in 1645.

During the later 17th and the 18th centuries Bristol prospered as a processing centre for sugar and tobacco imported from Britain’s colonies in the Americas, to whom it supplied textiles, pottery, glass, and other manufactured goods. The import of Jamaican sugar and cacao from West Africa led to the creation of the “sugar houses” of Bristol and to chocolate manufacture. By the 19th century, however, the rise of the Lancashire cotton industry, together with the limitation on shipping imposed by the Avon Gorge below Clifton, led to the loss of much of Bristol’s trade to Liverpool.

In 1809 tidal waters of the Avon and the Frome were diverted to create a floating, or tideless, harbour with a constant water depth. The engineer John Loudon McAdam improved Bristol’s roads (c. 1815) with his technique of laying raised-stone surfaces (macadamizing), and the Bristol roads became a model for road improvements throughout Great Britain. Bristol served as the launching point in 1838 for Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Great Western, the second steamship to cross the Atlantic. The coming of the railway in 1841, followed by dock extensions at Avonmouth and Portishead, led to a revival of Bristol’s trade, and a suspension bridge across the Avon Gorge, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864, further encouraged traffic.

The contemporary city

The destruction of a large part of the city centre during World War II provided an opportunity for replanning. Postwar reconstruction included the Council House (1956), other modern public structures, and a new shopping centre in Broadmead. The Royal Portbury Dock has been added to the port complex, whose imports now include refined petroleum products, animal foodstuffs, and forest products. Bristol’s exports consist mainly of manufactured goods from the West Midlands, notably automobiles, tractors, and machinery. Local industries include the refining of sugar, cocoa and chocolate making, wine bottling, and the making of fine glass (Bristol “blue”), porcelain, and pottery. The locality’s most notable industry today is aircraft design and construction at Filton. The construction of the Severn Bridge on the city’s northern outskirts and the completion of the M4 motorway to southern Wales greatly enhanced Bristol’s position as the principal distribution centre of southwestern England.

Bristol is also an education centre, its schools including Bristol Grammar School, the Cathedral School, and Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital, all founded in the 1500s; Colston’s School (1708); and Clifton College, founded in the residential suburb of Clifton in 1862. The University of Bristol, founded as University College in 1876, was established in 1909.

The most striking ecclesiastical building in Bristol to survive the war is the church of St. Mary Redcliffe, a 14th-century structure whose grandeur of proportion and majestic Perpendicular Gothic design have made it one of the most celebrated parish churches in England. Bristol’s cathedral church, which originated as the abbey church of St. Augustine of Canterbury (founded 1142), is famous for its Norman chapter house and gateway. Other notable buildings to escape destruction are St. Mark’s, or the Lord Mayor’s Chapel; a Dominican priory associated with William Penn and the early history of the Society of Friends (Quakers); the New Room in Broadmead, the first Methodist chapel in the world and headquarters of that faith’s founder, John Wesley, after 1739; Broadmead Baptist Chapel, also associated with the early Nonconformist movement in Bristol; and the Theatre Royal, built in 1766.