100-457: Shirehampton is a district of Bristol in England, near Avonmouth , at the northwestern edge of the city. It originated as a separate village, retains a High Street with a parish church and shops, and is still thought of as a village by many of its 6,867 inhabitants. Although on the far northwest corner, and largely separated from the rest of Bristol by a broad swathe of parkland extending from
200-470: A Roman road ); another was at the present-day Inns Court . Isolated Roman villas and small forts and settlements were also scattered throughout the area. Bristol was founded by 1000; by about 1020, it was a trading centre with a mint producing silver pennies bearing its name. By 1067, Brycgstow was a well-fortified burh , and that year the townsmen beat back a raiding party from Ireland led by three of Harold Godwinson 's sons. Under Norman rule,
300-411: A statue of Colston was pulled down from its plinth by protestors and pushed into Bristol Harbour. The statue was recovered on 11 June and has become a museum exhibit. Bristol City council consists of 70 councillors representing 34 wards, with between one and three per ward serving four-year terms. As of May 2024, no party has an overall controlling majority, but Green Party are the largest group on
400-591: A car, van, motorbike or taxi, 2.2% commute by rail and 9.8% by bus, while 19.6% walk. The Runnymede Trust found in 2017 that Bristol "ranked 7th out of the 348 districts of England & Wales (1=worst) on the Index of Multiple Inequality." In terms of employment, the report found that "ethnic minorities are disadvantaged compared to white British people nationally, but this is to a greater extent in Bristol, particularly for black groups." Black people in Bristol experience
500-417: A compulsory load line on ships. By 1867, ships were getting larger and the meanders in the river Avon prevented boats over 300 ft (90 m) from reaching the harbour, resulting in falling trade. The port facilities were migrating downstream to Avonmouth and new industrial complexes were founded there. Some of the traditional industries including copper and brass manufacture went into decline, but
600-687: A developed area between the Bristol city boundary and the M4, M5 and M32 motorways (now in South Gloucestershire) was so named as part of a 1987 plan prepared by the Northavon District Council of Avon county. The West of England Combined Authority was created on 9 February 2017. Covering Bristol and the rest of the old Avon county with the exception of North Somerset, the new combined authority has responsibility for regional planning, roads, and local transport, and to
700-493: A distinctive electronic carillon installed in 1959 with the aid of a benefaction from parishioner Mabel Creber. There are three other churches in Shirehampton: Methodist, Baptist, and Roman Catholic. During World War I, Shirehampton was the location of a remount depot for horses . This was the largest such depot in the country, with a capacity of up to 5,000 horses. These horses were mostly supplied from
800-509: A lesser extent, education and business investment. The authority is led by the Mayor of the West of England , Dan Norris . Bristol's boundaries can be defined in several ways, including those of the city itself, the developed area, or Greater Bristol . The city council boundary is the narrowest definition of the city itself. However, it unusually includes a large, roughly rectangular section of
900-520: A population of 2570. The place was originally called simply Hampton, meaning "large farming estate" or "farm enclosed on several sides", and later became known as "sharny Hampton", meaning "dungy Hampton". The name was "cleaned up" by the Elizabethans to its current form. The village grew up around the lowest safe river crossing on the river Avon before it empties into the Severn. The ferry between
1000-487: A shipbuilding and manufacturing centre. By the 14th century, Bristol, York and Norwich were England's largest medieval towns after London. One-third to one-half of the population died in the Black Death of 1348–49, which checked population growth, and its population remained between 10,000 and 12,000 for most of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the 15th century, Bristol was the second most important port in
1100-475: Is 106 mi (171 km) west of London, 77 mi (124 km) south-southwest of Birmingham and 26 mi (42 km) east of the Welsh capital Cardiff . Areas adjoining the city fall within a loosely defined area known as Greater Bristol . Bath is located 11 mi (18 km) south east of the city centre, Weston-super-Mare is 18 mi (29 km) to the south west and the Welsh city of Newport
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#17327732740401200-448: Is 19 mi (31 km) to the north west. The climate is oceanic ( Köppen : Cfb) , milder than most places in England and United Kingdom. Located in southern England, Bristol is one of the warmest cities in the UK with a mean annual temperature of approximately 10.5 °C (50.9 °F). It is among the sunniest, with 1,541–1,885 hours of sunshine per year. Although the city
1300-649: Is a city , unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England , the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon , it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. The county is in the West of England combined authority area, which includes the Greater Bristol area ( eleventh most populous urban area in
1400-645: Is built on the creative media, electronics and aerospace industries; the city-centre docks have been redeveloped as cultural and heritage centres. There are a variety of artistic and sporting organisations and venues including the Royal West of England Academy , the Arnolfini , Ashton Gate and the Memorial Stadium . The city has two universities; the University of Bristol and the University of
1500-548: Is located in the fields above Chapel Pill. The pottery was made in the period from 1100 AD to 1250 AD and was exported from Pill by boat. The so-called 'Ham Green' pottery has been found and identified in archaeological digs from the Algarve in Portugal to Iceland . It is an important archaeological 'dating tool' because the period of manufacture is so precise. Bristol City Museum has a good selection of pottery artifacts from
1600-692: Is partially sheltered by the Mendip Hills, it is exposed to the Severn Estuary and the Bristol Channel . Rain is fairly evenly distributed throughout the year, with autumn and winter the wetter seasons. The Atlantic Ocean influences Bristol's weather, keeping its average temperature above freezing throughout the year, but winter frosts are frequent and snow occasionally falls from early November to late April. Summers are warm and drier, with variable sunshine, rain and clouds, and spring weather
1700-459: Is represented by 5 constituencies, East , North East , North West , South , and Central . The city has a tradition of political activism. Edmund Burke , MP for the Bristol constituency for six years beginning in 1774, insisted that he was a Member of Parliament first and a representative of his constituents' interests second. Women's-rights advocate Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence (1867–1954)
1800-510: Is served by the A4 Portway and by Shirehampton railway station , which allow access to near the city centre. It is informally known to local people as "Shire". Shirehampton looks across the Avon towards the rural Failand Hills of Somerset . For many centuries the only direct connection with Somerset was via a small rowed ferry which crossed from near The Lamplighters pub ("The Lamps") to
1900-669: Is situated on the A369 between Bristol and Portishead , and is also near the M5 , linking Pill with places such as Weston-super-Mare , Exeter and Birmingham . As of December 2023, Pill is served by the First West of England route X4, which operates between Bristol bus station and Portishead. Pill used to have a railway station , which was opened in April 1867, on the route between Bristol Temple Meads and Portishead , but this station
2000-626: Is still there. In the 1960s and 1970s a Dalek sat outside the Haven Master's building on the banks of the river Avon, just across from the Lamplighters public house. The Dalek used to face up river, so that boats coming from Bristol Docks to the Severn and Bristol Channel (not to mention the Pill Ferry) would have to pass under its manipulator arm. The Dalek was used to raise funds during at least one Shirehampton Carnival in (probably)
2100-983: Is unsettled. The weather stations nearest Bristol for which long-term climate data are available are Long Ashton (about 5 mi (8 km) south west of the city centre) and Bristol Weather Station, in the city centre. Data collection at these locations ended in 2002 and 2001, respectively, and following the closure of Filton Airfield, Almondsbury is the nearest weather station to the city. Temperatures at Long Ashton from 1959 to 2002 ranged from 33.5 °C (92.3 °F) in July 1976 to −14.4 °C (6.1 °F) in January 1982. Monthly high temperatures since 2002 at Filton exceeding those recorded at Long Ashton include 25.7 °C (78.3 °F) in April 2003, 34.5 °C (94.1 °F) in July 2006 and 26.8 °C (80.2 °F) in October 2011. The lowest recent temperature at Filton
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#17327732740402200-596: Is unusual among major British towns and cities in its larger black than Asian population. These statistics apply to the Bristol Unitary Authority area, excluding areas of the urban area (2006 estimated population 587,400) in South Gloucestershire, Bath and North East Somerset (BANES) and North Somerset—such as Kingswood, Mangotsfield, Filton and Warmley. 56.2% of the 209,995 Bristol residents who are employed commute to work using either
2300-523: Is used as a golf course. Shirehampton is well provided with churches, schools, sporting facilities, shops and pubs. It has public open spaces and antiquities nearby. These include Kingsweston Roman Villa (whose ruins are visible by the roadside in the modern suburb of Lawrence Weston ), Blaise Castle Estate , and Blaise Castle House Museum, in addition to Shirehampton Park. Shirehampton Football Club, based at Penpole Lane, in Shirehampton and play in
2400-921: The Ashton Court Estate , South Bristol crematorium and cemetery, High Ridge common and Whitchurch, with a further area around Frenchay Farm. The belt extends outside the city boundaries into surrounding counties and districts, for several miles in places, to afford a protection from urban sprawl to surrounding villages and towns. According to the 2011 census , 84% of the population was White (77.9% White British , 0.9% White Irish , 0.1% Gypsy or Irish Travellers and 5.1% Other White ); 3.6% mixed-race (1.7% white-and-black Caribbean, 0.4% white-and-black African, 0.8% white and Asian and 0.7% other mixed); 5.5% Asian (1.6% Pakistani , 1.5% Indian , 0.9% Chinese , 0.5% Bangladeshi , and 1% other Asian); 6% Black (2.8% African, 1.6% Caribbean , 1.6% Other Black ), 0.3% Arab and 0.6% with other heritage. Bristol
2500-599: The Blaise Castle estate, with the River Avon forming a barrier for access to Somerset, the community is still a convenient location from which to reach all parts of the city. Travel is also easy from Shirehampton into Gloucestershire , South Wales and Somerset since it lies within reach of the main motorways in the area, including the M5 , the M4 Second Severn Crossing , and the M49 , and it
2600-677: The European Green Capital Award in 2015. The name derives from the Old English Brycgstow , meaning "assembly place by the bridge" or simply "site of the bridge", presumably in reference to a crossing over the Avon. The final l is an unetymological addition that first appears in the 12th century. An older form of the name survives as the surname Bristow , which is derived from the city. Archaeological finds, including flint tools believed to be between 300,000 and 126,000 years old made with
2700-534: The IRA , in 1974 and again in 1978 . The 20th-century relocation of the docks to Avonmouth Docks and Royal Portbury Dock , 7 mi (11 km) downstream from the city centre, has allowed the redevelopment of the old dock area (the Floating Harbour). Although the docks' existence was once in jeopardy (since the area was seen as a derelict industrial site), the inaugural 1996 International Festival of
2800-453: The Kennet and Avon Canal , which had fully opened in 1810 as the main route for the transport of goods between Bristol and London. Competition from Liverpool (beginning around 1760), disruptions of maritime commerce due to war with France (1793) and the abolition of the slave trade (1807) contributed to Bristol's failure to keep pace with the newer manufacturing centres of Northern England and
2900-644: The Levallois technique , indicate the presence of Neanderthals in the Shirehampton and St Annes areas of Bristol during the Middle Palaeolithic . Iron Age hill forts near the city are at Leigh Woods and Clifton Down , on the side of the Avon Gorge , and on Kings Weston Hill near Henbury . A Roman settlement, Abona, existed at what is now Sea Mills (connected to Bath by
3000-605: The Somerset County League . On the banks of the River Avon stands the Old Powder House. It was built in 1775-6 to store gunpowder, which was not allowed into Bristol docks. It is a grade II listed building . The village war memorial stands by Shirehampton Road north of the golf course, not far from the site of the now dry Rush Pool, a pool formerly used by drovers bringing cattle from Wales across
3100-558: The West Midlands . The tidal Avon Gorge, which had secured the port during the Middle Ages, had become a liability. An 1804–09 plan to improve the city's port with a floating harbour designed by William Jessop was a costly error, requiring high harbour fees. During the 19th century, Samuel Plimsoll , known as "the sailor's friend", campaigned to make the seas safer; shocked by overloaded vessels, he successfully fought for
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3200-399: The bishop of Worcester in about 795, along with the district that is now called Stoke Bishop , and there are two later Anglo-Saxon documents about the same pieces of land. Shirehampton was formerly a chapelry in the parish of Westbury-on-Trym, in 1866 Shirehampton became a separate civil parish , on 1 October 1904 the parish was abolished and merged with Bristol. In 1901 the parish had
3300-620: The 1640's, during the English Civil War , the city was occupied by Royalists , who built the Royal Fort House on the site of an earlier Parliamentarian stronghold. Fishermen from Bristol, who had fished the Grand Banks of Newfoundland since the 16th century, began settling Newfoundland permanently in larger numbers during the 17th century, establishing colonies at Bristol's Hope and Cuper's Cove . Growth of
3400-631: The 16th century, Bristol merchants concentrated on developing trade with Spain and its American colonies. This included the smuggling of prohibited goods, such as food and guns, to Iberia during the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) . Bristol's illicit trade grew enormously after 1558, becoming integral to its economy. The original Diocese of Bristol was founded in 1542, when the former Abbey of St. Augustine (founded by Robert Fitzharding four hundred years earlier) became Bristol Cathedral . Bristol also gained city status that year. In
3500-633: The 3rd highest level of educational inequality in England and Wales. Pill, Somerset Pill is a village in North Somerset , England, situated on the southern bank of the Avon , about 4 miles (6 km) north-west of Bristol city centre. The village is the largest settlement in the civil parish of Pill and Easton-in-Gordano (until 2011 named Easton in Gordano). The former hamlets of Lodway and Ham Green are now contiguous with Pill, and
3600-637: The Future 's 2008 Sustainable Cities Index. Local initiatives include Sustrans (creators of the National Cycle Network , founded as Cyclebag in 1977) and Resourcesaver, a non-profit business established in 1988 by Avon Friends of the Earth. In 2014 The Sunday Times named it as the best city in Britain in which to live. The city received the 2015 European Green Capital Award , becoming
3700-644: The M5 and Bristol. Pill railway station , which closed in 1964, is due to reopen by 2024. Pill marks the start of the National Cycle Network 33 (the Wessex Cycleway), which also takes in Clevedon , Weston-super-Mare , Bridgwater , Chard and Seaton . Clubs and Societies – Easton-in-Gordano Table-Tennis Club (meets Thursday nights) has been running since 1956 when the Church Memorial Hall
3800-724: The River Avon provide some of the earliest evidence of human occupation in the British Isles . Here and around Ham Green and Pill , on the opposite bank of the Avon, humans with a Lower Palaeolithic (earliest phase of the Old Stone Age) culture (possibly of the hominid type Homo heidelbergensis ) left tools and debris behind some 250–400,000 years ago. For comparison, the well-known Palaeolithic sites at Waverley Wood , Warwickshire , and Boxgrove Quarry , Sussex , have artefacts from about 500,000 years ago, and Boxgrove has yielded bones of H. heidelbergensis . Shirehampton
3900-628: The Sea held in and around the docks affirmed the area as a leisure asset of the city. From 2018, there were lively discussions about a new explicative plaque under a commemorative statue of one of the city's major benefactors in the 17th and 18th centuries. The plaque was meant to replace an original which made no reference to Edward Colston 's past with the Royal African Company and the Bristol Slave Trade . On 7 June 2020
4000-407: The Severn basin, and rare herbaceous plants include field garlic ( Allium oleraceum ) and pale St. John's-wort ( Hypericum montanum ). The narrow saltmarsh below the wood contains two nationally scarce vascular plant species, slender hare's-ear ( Bupleurum tenuissimum ) and long-stalked orache ( Atriplex longipes ). The Lamplighters Marsh Site of Nature Conservation Interest is also within
4100-419: The Severn to market in Bristol. Shirehampton, in particular the woodland overlooking Horseshoe Bend in the Avon (a National Nature Reserve ), is the main location for rare plant species including the true service tree ( Sorbus domestica ) and two other whitebeams , Sorbus eminens and Sorbus anglica . The nationally scarce large-leaved lime ( Tilia platyphyllos ) also occurs, as it does elsewhere in
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4200-491: The US and Shirehampton was close to the new Royal Edward Dock at Avonmouth where they were landed. After some weeks of training, horses would then pass to the depot at Swaythling , from where they passed to France. 347,045 horses and mules passed through Shirehampton in the course of the war. After the war much of the materiel from the remount depot was bought by local builder Robert Stride who used it to develop Severn Beach . Robert
4300-524: The United Kingdom) and nearby places such as Bath . Iron Age hillforts and Roman villas were built near the confluence of the rivers Frome and Avon. Bristol received a royal charter in 1155 and was historically divided between Gloucestershire and Somerset until 1373 when it became a county corporate . From the 13th to the 18th century, Bristol was among the top three English cities, after London, in tax receipts. A major port , Bristol
4400-603: The West of England (UWE Bristol). It is connected to the world by Bristol Airport ; to the rest of the Great Britain via Bristol Temple Meads and Bristol Parkway mainline rail stations; by road by both the south-west to West Midlands M5 and the London to South Wales M4 (which connect to the city centre by the Portway and M32 ). Bristol was named the best city in Britain in which to live in 2014 and 2017; it won
4500-566: The arrest, trial and subsequent acquittal of a local slaver captain named Kimber. The city was associated with Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel , who designed the Great Western Railway between Bristol and London Paddington , two pioneering Bristol-built oceangoing steamships ( SS Great Britain and SS Great Western ), and the Clifton Suspension Bridge . The new railway replaced
4600-618: The boundaries of Shirehampton. The novelist Evelyn Waugh (1903–66) is known to have visited both Shirehampton, where his mother had lived, and Kingsweston House in the 1950s, whilst researching his autobiography, but his memory seems to have been confused. He wrote of his visit in a postcard to a friend, Francis Beaufort Palmer. Waugh's mother lived at Priory House, 61 Pembroke Road. In his book A Little Learning , Waugh writes: Her rustic tastes were formed by her childhood at Shirehampton, where she and her sister were sent from India at an age which left them no memories of their place of birth, to
4700-454: The care of two maiden great-aunts and a bachelor great-uncle, a retired sailor. It was by these great-aunts and in this house, the Priory [this is misleading, because The Priory was not Priory House], that my grandfather had been detected with his rosary. Shirehampton is now a suburb of Bristol. The Priory has become a vicarage [correct; the vicarage was The Priory, but a new vicarage was built in
4800-560: The castle. A third bomb-damaged church nearby, St Nicholas was restored and after a period as a museum has now re-opened as a church. It houses a 1756 William Hogarth triptych painted for the high altar of St Mary Redcliffe . The church also has statues of King Edward I (moved from Arno's Court Triumphal Arch ) and King Edward III (taken from Lawfords' Gate in the city walls when they were demolished about 1760), and 13th-century statues of Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester (builder of Bristol Castle ) and Geoffrey de Montbray (who built
4900-639: The centre for day-to-day needs, including two Southern Co-operative food stores, pharmacy, Post Office, vets and hair salon. Pill has several take-away restaurants; however, it can no longer boast 21 pubs and currently has only three: The Kings Head , The Duke and the Pill Memorial Club, although this excludes the nearby pubs in Easton in Gordano . It is commonly used as a place for commuting to Bristol as it has transport links, being close to
5000-480: The city and trade came with the rise of England's American colonies in the 17th century. Bristol's location on the west side of Great Britain gave its ships an advantage in sailing to and from the New World, and the city's merchants made the most of it, with the city becoming one of the two leading outports in all of England by the middle of the 18th century. Bristol was the slave capital of England: In 1755, it had
5100-551: The city's walls) from Bristol's Newgate . The rebuilding of Bristol city centre was characterised by 1960s and 1970s skyscrapers , mid-century modern architecture and road building . Beginning in the 1980s some main roads were closed , the Georgian-era Queen Square and Portland Square were restored, the Broadmead shopping area regenerated, and one of the city centre's tallest mid-century towers
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#17327732740405200-1112: The city, and its surrounding land has been protected from development as The Downs and Leigh Woods. The Avon estuary and the gorge form the county boundary with North Somerset , and the river flows into the Severn Estuary at Avonmouth . A smaller gorge, cut by the Hazel Brook which flows into the River Trym , crosses the Blaise Castle estate in northern Bristol. Bristol is sometimes described, by its inhabitants, as being built on seven hills, like Rome. From 18th-century guidebooks, these 7 hills were known as simply Bristol (the Old Town), Castle Hill, College Green, Kingsdown, St Michaels Hill, Brandon Hill and Redcliffe Hill. Other local hills include Red Lion Hill, Barton Hill , Lawrence Hill , Black Boy Hill, Constitution Hill, Staple Hill , Windmill Hill , Malborough Hill, Nine Tree Hill, Talbot, Brook Hill and Granby Hill. Bristol
5300-528: The city-council boundary, such as Kingswood , Mangotsfield , Stoke Gifford , Winterbourne , Almondsbury , Easton in Gordano , Whitchurch village, Filton , Patchway and Bradley Stoke , but excludes undeveloped areas within that boundary. Bristol lies within a limestone area running from the Mendip Hills in the south to the Cotswolds in the northeast. The rivers Avon and Frome cut through
5400-399: The council. Between 2012 and 2024, the council was led by a directly elected mayor, the Mayor of Bristol . The post was abolished following a 2022 referendum, in which voters chose to replace it with a council committee system. The lord mayor of Bristol is a figurehead elected each May by the city council. The lord mayor is Councillor Andrew Varney. In the House of Commons , Bristol
5500-401: The country, trading with Ireland, Iceland and Gascony . It was the starting point for many voyages, including Robert Sturmy 's (1457–58) unsuccessful attempt to break the Italian monopoly of Eastern Mediterranean trade. New exploration voyages were launched by Venetian John Cabot , who in 1497 made landfall in North America. A 1499 voyage, led by merchant William Weston of Bristol, was
5600-402: The early Middle Ages , and the converted fifteenth-century tithe barn in the High Street is believed to have belonged to the monastic estate. However, the place referred to in the Domesday Book of 1086 is certain to have been Kyre in Worcestershire , and there is no real connection between Shirehampton and Cormeilles apart from the building stones exchanged by the two communities in 1963 on
5700-401: The early 1900s by the Royal Edward Dock. Another new dock, the Royal Portbury Dock , opened across the river from Avonmouth during the 1970s. As air travel grew in the first half of the century, aircraft manufacturers built factories. The unsuccessful Bristol International Exhibition was held on Ashton Meadows in the Bower Ashton area in 1914. After the premature closure of the exhibition
5800-420: The enslaved captives were transported across the Atlantic to the Americas in the Middle Passage under brutal conditions. Plantation goods such as sugar, tobacco, rum, rice, cotton and a few slaves (sold to the aristocracy as house servants) returned across the Atlantic to England. Some household slaves were baptised in the hope this would lead them to be freed. The Somersett Case of 1772 clarified that slavery
5900-461: The famous views from Penpole Point. Shirehampton became ecclesiastically separate in 1844 when the chapel of ease of St Mary, dating from at least Elizabethan times, was raised to parish church status. The original chapel building, about which nothing is known, had been replaced in 1727 and this had been rebuilt in 1827. This Gothic-style building burnt down in 1928 and was replaced by the current church, designed by Percival Hartland Thomas, which has
6000-465: The first UK city to receive this award. In 2019 Bristol City Council voted in favour of banning all privately owned diesel cars from the city centre. Since then, the plans have been revised in favour of a clean air zone whereby older and more polluting vehicles will be charged to drive through the city centre. The Clean Air Zone came into effect in November 2022. The city has green belt mainly along its southern fringes, taking in small areas within
6100-447: The first expedition commanded by an Englishman to North America . During the first decade of the 16th century Bristol's merchants undertook a series of exploration voyages to North America and even founded a commercial organisation, 'The Company Adventurers to the New Found Land', to assist their endeavours. However, they seem to have lost interest in North America after 1509, having incurred great expenses and made little profit. During
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#17327732740406200-481: The former vicarage partly retaining some of the supposed priory's construction); and some have gone altogether like the ancient house of sixteenth-century appearance, which has been lost to road widening and a row of 1960s shops. As Shirehampton and Avonmouth grew, the squires of Kings Weston House , notably Philip Napier Miles (1865–1935), gave many benefactions to the district, including land for churches, war memorials and social amenities. Among these important gifts
6300-400: The grounds of The Priory in 1951, and neither of these was Priory House] and its meadows have been overbuilt. In my mother's childhood the place was rural and my mother was entirely happy there. All her life she looked back on that elderly ménage as the ideal of home. In less than ten years from the book's publication in 1964, Priory House and the new vicarage had been demolished, but The Priory
6400-410: The history of the Irish slave trade from Bristol, which he provocatively claimed continued into the reign of Henry VII . Hannah More , originally from Bristol, and a good friend of both Wilberforce and Clarkson, published "Slavery, A Poem" in 1788, just as Wilberforce began his parliamentary campaign. His major speech on 2 April 1792 likewise described the Bristol slave trade specifically, and led to
6500-428: The import and processing of tobacco flourished with the expansion of the W.D. & H.O. Wills business. Supported by new industry and growing commerce, Bristol's population (66,000 in 1801), quintupled during the 19th century, resulting in the creation of new suburbs such as Clifton and Cotham . These provide architectural examples from the Georgian to the Regency style, with many fine terraces and villas facing
6600-466: The largest number of slave traders in the country with 237, as against London's 147. It was a major supplier of slaves to South Carolina before 1750. The 18th century saw an expansion of Bristol's population (45,000 in 1750) and its role in the Atlantic trade in Africans taken for slavery to the Americas. Bristol and later Liverpool became centres of the Triangular Trade . Manufactured goods were shipped to West Africa and exchanged for Africans;
6700-597: The later nineteenth century, and was absorbed, with Avonmouth, by the city of Bristol in 1904. After World War I , the city built a great deal of social ("council") housing here, and this has largely determined the present character of the place. Along the High Street there remains a sprinkling of the larger houses which typified the place before 1900, often (like Twyford House and The Wylands) converted to public or commercial use; some have been demolished and replaced by small infill estates (like Sunny Hill); some have been retained and surrounded by other houses (such as Penlea and
6800-431: The limestone to the underlying clay, creating Bristol's characteristically hilly landscape. The Avon flows from Bath in the east, through flood plains and areas which were marshes before the city's growth. To the west the Avon cuts through the limestone to form the Avon Gorge, formed largely by glacial meltwater after the last ice age . The gorge, which helped protect Bristol Harbour, has been quarried for stone to build
6900-408: The line was completed. They brought new names, some of which are still with us today, over 100 years on . The small ferry from Pill to Shirehampton closed because of loss of trade once the opening of the Avonmouth Bridge in 1974 enabled pedestrians to walk over the Avon . So a transport link to and from the parish of Easton-in-Gordano , one that had survived since Medieval times, was closed and
7000-441: The neighbouring village of Kingswood , often in the open air. Wesley published a pamphlet on slavery, titled Thoughts Upon Slavery, in 1774 and the Society of Friends began lobbying against slavery in Bristol in 1783. The city's scions remained nonetheless strongly anti-abolitionist. Thomas Clarkson came to Bristol to study the slave trade and gained access to the Society of Merchant Venturers records. One of his contacts
7100-547: The photograph on the rear jacket of the follow-up book, Further Adventures of Tabitha Miggins, Ship's Cat on the Pill Ferry (this time attributed to Mark Clinton Jones), shows a painted-out direction post in Pill that points the way to the "Shirehampton Ferry". This is a bit of a misnomer because it was known as 'the Pill ferry' on both sides of the river. The following suburbs are in the same urban area, but lie in South Gloucestershire or North Somerset : Bristol Bristol ( / ˈ b r ɪ s t əl / )
7200-614: The river mud has swallowed up most of the now unattended slipways. The village and its vanished ferry are commemorated in the Adge Cutler and The Wurzels song "Pill Pill". In 1971 the Royal National Lifeboat Institution stationed an inshore lifeboat at Pill. It was withdrawn in 1974. The parish has four places of worship: St George's, Easton-in-Gordano; Christ Church, Pill; The Salvation Army and Pill Methodist Church. Pill has several shops in
7300-492: The road, and at right angles to it. In the early 19th century, the romantic medieval gothic style appeared, partially as a reaction against the symmetry of Palladianism , and can be seen in buildings such as the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery , the Royal West of England Academy , and The Victoria Rooms . Riots broke out in 1793 and 1831; the first over the renewal of tolls on Bristol Bridge, and
7400-513: The second against the rejection of the second Reform Bill by the House of Lords . The population by 1841 had reached 140,158. The Diocese of Bristol had undergone several boundary changes by 1897 when it was "reconstituted" into the configuration which has lasted into the 21st century. From a population of about 330,000 in 1901, Bristol grew steadily during the 20th century, peaking at 428,089 in 1971. Its Avonmouth docklands were enlarged during
7500-553: The site and other locations showing the unique decoration and form of Ham Green pottery but the only item on display is a large jug at the M Shed . The town was traditionally the residence of pilots , who would guide boats up the Avon Gorge , between the Bristol Channel and the Port of Bristol . The port moved in the 20th century to Avonmouth and the Royal Portbury Dock . Pill was once home to 21 public houses and
7600-517: The site was used, until 1919, as barracks for the Gloucestershire Regiment during World War I . Bristol was heavily damaged by Luftwaffe raids during World War II ; about 1,300 people living or working in the city were killed and nearly 100,000 buildings were damaged, at least 3,000 beyond repair. The original central shopping area, near the bridge and castle, is now a park containing two bombed churches and fragments of
7700-403: The socioeconomic circumstances of the city's Afro-Caribbean residents. Local support of fair trade was recognised in 2005, when Bristol became a fairtrade zone . Bristol is both a city and a county, since King Edward III granted it a county charter in 1373. The county was expanded in 1835 to include suburbs such as Clifton , and it was named a county borough in 1889 when that designation
7800-558: The strength of the supposed historical connection. The development of Shirehampton throughout the eighteenth century is closely associated with the history of the adjacent King's Weston House and its extensive estate. Much of the surrounding area was in the ownership of the Southwell family, owners of King's Weston and later to receive the title of Baron de Clifford . Shirehampton prospered through tourism as sightseers from Bath, Clifton and Bristol's Hotwells came to view Kings Weston and
7900-622: The town had one of the strongest castles in southern England . Bristol was the place of exile for Diarmait Mac Murchada , the Irish king of Leinster , after being overthrown. The Bristol merchants subsequently played a prominent role in funding Richard Strongbow de Clare and the Norman invasion of Ireland . The port developed in the 11th century around the confluence of the Rivers Frome and Avon , adjacent to Bristol Bridge just outside
8000-432: The town walls. By the 12th century, there was an important Jewish community in Bristol which survived through to the late 13th century when all Jews were expelled from England. The stone bridge built in 1247 was replaced by the current bridge during the 1760s. The town incorporated neighbouring suburbs and became a county in 1373, the first town in England to be given this status. During this period, Bristol became
8100-612: The very late 1960s. For 6d, children could sit inside it on the plain wooden slat and twiddle the manipulator arm for a few minutes apiece. Both the Dalek and the Pill Ferry (as well as 'The Cockle Lady', who used to sell cockles in the High Street during the 1960s) are featured in the not-quite-children's book, Tabitha Miggins: Ship's Cat (on the Pill Ferry) , by Shirehampton author, Mark Jones (writing as Philippa Perry). Note that
8200-475: The village of Easton in Gordano is nearby. The parish extends northwest beyond the M5 motorway to include the Royal Portbury Dock . The name "Pill" comes from the Welsh word Pîl which denotes a tidal inlet or harbour. The later name Crockerne Pill (literally 'pottery wharf') arose from the fact that an industrial-scale pottery thrived nearby. The Ham Green Pottery kiln was excavated about 50 years ago and
8300-630: The village of Pill, Somerset opposite. This state of affairs continued until the completion of the M5 Avonmouth Bridge in 1974. From the limestone ridge of Penpole Point (whose name meant approximately Land's End in the Celtic language spoken here before English), there used to be far-reaching views across the River Severn to the distant hills of South Wales , but tree growth has restricted this prospect. The gravel terraces above
8400-622: The villages of Pill, Somerset , and Shirehampton, originally in Gloucestershire , connects a ridgeway along Kingsweston Hill (sometimes now called Abbot's Way ) with the hills beyond the Avon and continues on towards Clevedon . The ferry ran until 1974, when it was superseded by the M5 bridge . A priory of the Benedictine abbey of St Mary, Cormeilles , in Normandy , is sometimes said to have been established at Shirehampton in
8500-540: The western Severn Estuary ending at (but not including) the islands of Flat Holm (in Cardiff , Wales) and Steep Holm . This "seaward extension" can be traced back to the original boundary of the County of Bristol laid out in the charter granted to the city by Edward III in 1373. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has defined a Bristol Urban Area , which includes developed areas adjoining Bristol but outside
8600-468: Was a starting place for early voyages of exploration to the New World. At the height of the Bristol slave trade , from 1700 to 1807, more than 2,000 slave ships carried an estimated 500,000 people from Africa to slavery in the Americas. The Port of Bristol has since moved from Bristol Harbour in the city centre to the Severn Estuary at Avonmouth and Royal Portbury Dock . The city's modern economy
8700-576: Was born in Bristol, and the left-winger Tony Benn served as MP for Bristol South East in 1950–1960 and again from 1963 to 1983. In 1963 the Bristol Bus Boycott , following the Bristol Omnibus Company 's refusal to hire black drivers and conductors, drove the passage of the UK's 1965 Race Relations Act . The 1980 St. Pauls riot protested against racism and police harassment and showed mounting dissatisfaction with
8800-651: Was closed in September 1964 due to the Beeching cuts . However, the station is set to reopen alongside the route between Bristol and Portishead as part of the MetroWest plans. In 1894 Bristol Council purchased Ham Green House, a large country house with land at Ham Green for use as an isolation hospital, to replace a hospital ship (Margareda) moored in the Port of Bristol. It opened as a hospital in 1899 with 76 beds and
8900-523: Was demolished. Bristol's road infrastructure changed dramatically during the 1960s and 1970s with the development of the M4 and M5 motorways , which meet at the Almondsbury Interchange just north of the city and link Bristol with London (M4 eastbound), Swansea (M4 westbound across the Severn Estuary ), Exeter (M5 southbound) and Birmingham (M5 northbound). Bristol was bombed twice by
9000-472: Was illegal in England. At the height of the Bristol slave trade from 1700 to 1807, more than 2,000 slave ships carried a conservatively estimated 500,000 people from Africa to slavery in the Americas. In 1739, John Wesley founded the first Methodist chapel, the New Room , in Bristol. Wesley, along with his brother Charles Wesley and George Whitefield , preached to large congregations in Bristol and
9100-633: Was introduced. On 1 April 1974, Bristol became a local government district of the county of Avon . On 1 April 1996, Avon was abolished and Bristol became a unitary authority . The former Avon area, called Greater Bristol by the Government Office of the South West (now abolished) and others, refers to the city and the three neighbouring local authorities— Bath and North East Somerset , North Somerset and South Gloucestershire previously in Avon. The North Fringe of Bristol ,
9200-557: Was known as being a rough place, to the extent that the founder of the Methodist Church , John Wesley , says in an entry in his journals for 3 October 1755: I rode over to Pill, a place famous from generation to generation, even as Kingswood itself, for stupid, brutal, abandoned wickedness. The 1860s saw the building of the Portishead Railway line between Bristol Temple Meads and Portishead . The line, which
9300-452: Was opened to passengers in 1863, passed right through the village of Pill, with the result that a large number of buildings had to be demolished to allow its necessary straight and level passage. The railway also consumed many acres of farm land during its construction. However, it brought new life to the area, not to mention new blood as many of the navvies working the line met and married local girls and stayed on to raise their families after
9400-597: Was opened. The Luncheon Club provides a weekly get together for the elderly on Thursdays at the Community Centre. The village is proud of all its community activities full details of which are included in the Community Diary held at the Resource Centre (Precinct). An electoral ward with the same name exists. It has the same area and the population taken at the 2011 census was 3,525. Pill
9500-407: Was originally a detached part of the parish of Westbury-on-Trym , separated from the main part of Westbury by a part of Henbury parish, which included Kingsweston , the great house, King's Weston House whose inhabitants have had a considerable impact on Shirehampton as employers and benefactors. The area is on record as part of the estate of "Stoke", which was granted by King Offa of Mercia to
9600-498: Was periodically expanded, by 1950 it had 500 beds available for TB patients alone. In 1978 it was selected as the 'Regional Infectious & Exotic Diseases Unit', covering the whole of SW England and parts of S Wales. It was largely closed in the 1990s. Bristol Archives holds records of Ham Green Hospital (and its predecessor institutions) including medical officers' records, letter books, patient lists and patient registers (Ref. 38224) ( online catalogue ). The original Ham Green House
9700-553: Was the Public Hall of 1904, whose main claim to fame is perhaps that it was the venue of the first performance of Vaughan Williams 's rhapsody The Lark Ascending , in its original version for solo violin and piano, played by the violinist Marie Hall , a friend of Vaughan Williams from his visits to Kings Weston house, in 1920. Little Park (or Shirehampton Park) was given to the National Trust after World War I , and
9800-433: Was the cousin of Jared and Jethro Stride who developed Sneyd Park . Avonmouth was a part of Shirehampton parish until 1917. It developed as the main element of the port of Bristol in the later nineteenth century, attracting workers to settle there and in Shirehampton proper; it had grown so big by 1917 that it was given separate status, for both ecclesiastical and civil purposes. Shirehampton itself expanded considerably in
9900-460: Was the owner of the Seven Stars public house , who boarded sailors Clarkson sought to meet. Through these sailors he was able to observe how slaver captains and first mates "plied and stupefied seamen with drink" to sign them up. Other informants included ship surgeons and seamen seeking redress. When William Wilberforce began his parliamentary abolition campaign on 12 May 1788, he recalled
10000-519: Was −10.1 °C (13.8 °F) in December 2010. Although large cities in general experience an urban heat island effect, with warmer temperatures than their surrounding rural areas, this phenomenon is minimal in Bristol. Bristol was ranked as Britain's most sustainable city (based on its environmental performance, quality of life, future-proofing and approaches to climate change, recycling and biodiversity), topping environmental charity Forum for
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