The present diocese covers parts of the counties of Somerset and Gloucestershire together with a small area of Wiltshire.

[6] The abbey church, destined to serve hereafter as a cathedral, was of different dates: the old Norman nave built by Fitzharding seems to have stood till the suppression, but the chancel, which still exists, was early 14th century and the transepts late 15th.

Yet at first Bristol does not seem to have been thought of as a bishopric, for it is not included in the list of projected sees now among the Cottonian MSS in the British Museum.

It may well be that the fact of the city's then being one of the leading towns in England and the chief seaport explains why it was selected as one of the new sees.

The first bishop appointed by the King was Paul Bush, formerly master of Edington Priory in Wiltshire, an Augustinian canon known as both a scholar and a poet.

During the vacancy, Pope Paul IV empowered Cardinal Pole to re-found the See of Bristol.

The next bishop was John Holyman, a former Benedictine monk with a reputation for learning and sanctity who had been a friend of the martyred Abbot of Reading, Hugh Cook Faringdon.

Thus the diocese consists of the strip of territory either side of the Great Western railway uniting Swindon and Bristol.