The remainder of the east end was rebuilt in the English Decorated Gothic style during the 14th century as a hall church, with aisles the same height as the central choir.

The nave was incomplete when the abbey was dissolved in 1539 and demolished; a Gothic Revival replacement was constructed in the 19th century by George Edmund Street, partially to the original plans.

Bristol Cathedral was founded as St Augustine's Abbey in 1140 by Robert Fitzharding, a wealthy local landowner and royal official who later became Lord Berkeley.

[6][7] The Venerable Bede made reference to St Augustine of Canterbury visiting the site in 603ACE, and John Leland had recorded that it was a long-established religious shrine.

[10] Three examples of this phase survive, the chapterhouse and the abbey gatehouse, now the diocesan office, together with a second Romanesque gateway, which originally led into the abbot's quarters.

[8] Under Abbot David (1216–1234) there was a new phase of building, notably the construction in around 1220 of a chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, abutting the northern side of the choir.

[16] Abbot David argued with the convent and was deposed in 1234 to be replaced by William of Bradstone who purchased land from the mayor to build a quay and the Church of St Augustine the Less.

[8] The Black Death is likely to have affected the monastery and when William Coke became abbot in 1353 he obtained a papal bull from Pope Urban V to allow him to ordain priests at a younger age to replace those who had died.

Soon after the election of his successor, Henry Shellingford, in 1365 Edward III took control of the monastery and made The 4th Baron Berkeley its commissioner to resolve the financial problems.

[9] Abbot John Newland, (1481–1515), also known as 'Nailheart' due to his rebus of a heart pierced by three nails,[8] began the rebuilding of the nave, but it was incomplete at the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539.

In an edict dated June 1542, Henry VIII and Thomas Cranmer raised the building to rank of Cathedral of a new Diocese of Bristol.

[1][20] In the 1831 Bristol Riots, a mob broke into the Chapter House, destroying a lot of the early records of the Abbey and damaging the building.

[3] The rebuilding of the nave was paid for by public subscription including benefactors such as Greville Smyth of Ashton Court, The Miles family of Kings Weston House, the Society of Merchant Venturers, Stuckey's Bank, William Gibbs of Tyntesfield, and many other Bristol citizens.

The sculptor, James Redfern, was made the scapegoat by the architect and the church; he retreated from the project, fell ill, and died later that year.

Elliot's drop in popularity meant that raising funds was a harder and slower process and the nave had to be officially opened before the two west towers were built.

The north and south aisles employ a unique manner where the vaults rest on tie beam style bridges supported by pointed arches.

[36] In the choir, the very large window of the Lady chapel is made to fill the entire upper part of the wall, so that it bathes the vault in daylight, particularly in the morning.

The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner wrote of the early 14th-century choir of Bristol that "from the point of view of spatial imagination" it is not only superior to anything else in England or Europe but "proves incontrovertibly that English design surpasses that of all other countries" at that date.

From the nave can be seen the intricate tracery of the east window echoed in the rich lierne pattern of the tower vault, which is scarcely higher than the choir, and therefore clearly visible.

[46][48] The approach to the chapter house is through a rib-vaulted ante-room 3 bays wide, whose pointed arches provide a solution to that room's rectangular shape.

The ribs, walls and columns display a complex interplay of carved patterns: chevron, spiral, nailhead, lozenge and zigzag.

[52][53] During the restoration led by Street, most of the work on the glass was by Hardman & Co.; these include the rose window and towers at the west end and the Magnificat in the Elder Lady Chapel.

[55] A Victorian era window under the cathedral's clock, marked "to the glory of God and in memory of Edward Colston" and commemorating that 17th-century Royal African Company magnate and Bristol philanthropist, was ordered to be covered in June 2020 in advance of its eventual removal.

[56] The cathedral dean previously considered removing the memorial window in 2017 but said in a radio broadcast in February it would cost "many, many thousands of pounds".

[58][57] The legacy of Colston became contentious because of his involvement in, and profit from, the transatlantic slave trade in enslaved Africans, and came to a head after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020.

[65] In the north choir aisle is a chest tomb to Bishop Bush (died 1558) which includes six fluted Ionic columns with an entablature canopy.

[68] Dame Joan is represented in effigy lying beneath the armorials of Wadham and those of both her husbands, Giles Strangways MP (1528–1562) of Melbury Sampford, with her the ancestor of the Earls of Ilchester, and John Young MP (1519–1589) with whom she built the Great House Bristol from 1568, of which only the Red Lodge, now the Red Lodge Museum, Bristol and completed by Dame Joan in 1590 after the death of her husband, remains today.

[69] Queen Elizabeth I stayed with Joan and Sir John Young at The Great House when she visited Bristol in 1574, and the Red Lodge Museum with its Tudor panelled rooms and wood carvings is only a short walk from the cathedral.

[70] The importance of exploration and trade to the city are reflected by a memorial tablet and representation in stained glass of Richard Hakluyt (died 1616) is known for promoting the settlement of North America by the English through his works.

However, some of the original work, including the case and pipes, is incorporated into the present instrument, which was built by J. W. Walkers & Sons in 1907, and which is to be found above the stalls on the north side of the choir.