Bristol Coalfield

Comprising the coal-bearing rocks arranged around the Coalpit Heath Syncline and Kingsdown Anticline, it extends beneath the eastern parts of the city of Bristol and northwards through southern Gloucestershire.

In 1793, William Matthew's reported in his history and directory of Bristol that:"The advantages arising to the inhabitants from having plenty of coal so near to the City are very great, as well from its use to families who burn it profusely, and to poor people who are rendered warm and comfortable by it, in the winter, as to the various manufactories of glass, sugar, spirits, iron and brass, in which there is a great consumption of it.

They are brought to Bristol in Wagons, carts and on horses, and are sold to the inhabitants at 14d the sack which holds two bushels and a half.

Coal was also worked on a very small scale in the rocks of the Clapton-in-Gordano inlier just to the south of the Severn Coalfield.

In the small 'Nailsea Basin' 7 miles (11 km) to the west of Bristol, a sequence of Coal Measures rocks are preserved within a syncline.