Bristol Harbour

Between Bristol Temple Meads railway station and Hotwells, the harbour and the River Avon run parallel at a distance of no more than 5⁄8 mile (1 kilometre) apart.

Coastal trade was also important, with the area called "Welsh Back" concentrating on trows with cargoes from the slate industry in Wales, stone, timber and coal.

[7] The limitations of Bristol's docks were causing problems to business, so in 1802 William Jessop proposed installing a dam and lock at Hotwells to create the harbour.

The scheme included the construction of the Cumberland Basin, a large wide stretch of the harbour in Hotwells where the Quay walls and bollards have listed building status.

The Feeder Canal between Temple Meads and Netham provided a link to the tidal river so that boats could continue upstream to Bath.

[5] The SS Great Britain was to be towed away from her builders, to have her 1,000 hp engines and interior fitted out on the River Thames,[10] but her 48 ft (14.6 m) beam was too big to pass through the lock.

[citation needed] By the middle of the nineteenth century there was a regular steam packet passenger service to Cork, Waterford, Dublin, Tenby, Carmarthen, Haverford West, Milford Haven, Swansea, Cardiff and Newport operated by the Bristol General Steam Navigation Company from Broad Quay in St Augustine's Reach.

Its route included a tunnel under St Mary Redcliffe church and a steam-powered bascule bridge over the entrance locks at Bathurst Basin.

In 1906, new branches from the south via the Ashton Avenue swing bridge were built to Canons Marsh on the north side of the Floating Harbour and to Wapping via a line alongside the New Cut.

[citation needed] The docks maintenance facility was established on the land exposed by the damming of the river to construct the harbour and remains sited at this location to the present day.

It is built of red brick with a slate roof and contains pumping machinery, installed in 1907 by Fullerton, Hodgart and Barclay of Paisley, which powers the dock's hydraulic system of cranes, bridges and locks.

[citation needed] Robinson's Warehouse built in 1874 by William Bruce Gingell,[19] and the Granary[20] on Welsh Back are examples of the Bristol Byzantine style with coloured brick and Moorish arches.

However, the city centre docks continued to be used for smaller trading ships until the early 1970s, despite suffering significant damage to its infrastructure during the Bristol Blitz.

[22] In 1977 Charles Hill & Sons, the last shipbuilder at the Albion Yard, closed after delivering the 1,541 tonne beer tanker Miranda Guinness.

Occasionally coastal trading vessels enter the Cumberland Basin to be loaded with large steel silos manufactured by Braby Ltd at their nearby Ashton Gate works.

[25] The old Junction Lock swing bridge is powered by water pressure from the Underfall Yard hydraulic engine house at 750 psi (5,200 kPa; 52 bar).

In 2000, the @Bristol centre opened on semi-derelict land at Canon's Marsh and some of the existing Grade II listed buildings were refurbished and reused.

[28] It is being carried out under the guidance of The Harbourside Sponsors’ Group, which is a partnership between the City Council, key stakeholders, developers, businesses, operators and funders.

The Bristol Harbour Railway, operated by M Shed, runs between the museum and the CREATE Centre on some weekends and bank holidays.

These include Isambard Kingdom Brunel's SS Great Britain, which was the first iron-hulled and propeller-driven ocean liner;[10] and a replica of the Matthew, in which John Cabot sailed to North America in 1497.

[33] In late July each year, the Bristol Harbour Festival is held, resulting in an influx of boats, including tall ships, Royal Navy vessels and lifeboats.

A larger version of the annual harbour festivals, this was attended by many tall ships, including the Eye of the Wind, Pride of Baltimore, Rose, Kaskelot and Earl of Pembroke.

[37] In June 2020, the statue of Bristol slave trader Edward Colston was pushed into the harbour by protestors, after being pulled down from its plinth, jumped upon and daubed in paint.