Bristol

The city's modern economy 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 Ground (Bristol).

[12] Archaeological finds, including flint tools believed to be between 300,000 and 126,000 years old made with the Levallois technique, indicate the presence of Neanderthals in the Shirehampton and St Annes areas of Bristol during the Middle Palaeolithic.

[44] In 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.

[51] Manufactured goods were shipped to West Africa and exchanged for Africans; the enslaved captives were transported across the Atlantic to the Americas in the Middle Passage under brutal conditions.

[52] 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.

When William Wilberforce began his parliamentary abolition campaign on 12 May 1788, he recalled the history of the Irish slave trade from Bristol, which he provocatively claimed continued into the reign of Henry VII.

[61] His major speech on 2 April 1792 likewise described the Bristol slave trade specifically, and led to the arrest, trial and subsequent acquittal of a local slaver captain named Kimber.

[62] 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 the West Midlands.

[63] 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 a compulsory load line on ships.

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,[70] the Royal West of England Academy,[71] and The Victoria Rooms.

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.

[113] 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 a lesser extent, education and business investment.

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.

[134] 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.

[138][139] Local initiatives include Sustrans (creators of the National Cycle Network, founded as Cyclebag in 1977)[140] and Resourcesaver, a non-profit business established in 1988 by Avon Friends of the Earth.

"[152] 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."

[156] In 2007 the European Spatial Planning Observation Network (ESPON) defined Bristol's functional urban area as including Weston-super-Mare, Bath and Clevedon with a total population of 1.04 million, the twelfth largest of the UK.

[162] One of the UK's most popular tourist destinations, Bristol was selected in 2009 as one of the world's top-ten cities by international travel publishers Dorling Kindersley in their Eyewitness guides for young adults.

[184][185] A £500 million shopping centre, Cabot Circus, opened in 2008 amidst predictions by developers and politicians that the city would become one of England's top ten retail destinations.

With a highly skilled workforce drawn from its universities, Bristol claims to have the largest cluster of computer chip designers and manufacturers outside Silicon Valley [citation needed].

[249] Bristol City Women were formerly based at Twerton Park, but now share Ashton Gate as a home venue with the men's team and occasionally relocate to The Robins High Performance Centre in Failand for cup games.

[278] Linguist Stanley Ellis, who found that many dialect words in the Filton area were linked to aerospace work, described Bristolian as "a cranky, crazy, crab-apple tree of language and with the sharpest, juiciest flavour that I've heard for a long time".

[288][289][290] Bristol has been awarded Purple Flag status[291] on many of its districts, which shows that it meets or surpasses the standards of excellence in managing the evening and night-time economy.

[295] Equipped with a sound system and stage which are used every weekend for gigs of every genre, the bar and the connected Full Moon Pub were rated by The Guardian, a British daily paper, as one of the top ten clubs in the UK.

[310] In 2005, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown named Bristol one of six English 'science cities',[311] and a £300 million science park was planned at Emersons Green.

[315] Cecil Frank Powell was the Melvill Wills Professor of Physics at the University of Bristol when he received the 1950 Nobel Prize for, among other discoveries, his photographic method of studying nuclear processes.

Colin Pillinger[316] was the planetary scientist behind the Beagle 2 project, and neuropsychologist Richard Gregory founded the Exploratory (a hands-on science centre which was the predecessor of At-Bristol/We The Curious).

[317] Initiatives such as the Flying Start Challenge encourage an interest in science and engineering in Bristol secondary-school pupils; links with aerospace companies impart technical information and advance student understanding of design.

[336] In 2006, a project to develop a bus rapid transit system (BRT) named MetroBus was started,[337] with the purpose of providing a faster and more reliable service than buses, improving transport infrastructure and reducing congestion.

Fifteenth-century pictorial map of Bristol, radiating from the town centre
Robert Ricart 's map of Bristol, drawn when he became common clerk of the town in 1478. At the centre, it shows the High Cross . [ 20 ]
A stone built Victorian Gothic building with two square towers and a central arched entrance underneath a circular ornate window. A Victorian street lamp stands in front of the building and on the right part of a leafless tree, with blue skies behind.
West front of Bristol Cathedral
The 17th-century Old Dutch House, High Street, Bristol, before destruction in the Blitz, 1940
An engraving showing at the top a sailing ship and paddle steamer in a harbour, with sheds and a church spire. On either side arched gateways, all above a scroll with the word "Bristol". Below a street scene showing pedestrians and a horse-drawn carriage outside a large ornate building with a colonnade and arched windows above. A grand staircase with two figures ascending and other figures on a balcony. A caption reading "Exterior, Colston Hall" and Staircase, Colston Hall". Below, two street scenes and a view of a large stone building with flying buttresses and a square tower, with the caption "Bristol cathedral". At the bottom views of a church interior, a cloister with a man mowing grass and archways with two men in conversation.
An 1873 engraving showing Colston Hall, the port and cathedral of Bristol
Black-and-white etching showing the towers of St Stephen's Church , St Augustine the Less Church and Bristol Cathedral , published c. 1850
An old ordnance survey map of Bristol, showing roads, railways, rivers and contours.
A 1946 map of Bristol
St Mary le Port Church, destroyed on 24 November 1940
Ambrose Road, in the Cliftonwood neighbourhood
Bristol from Princes Wharf
A view across Bristol from Princes Wharf
A large brick building, built in a shallow curve, with a central porch. In front of that a pool and a water fountain.
City Hall , the seat of local government
Acoat of arms, with a shield showing a sailing ship and a castle with maned lions on either side, surmounted by the helmet from a suit of arms and two hands holding a snake and scales of justice. The motto at the bottom is "Virtute et Industria"
Coat of arms of the City Council
A tall church spire over a quayside with wooden sheds and boats covered with tarpaulins. In front of these on the water a twin masted sailing boat and a narrowboat
St Mary Redcliffe church and the Floating Harbour , Bristol
Suspension bridge between two brick built towers, over a wooded gorge, showing mud and water at the bottom. In the distance are hills.
Brunel 's Clifton Suspension Bridge
Rocky side to a gorge with a platform in front of a cave halfway up. To the right are a road and river. In the distance are a suspension bridge and buildings.
Avon Gorge and Clifton Suspension Bridge , looking towards the city of Bristol
Two ornate metal pillars with large dishes on top in a paved street, with an eighteenth-century stone building behind, upon which can be seen the words "Tea Blenders Estabklishec 177-". People sitting at café-style tables outside. On the right are iron railings.
Two of the four Nails (bronze tables used for conducting business) in Corn Street
A view from below of an aeroplane in flight, with a slender fuselage and swept back wings.
Final Concorde flight on 26 November 2003, shortly before landing on the Filton runway
An imposing eighteenth-century building with three entrance archways, large first-floor windows and an ornate peaked gable end above.
The Coopers Hall, entrance to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre Royal complex
A long two-storey building with 4 cranes in front on the quayside. Two tugboats are moored at the quay.
Site of the former Bristol Industrial Museum , now the M Shed
A painting on a building showing a naked man hanging by one hand from a window sill. A man in a suit looks out of the window, shading his eyes with his right hand, behind him stands a woman in her underwear.
Well Hung Lover , one of many Banksy artworks in the city, which has since been vandalised with blue paint (partially cleaned by the city council)
Clay models of Wallace and Gromit on display at St. Georges, Bristol
Large, square two-storey house at the end of a dirt path
Garden front of John Vanbrugh's Kings Weston House , Bristol
A seventeenth-century timber-framed building with three gables and a traditional inn sign showing a picture of a sailing barge. Some drinkers sit at benches outside on a cobbled street. Other old buildings are further down the street, and in the background part of a modern office building can be seen.
The Llandoger Trow , a historic Bristol pub
In the foreground twentieth century housing can be seen amidst trees and on the right a tower block of flats. In the middle distance a complex of red coloured buildings can be seen and behind that a steep sided gorge with a suspension bridge spanning it. Eighteenth century terraces on the right side of the gorge, the slopes of which are heavily wooded and a tower can be seen in the distance on the skyline.
Ashton Gate Stadium , with the Clifton Suspension Bridge over the Avon Gorge in the background
The Memorial Stadium , home of Bristol Rovers
A large number of hot air balloons taking off from a field which is surrounded by tents and stalls. The sun is low in the sky and balloons can be seen flying into the distance.
Bristol International Balloon Fiesta
An ornate brick tower surrounded by trees. The tower has balconies and is surmounted by a pitched roof with an ornate figure at the apex.
Cabot Tower , seen from the Brandon Hill park
BBC Broadcasting House as seen from Whiteladies Road
A Palladian style nineteenth century stone building with a large colonnaded porch. In front a large metal statue on a pedestal and fountains with decorations.
The Victoria Rooms, owned by the University of Bristol
A tall stone nineteenth century with shields on the visible sides and a pepperpot upper storey. In front, traffic and pedestrians on a busy street.
The Wills Memorial Building on Park Street , part of the university
Bristol Temple Meads station
Royal Portbury Dock.
Port of Bristol
An aerial view of an airport with one main runway, car parks on the left and right, and aircraft parked outside terminal buildings on the right.
Bristol Airport , Lulsgate
The walls and tower of an old ruined church set in a paved area and surrounded by a park. On the left is water with some pontoons moored and in the background office blocks, streets and church spires.
St Peter's ruined church in Castle Park , Bristol