The Centre is a public open space in the central area of Bristol, England, created by covering over the River Frome.

[1] The northern end of The Centre, known as Magpie Park, is skirted on its western edge by Colston Avenue;[2] the southern end is a larger paved area bounded by St Augustine's Parade to the west, Broad Quay the east, and St Augustine's Reach (part of the Floating Harbour) to the south, and bisected by the 2016 extension of Baldwin Street.

[12] The Centre owes its form to the channel dug in the 1240s to provide additional quays and wharves for the burgeoning Bristol Docks.

The Drawbridge was rebuilt for the fourth and final time in 1868, but by 1893 when it was replaced by a fixed structure it had been a source of "great congestion" to traffic (including the new trams) for many years,[4] often being left open for twenty minutes while ships were roped up.

In 1896 the Bristol Tramways and Carriage Company (BT&CC) moved their head office to premises at 1–3 St Augustine's Parade, where they remained until 1970.

[17] The Tramways Centre became the most important of the BT&CC's three central termini, serving more routes than the others at Bristol Bridge and Old Market.

[29] In 1938 construction started on a culvert covering the area between St Augustine's Bridge and the southern end of Broad Quay.

[9] After the war the central space was planted with lawns, ornamental borders and golden Irish yews and became known as the Centre Gardens.

Magpie Park was reduced in length, Colston Avenue was widened and many of the (by then) mature plane trees were felled.

By the mid-1990s, the road across Queen Square had been closed and plans were being developed to re-balance The Centre in favour of pedestrians and public transport.

These plans include the possibility of prohibiting private vehicles from crossing The Centre on the east–west axis, as mooted in the 1996 consultation.

The new layout reduced the number of routes available to general traffic, some of which was diverted away from the area, whilst improving segregation for cycles and buses.

[40] On 7 June 2020, the statue of Colston was pulled down during a Black Lives Matter demonstration, following the murder of George Floyd in the United States.

On Broad Quay, the former head office tower of the Bristol and West Building Society was repurposed in 2011 into a hotel[45] and serviced flats.