Archaeological finds, including flint tools believed to be between 300,000 and 126,000years old made with the
Levallois technique, indicate the presence of
Neanderthals in the
Shirehampton and
St Annes areas of Bristol during the
Middle Palaeolithic.
Iron Age hill forts near the city are at
Leigh Woods and
Clifton Down, on the side of the
Avon Gorge, and on
Kings Weston Hill near
Henbury. A
Roman port,
Portus Abonae (Avonport) – abbreviated to
Abona in the
Antonine Itinerary, existed at what is now
Sea Mills (connected to
Bath and
Gloucester by
Roman roads); another settlement was at the present-day
Inns Court. Isolated
Roman villas and small
forts and settlements were also scattered throughout the area.
Middle Ages Bristol was founded by 1000; by about 1020, it was a trading centre with a
mint producing silver pennies bearing its name. By 1067, Brycgstow was a well-fortified
burh, and that year the townsmen beat back a raiding party from Ireland led by three of
Harold Godwinson's sons. Under
Norman rule, the town had one of the strongest
castles in
southern England. Bristol was the place of exile for
Diarmait Mac Murchada, the Irish
king of Leinster, after being overthrown. The Bristol merchants subsequently played a prominent role in funding
Richard Strongbow de Clare and the
Norman invasion of Ireland. 's map of Bristol, drawn when he became common clerk of the town in 1478. At the centre, it shows the
High Cross, moved in 1764 to the
Stourhead estate. The port developed in the 11th century around the confluence of the
Rivers Frome and
Avon, adjacent to
Bristol Bridge just outside the town walls. By the 12th century, there was an important
Jewish community in Bristol which survived through to the late 13th century when all Jews were
expelled from England. The stone bridge built in 1247 was replaced by the current bridge during the 1760s. The town incorporated neighbouring suburbs and became a
county in 1373, the first town in England to be given this status. During this period, Bristol became a shipbuilding and manufacturing centre. By the 14th century, Bristol,
York and
Norwich were England's largest
medieval towns after London. One-third to one-half of the population died in the
Black Death of 1348–49, which checked population growth, and its population remained between 10,000 and 12,000 for most of the 15th and 16th centuries.
15th and 16th centuries During the 15th century, Bristol was the second most important port in the country, trading with Ireland, Iceland and
Gascony. It was the starting point for many voyages, including
Robert Sturmy's (1457–58) unsuccessful attempt to break the Italian
monopoly of Eastern Mediterranean trade. New exploration voyages were launched by Venetian
John Cabot, who in 1497 made landfall in North America. A 1499 voyage, led by merchant
William Weston of Bristol, was the first expedition commanded by an Englishman to
North America. During the first decade of the 16th century, Bristol's merchants undertook a series of exploration voyages to North America and even founded a commercial organisation, 'The Company Adventurers to the New Found Land', to assist their endeavours. However, they seem to have lost interest in North America after 1509, having incurred great expenses and made little profit. During the 16th century, Bristol merchants concentrated on developing trade with Spain and its American colonies. This included the
smuggling of prohibited goods, such as food and guns, to Iberia during the
Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604). Bristol's illicit trade grew enormously after 1558, becoming integral to its economy. The original
Diocese of Bristol was founded in 1542, when the former
Abbey of
St. Augustine (founded by
Robert Fitzharding four hundred years earlier) became
Bristol Cathedral. Bristol also gained
city status that year.
17th and 18th centuries In the 1640s, 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. Fishermen from Bristol, who had fished the
Grand Banks of Newfoundland since the 16th century, began settling Newfoundland permanently in larger numbers during the 17th century, establishing colonies at
Bristol's Hope and
Cuper's Cove. Growth of the city and trade came with the rise of England's
American colonies in the 17th century. Bristol's location on the west side of Great Britain gave its ships an advantage in sailing to and from the New World, and the city's merchants made the most of it, with the city becoming one of the two leading outports in all of England by the middle of the 18th century. Bristol was the slave capital of England: In 1755, it had the largest number of slave traders in the country with 237, as against London's 147. It was a major supplier of slaves to
South Carolina before 1750. 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 The 18th century saw an expansion of Bristol's population (45,000 in 1750) and its role in the
Atlantic trade in Africans taken for
slavery to the Americas. Bristol and later
Liverpool became centres of the
Triangular Trade. 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. 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. At the height of the
Bristol slave trade from 1700 to 1807, more than 2,000 slave ships carried a conservatively estimated 500,000 people from Africa to slavery in the Americas. In 1739,
John Wesley founded the first
Methodist chapel, the
New Room, in Bristol. Wesley, along with his brother
Charles Wesley and
George Whitefield, preached to large congregations in Bristol and the neighbouring village of
Kingswood, often in the open air. Wesley published a pamphlet on slavery, titled
Thoughts Upon Slavery, in 1774 and the
Society of Friends began lobbying against slavery in Bristol in 1783. The city's scions remained nonetheless strongly anti-abolitionist.
Thomas Clarkson came to Bristol to study the slave trade and gained access to the
Society of Merchant Venturers records. One of his contacts was the owner of the
Seven Stars public house, who boarded sailors Clarkson sought to meet. Through these sailors he was able to observe how slaver captains and first mates "plied and stupefied seamen with drink" to sign them up. Other informants included ship surgeons and seamen seeking redress. 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. 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. By 1867, ships were getting larger and the meanders in the river Avon prevented boats over from reaching the harbour, resulting in falling trade. The port facilities were migrating downstream to
Avonmouth and new industrial complexes were founded there. Some of the traditional industries including copper and brass manufacture went into decline, but the import and processing of
tobacco flourished with the expansion of the
W.D. & H.O. Wills business. Supported by new industry and growing commerce, Bristol's population (66,000 in 1801), quintupled during the 19th century, resulting in the creation of new suburbs such as
Clifton and
Cotham. These provide architectural examples from the Georgian to the Regency style, with many fine terraces and villas facing the road, and at right angles to it. 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, the
Royal West of England Academy, and
The Victoria Rooms.
Riots broke out in 1793 and 1831; the first over the renewal of
tolls on Bristol Bridge, and the second against the rejection of the second
Reform Bill by the
House of Lords. The population by 1841 had reached 140,158. The Diocese of Bristol had undergone several boundary changes by 1897 when it was "reconstituted" into the configuration which has lasted into the 21st century.
20th century From a population of about 330,000 in 1901, Bristol grew steadily during the 20th century, peaking at 428,089 in 1971. Its Avonmouth docklands were enlarged during the early 1900s by the Royal Edward Dock. Another new dock, the
Royal Portbury Dock, opened across the river from Avonmouth during the 1970s. As air travel grew in the first half of the century, aircraft manufacturers built factories. The unsuccessful
Bristol International Exhibition was held on Ashton Meadows in the
Bower Ashton area in 1914. After the premature closure of the exhibition the site was used, until 1919, as
barracks for the
Gloucestershire Regiment during
World War I.
Bristol was heavily damaged by Luftwaffe raids during
World War II; about 1,300 people living or working in the city were killed, and nearly 100,000 buildings were damaged, at least 3,000 beyond repair. The original central shopping area, near the bridge and castle,
is now a park containing two bombed churches and fragments of the castle. A third bomb-damaged church nearby,
St Nicholas, was restored and, after a period as a museum, has now re-opened as a church. It houses a 1756
William Hogarth triptych painted for the high altar of
St Mary Redcliffe. The church also has statues of
King Edward I (moved from
Arno's Court Triumphal Arch) and
King Edward III (taken from Lawfords' Gate in the city walls when they were demolished about 1760), and 13th-century statues of
Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester (builder of
Bristol Castle) and
Geoffrey de Montbray (who built the city's walls) from Bristol's
Newgate. The rebuilding of
Bristol city centre was characterised by 1960s and 1970s
skyscrapers,
mid-century modern architecture and
road building. Beginning in the 1980s some
main roads were closed, the
Georgian-era Queen Square and
Portland Square were restored, the
Broadmead shopping area regenerated, and one of the city centre's tallest mid-century towers was demolished. Bristol's road infrastructure changed dramatically during the 1960s and 1970s with the development of the
M4 and
M5 motorways, which meet at the
Almondsbury Interchange just north of the city and link Bristol with London (M4 eastbound),
Swansea (M4 westbound across the
Severn Estuary),
Exeter (M5 southbound) and
Birmingham (M5 northbound). Bristol was bombed twice by the
IRA, in
1974 and again in
1978. The 20th-century relocation of the docks to
Avonmouth Docks and
Royal Portbury Dock, downstream from the city centre, has allowed the redevelopment of the old dock area (the Floating Harbour). Although the docks' existence was once in jeopardy (since the area was seen as a derelict industrial site), the inaugural 1996
International Festival of the Sea held in and around the docks affirmed the area as a leisure asset of the city.
21st century On 7 June 2020 a
Statue of Edward Colston was pulled down from its city centre plinth by protestors and pushed into the harbour. The statue was recovered on 11 June and has become a museum exhibit. The action followed more than a decade of debate over the statue and the wording of its plaque, which commemorated Colston's philanthropic work in the city while making no reference to his role in the
Royal African Company and the
Bristol Slave Trade. ==Government==