The name
Temple Meads derives from the nearby
Temple Church, which was gutted by bombing during the
Second World War. The word "meads" is a derivation of "mæd", an
Old English variation of "mædwe",
meadow, referring to the water meadows alongside the
River Avon that were part of Temple parish. As late as 1820 the site was undeveloped
pasture outside the boundaries of the old city, some distance from the commercial centre. It lay between the
Floating Harbour and the city's cattle market, which was built in 1830.
Brunel's station The original terminus was built in 1839–41 for the
Great Western Railway (GWR), the first passenger railway in Bristol, and was designed by
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the railway's engineer. It was built to accommodate Brunel's
broad gauge. The station was on a
viaduct to raise it above the level of the
Floating Harbour and River Avon, the latter being crossed via the Grade I
listed Avon Bridge. The station was covered by a
train shed, extended beyond the platforms by into a storage area and
engine shed, fronted by an office building in the
Tudor style. Train services to
Bath commenced on 31 August 1840 and were extended to
Paddington on 30 June 1841 following the completion of
Box Tunnel. A few weeks before the start of the services to Paddington the
Bristol and Exeter Railway (B&ER) had opened, on 14 June 1841, its trains reversing in and out of the GWR station. The third railway at Temple Meads was the
Bristol and Gloucester Railway, which opened on 8 July 1844 and was taken over by the
Midland Railway (MR) on 1 July 1845. In 1850 an
engine shed was opened on the south bank of the River Avon on the east side of the line to the B&ER station. Between 1859 and 1875, 23 engines were built in the workshops attached to the shed, including several distinctive
Bristol and Exeter Railway 4-2-4T locomotives.
Goods stations junction diagram showing railways around Bristol The GWR built a
goods shed on the north side of the station adjacent to the Floating Harbour, with a small dock for
transhipment of goods to
barges (not seagoing ships, as the wharf was upstream of
Bristol Bridge). Wagons had to be lowered to the goods shed on
hoists. On 11 March 1872, a direct connection to the harbour was made in the form of the
Bristol Harbour Railway, a joint operation of the three railways, which ran between the passenger station and the
goods yard, across the street outside on a bridge, and descended into a tunnel under the churchyard of
St. Mary Redcliffe on its way to a wharf downstream of Bristol Bridge.
Effects of the change of gauge On 29 May 1854 the Midland Railway laid a third rail along their line to Gloucester to provide
mixed gauge so that it could operate
standard gauge passenger trains while broad gauge goods trains could still run to
collieries north of Bristol. Sidings at South Wales Junction allowed traffic to be transhipped between wagons on the two different gauges. The GWR continued to operate its trains on the broad gauge, From the 1960s, the work was usually attributed to Brunel's former associate
Matthew Digby Wyatt, but in 2020 it was established to be by Bristol architect Henry Lloyd under the superintendence of
Francis Fox, the engineer of the B&ER. The curved
wrought-iron train shed over the new through platforms was long on the platform wall. The goods depot was rebuilt, with the inconvenient wagon hoists replaced by a steep incline from the east end of Temple Meads, which meant that the sidings in the goods shed were at right angles to their original alignment; and the barge dock was filled in.
Twentieth-century changes to
Leeds express stands at Platform 7 (now Platform 5) in 1960. is surrounded by the flatter canopies of the newer platforms opened in 1935. In 1924 the goods depot was rebuilt with 15 platforms, each long. Large warehousing and cellar space was provided to store goods, although by this time another city centre goods depot had been opened at
Canons Marsh. The construction of this signal box, completed in 1970, involved the demolition of almost half of the 1870s extension to Brunel's terminus and completely blocked rail access to the Old Station. A second main-line station serving the city, , opened in 1972. It is on the northern outskirts of the
conurbation close to the
M32 motorway and was designed as a
park and ride facility for long-distance travellers. In the late 1960s the
Royal Mail built a mail conveyor at the northern end of the station, with significant aesthetic impact. This was out of use for many years following the transfer of Royal Mail's activities to the West of England Mail Centre at
Filton and the opening of the short-lived Railnet Hub next to Bristol Parkway station in May 2000. It was finally dismantled in stages and removed between October and December 2014. In 1990/91, £2 million was spent by
InterCity on a renovation of the main train shed and another £7 million on restoring some of the older areas of the station, including the refurbishment of the subway and construction of new retail outlets. The shorter of the two 1935 platform islands had been used only for parcels traffic since the 1960s but was temporarily brought back into passenger use during this work. It was fully restored for passenger use in 2001. As part of this work, the quarry from which the
dolomite stone had originally been extracted was reopened in
Abbots Leigh.
Closure of lines Passenger traffic on the old North Somerset line ceased on 2 November 1959, and many more closures followed after the publication of
Dr Beeching's The Reshaping of British Railways in 1963. The connection to the Bristol Harbour Railway was closed on 6 January 1964; passenger trains to
Portishead were withdrawn on 7 September 1964; and most local services in the north of the city were withdrawn on 23 November 1964. The following year saw local services on the Midland route to Gloucester withdrawn and the Midland route to via was closed on 7 March 1966. and on the line towards Bath survived until 5 January 1970. , the shed, now known as the Passenger Shed, is a venue for events such as conferences and weddings.
Enterprise zone and station redevelopment Bristol Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone, an
enterprise zone with an area of centred on Temple Meads, was announced in 2011, and launched in 2012. Network Rail is a partner in coordinating development in the zone. A large bridge above the tracks at the east end of the station which was erected in the 1970s for postal traffic was demolished at Christmas 2014. In November 2016, the
University of Bristol announced that it plans to build a Temple Quarter Campus to the east of the station, replacing the derelict
sorting office which was formerly connected to the station by the bridge. Bristol and Exeter House has been redeveloped by TCN UK as a business hub for
small and medium-sized enterprises. Part of Brunel's station has found a new use in a redevelopment by the City Council, the
University of Bristol and the West of England
Local Enterprise Partnership. Plans to build a 12,000-capacity arena on the former site of the
Bristol Bath Road Traction Maintenance Depot, to the south of the station, were cancelled in 2018.
21st century The Great Western Main Line from London to Bristol was part of
electrification plans first announced by the UK government in 2009. However, because of cost overruns and delays, on 8 November 2016 the government announced that several elements of the programme would be deferred including electrification south-west of Thingley Junction near
Chippenham, and between Temple Meads and
Bristol Parkway. Although this left Temple Meads un-electrified, the
Hitachi Super Express trains are bi-mode so can operate on diesel around Bristol and can use electricity where the electrification work is complete. The electrification plans do not extend west of Bristol, so local services will continue to be provided using diesel trains, with
Class 165/
166s cascaded from
Thames Valley services scheduled to replace the
150/
153/
158s on local services. The
Portishead branch line, which runs along the south side of the
River Avon from a junction just beyond is proposed to be reopened. There is an aspiration of two trains per hour between and Temple Meads in peak periods, possibly calling at and Parson Street. The line was built in the 1860s but closed to passenger traffic in 1964, leaving
Portishead as one of Britain's largest towns without a railway station. The line was reopened for freight traffic to serve
Royal Portbury Docks in 2001, and the restoration of passenger traffic is considered part of the
Greater Bristol Metro scheme, which was given the go-ahead in July 2012 as part of a City Deal, whereby local councils would be given greater control over money by the government. On 1 April 2014,
Network Rail took over management of the station from First Great Western. In December 2021,
South Western Railway services to
London Waterloo were withdrawn, followed by GWR services to
Brighton in 2022. In 2024, direct services to were reintroduced by GWR on a trial basis on Saturdays only. In March 2025, the regional transport body covering Oxford,
England's Economic Heartland, proposed an hourly, all-week Bristol to Oxford service to start from 2026. A new station reception was opened in 2023, replacing the information desk on platform three.
Refurbishment In 2013, it was announced that the station roof would be refurbished as part of a scheme to transform the station over the 25 years commencing 2013. In September 2021, foundations were installed for a planned eastern entrance to the station. Following the erection of scaffolding inside the station, work on the roof began in April 2022. ==Description==