The town of Brycgstow (Old English, “the place at the bridge”) was in existence by the beginning of the 11th century, and under Norman rule acquired one of the strongest castles in southern England. The River Avon in the city centre has slowly evolved into Bristol Harbour, and since the 12th century the harbour has been an important port, handling much of England’s trade with Ireland.

In 1247 a new bridge was built and the town was extended to incorporate neighbouring suburbs, becoming in 1373 a county in its own right. During this period Bristol also became a centre of shipbuilding and manufacturing. Bristol was the starting point for many important voyages, notably John Cabot’s 1497 voyage of exploration to North America.

By the 14th century Bristol was England’s third-largest town (after London and York), with perhaps 15-20,000 inhabitants on the eve of the Black Death of 1348-49. The plague inflicted a prolonged pause in the population growth of Bristol, with numbers remaining at 10-12,000 through most of the 15th and 16th centuries. Bristol was made a city in 1542, with the former Abbey of St Augustine becoming Bristol Cathedral. During the 1640s Civil War the city suffered through Royalist military occupation and plague.

Renewed growth came with the 17th-century rise of England’s American colonies and the rapid 18th-century expansion of England’s part in the Atlantic trade in Africans taken for slavery in the Americas. Bristol, along with Liverpool, became a significant centre for the slave trade although few slaves were brought to Britain. During the height of the slave trade, from 1700 to 1807, more than 2000 slaving ships were fitted out at Bristol, carrying a (conservatively) estimated half a million people from Africa to the Americas and slavery.

Fishermen who left Bristol were long part of the migratory fishery to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and began settling that island permanently in larger numbers around this time. Bristol’s strong nautical ties meant that maritime safety was an important issue in the city, In the 19th century Samuel Plimsoll, “the Sailor’s friend”, campaigned fearlessly to make the seas safer. He was shocked by the scandal of overloaded cargoes and successfully fought for a compulsory loadline on ships.

Competition from Liverpool from c.1760, the disruption of maritime commerce through war with France (1793) and the abolition of the slave trade (1807) contributed to the city’s failure to keep pace with the newer manufacturing centres of the North and Midlands. The long passage up the heavily tidal Avon Gorge, which had made the port highly secure during the middle ages, had become a liability which the construction of a new “Floating Harbour” (designed by William Jessop) in 1804-9 failed to overcome. Nevertheless, Bristol’s population (66,000 in 1801) quintupled during the 19th Century, supported by new industries and growing commerce.

It was particularly associated with the Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who designed the Great Western Railway between Bristol and London, two pioneering Bristol-built steamships, and the Clifton Suspension Bridge. John Wesley founded the very first Methodist Chapel in Bristol in 1739.

Bristol’s city centre suffered severe damage from bombing during World War II. The original central area, near the bridge and castle, is now a park, featuring two bombed out churches and some tiny fragments of the castle. A third bombed church has a new lease of life as St Nicholas’ Church Museum. Like much of British post-war planning, regeneration of Bristol city centre was characterised by large, cheap tower blocks, brutalist architecture and expansion of roads.

Since the 1990s this trend has been reversing, with the closure of some main roads, the restoration of the fine Georgean period Queen’s Square, the regeneration of the Broadmead shopping centre, and in 2006 two of the city centre’s tallest post-war blocks were torn down. The removal of the docks to Avonmouth, seven miles (11 km) downstream from the city centre, relieved congestion in the central zone and allowed substantial redevelopment of the old central dock area (the “Floating Harbour”) in recent decades, although at one time the continued existence of the docks was in jeopardy as it was seen merely as derelict industry rather than a potential asset.

In 1974 the local government was again changed, and Bristol became a non-metropolitan district of the newly formed non-metropolitan county of Avon. When that county was abolished on the April 1, 1996, Bristol returned to its former status of a city and county in itself, becoming one of the newly created unitary authorities. On March 4, 2005, Bristol was granted Fairtrade City status.

Modern History

As the location of aircraft manufacture, Bristol was a target of bombing during World War II. Bristol’s city centre also suffered severe damage, especially in November and December 1940, when the Broadmead area was flattened, and Hitler claimed to have destroyed the city. The original central area, near the bridge and castle, is still a park featuring two bombed out churches and some tiny fragments of the castle. A third bombed church has a new lease of life as St Nicholas’ Church Museum. Slightly to the north, the Broadmead shopping centre was built over bomb-damaged areas.

Like much of British post-war planning, regeneration of Bristol city centre was characterised by large, cheap tower blocks, brutalist architecture and expansion of roads. Since the 1990s this trend has been reversing, with the closure of some main roads and the regeneration of the Broadmead shopping centre, and in 2006 two of the city centre’s tallest post-war blocks were torn down.

The removal of the docks to Avonmouth, seven miles (11 km) downstream from the city centre, relieved congestion in the central zone of Bristol and allowed substantial redevelopment of the old central dock area (the Floating Harbour) in recent decades, although at one time the continued existence of the central docks was in jeopardy as it was seen merely as derelict industry rather than an asset to be developed for public use.

On the evening of December 18, 1974, an IRA bomb exploded on Park Street, at the time busy with shoppers, but killed none. In 1980 a police raid on a cafe in St Paul’s sparked riots.