Portal:Bristol
The Bristol Portal
Bristol (i/ˈbrɪstəl/) is a city, unitary authority and county in South West England with an estimated population of 437,500 in 2014. People from the city are known as Bristolians. It is England's sixth and the United Kingdom's eighth most populous city, and the second most populous city in Southern England after London.
Iron Age hill forts and Roman villas were built in the area around the confluence of the Rivers Frome and Avon, and it became known as Brycgstow (Old English "the place at the bridge") around the beginning of the 11th century. Bristol received a royal charter in 1155 and was part of Gloucestershire until 1373, when it became a county. From the 13th to the 18th century, Bristol was among the top three English cities after London (with York and Norwich) in tax receipts. Bristol was eclipsed by the rapid rise of Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham during the Industrial Revolution. It borders the counties of Somerset and Gloucestershire, with the historic cities of Bath and Gloucester to the southeast and northeast, respectively. The city has a short coastline on the Severn Estuary (which flows into the Bristol Channel).
Bristol's prosperity has been linked with the sea since its earliest days. Around 1500, it was the base for voyages of exploration to the New World: on a ship out of Bristol, John Cabot was the first European, since the Vikings 500 years earlier, to land in North America in 1497; and William Weston, a Bristol merchant, was the first Englishman to lead an exploration to North America, in 1499. The Port of Bristol was originally in the city centre before commercial shipping moved from Bristol Harbour to the Severn Estuary at Avonmouth. Royal Portbury Dock is on the western edge of the city. Its economy has recently depended on the creative media, electronics and aerospace industries, and the city-centre docks have been redeveloped as centres of heritage and culture. The city has two universities and a variety of artistic and sporting organisations and venues. In 2005, Bristol was named by the UK government one of England's six science cities. It is connected with the surrounding region and the rest of the country by road and rail, including the M5 and M4 (which connect to the city centre by the M32 motorway and Bristol Temple Meads and Bristol Parkway railway stations). Bristol, which was named England's first cycling city in 2008, won the European Green Capital Award in 2015. more about Bristol...
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The station was opened in 1874 by the Great Western and Midland Railways as part of the Clifton Extension Railway, designed to connect the port of Avonmouth to the national rail network. The station had a large gothic revival building on the Bristol-bound platform, with smaller passenger facilities on the opposite platform and a goods yard beyond. Between 1903 and 1930 the station employed an average of 22 staff. Excursion trains were a regular sight, bringing people to nearby Bristol Zoo.
The Severn Beach Line declined over the latter half of the twentieth century, with passenger numbers falling significantly. Goods services at Clifton Down ended in 1965, and all staff were withdrawn in 1967. The line was largely reduced to single track in 1970, leaving Clifton Down as one of the few passing places. Services had decreased to ten per day each direction by 2005, but have since increased to twenty-four trains per day.
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Selected biography
Edmund Burke B. 12 January 1729 – d. 9 July 1797 (aged 68) Edmund Burke PC (/bɜːrk/; 12 January [NS] 1729 – 9 July 1797) was an Anglo-Irish statesman born in Dublin, as well as an author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher, who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party. He is mainly remembered for his support of the cause of the American Revolutionaries, Catholic emancipation, the impeachment of Warren Hastings from the East India Company, and for his later opposition to the French Revolution. The latter led to his becoming the leading figure within the conservative faction of the Whig party, which he dubbed the "Old Whigs", in opposition to the pro–French Revolution "New Whigs", led by Charles James Fox. Burke was praised by both conservatives and liberals in the nineteenth century. Since the twentieth century, he has generally been viewed as the philosophical founder of conservatism. |
Did you know...
From Wikipedia's "Did You Know" archives:
- ... that when Arno's Court Triumphal Arch (pictured) was built in 1760, it incorporated statues from the Bristol city gates which were being demolished at the time?
- ... that when the future 9th, 10th and 11th Baronets of Cockburn were painted with Augusta Anne, the daughter of Francis Ayscough, Dean of Bristol Cathedral, she was the only one dressed?
- ... that the Bristol Festival of Ideas, set up in 2005 as part of the city's bid to become European Capital of Culture, now awards one of the most valuable annual book prizes in the UK?
- ... that the Women's Premiership is currently comprised of Bristol Ladies, Darlington Mowden Park Sharks, Lichfield Ladies, Richmond Women, Saracens Women, Wasps Ladies, Worcester Ladies and Aylesford Bulls Ladies, after having defeated Thurrock T-Birds in a playoff?
- ... that James Watt asked Sir Joseph Banks PRS to support the Pneumatic Institution, where willing subjects, including its laboratory superintendent, a young Humphry Davy, were given laughing gas?
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Good articles
- 2006–07 Bristol Rovers F.C. season
- Arnolfini
- Ashton Court
- Ashton Court Festival
- Avon Gorge
- River Avon (Bristol)
- Avonmouth (BPRP) railway station
- Avonmouth railway station
- Bedminster railway station
- Tony Benn
- Brislington House
- Bristol Britannia
- Bristol Bus Boycott
- Bristol Cathedral
- Bristol Harbour
- Bristol Old Vic
- Bristol Parkway railway station
- Bristol Rovers F.C.
- Bristol Temple Meads railway station
- University of Bristol
- Mary Carpenter
- Castle Park, Bristol
- Clifton Bridge railway station
- Clifton Down railway station
- Clifton Suspension Bridge
- Climate of south-west England
- Concorde
- The Exchange, Bristol
- Filton Abbey Wood railway station
- River Frome, Bristol
- Cary Grant
- SS Great Britain
- Great Western Railway
- Greyfriars, Bristol
- History of Bristol
- Lawrence Hill railway station
- Leigh Woods National Nature Reserve
- Long Ashton railway station
- Manor Hall, Bristol
- Montpelier railway station
- Jennison Myrie-Williams
- Parson Street railway station
- Patchway railway station
- Pill railway station
- Redland railway station
- St Mary Redcliffe
- Sea Mills railway station
- Shirehampton railway station
- Stapleton Road railway station
- Jessie Stephen
- Paul Stephenson (civil rights campaigner)
- River Trym
- Victoria Rooms, Bristol
- Whitefriars, Bristol
Former good articles
Did you know? articles
- Arno's Court Triumphal Arch
- Avonmouth railway station
- Francis Ayscough
- Bedminster railway station
- Blackfriars, Bristol
- Frederick Bligh Bond
- Brislington House
- Bristol Byzantine
- Bristol Central Library
- Bristol Diamonds
- Bristol Ensemble
- Bristol Festival of Ideas
- Bristol Guild of Applied Art
- Bristol High Cross
- Bristol Ladies
- Bristol Naturalists' Society
- Bristol Packers
- Bristol Packet Boat Trips
- Bristol Pound
- Bristol and South Wales Union Railway
- Dixie Brown
- Castle Park, Bristol
- City Hall, Bristol
- Clifton Antiquarian Club
- Climate of south-west England
- George Cumberland
- Goéry Delacôte
- Murder of Anni Dewani
- The Exchange, Bristol
- Fairfield Grammar School
- Peaches Golding
- Goldney Hall
- Great Gatehouse, Bristol
- Greyfriars, Bristol
- Gromit Unleashed
- Tessa Hadley
- History of the University of Bristol
- History of Bristol Rovers F.C.
- Horseshoe Bend, Shirehampton
- Jacobs Well Theatre
- List of churches preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust in Southwest England
- The Maire of Bristowe is Kalendar
- River Malago
- Mayor of Bristol
- National Nautical School
- New Cut, Bristol
- Clifton Observatory
- Old Library, Bristol
- Mary Perkins
- Pneumatic Institution
- Portway, Bristol
- Red Lodge Museum, Bristol
- Woodes Rogers
- Royal Fort House
- Royal West of England Academy
- Sealing the Tomb
- Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory
- Sorbus × houstoniae
- Jessie Stephen
- Stokeleigh Camp
- Storming of Bristol
- Tower Belle
- Underfall Yard
- William Weston (explorer)
- Whitefriars, Bristol
- Murder of Joanna Yeates
In the News articles
Quotes
- St Mary Redcliffe was described by Queen Elizabeth I as "the fairest, goodliest, and most famous parish church in England."
- Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament.-Edmund Burke in his Speech to the Electors of Bristol (1774-11-03)