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Top Attractions in Bristol

St Vincent's Cave

Clifton Observatory (grid reference ST564733) is a former mill, now used as an observatory, located on Clifton Down, close to the Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, England. The building was erected, with the permission of the Society of Merchant Venturers, as a windmill for corn in 1766 and later converted to the grinding of snuff, when it became known as 'The Snuff Mill'. This was damaged by a fire on October 30, 1777, when the sails were left turning during a gale and caused the equipment to catch light. It was then derelict for 52 years until in 1828 William West, an artist, rented the old mill, for 5 shillings (25p) a year, as a studio. In 1977, the Merchant Venturers sold the observatory to Honorbrook Inns; however, they were obliged to maintain public access to the camera obscura whose ownership was retained by the Merchant Venturers. It has been designated by English Heritage as a grade II* listed building and is on the Buildings at Risk Register. In February 2015 the Observatory was bought by Ian Johnson, a local Bristol-based entrepreneur, who was born in Clifton not far from the Observatory.

Stoke Bishop

Stoke Bishop is a very affluent and medium-sized outer city suburb in the north-west of Bristol, located in between Westbury-on-Trym, Sneyd Park, and Sea Mills. Although relatively small, Stoke Bishop's population has increased due to substantial infilling on the Smelting Works sports ground and The Grove which used to belong to Clifton High school. The population of Stoke Bishop varies throughout the year because of the influx of students to the large campus of halls of residence situated on the edge of the suburb and the Downs during university term time. Stoke Bishop is also the name of a council ward, which also includes Sneyd Park, most of the Downs and a small area of Sea Mills along the River Trym. The suburb is concentrated around a small village hall and a row of shops on Druid Hill, with a number of small local businesses. The association with Druids arose from a megalithic monument, apparently the remains of a burial chamber, discovered in 1811 off what is now Druid Hill. Druid Stoke House, a Grade II listed building west of Druid Hill dates from the late 18th or early 19th century. The suburb of Druid Stoke was developed in the grounds of Druid Stoke House in the 1930s. Within Stoke Bishop there is a church, St Mary Magdalene ; one primary school, Stoke Bishop C of E Primary, sometimes called Cedar Park, because of its location; and a village hall, which is used for a variety of activities from dog training to karate. There also remains one playing field, Stoke Lodge, mainly used by local schools for athletics, football, and cricket. Recently, a children's play park has been added to this field with parking available at the lodge itself which hosts the thriving Stoke Bishop Adult Adult Education Centre. The historic Stoke House and Park lie in Stoke Bishop. The house was built in 1669 as a family mansion for Sir Robert Cann, Member of Parliament, Mayor of Bristol and Merchant Venturer. It is currently occupied by Trinity College, Bristol. Stoke Bishop Cricket Club play at Coombe Dingle Sports Complex. The cricket club has two senior men's XIs: the 2010 season has just finished with the 1st XI winning Bristol & District League Division 1 (thus gaining promotion to the Senior Division of the Bristol & District League), while the 2nd XI finished 5th in Bristol & District League Division 2. The club also boasts a thriving junior section composed of U9, U11, U13, U15 and U17 teams. Next to the primary school is Bristol Croquet Club, which has had many influential international members. The small port of Abona at Sea Mills at the mouth of the River Trym was used by the Roman military forces passing in transit to Roman settlements in what is now South Wales. There are ruins of a small Roman villa at the entrance to Roman Way from the Portway. The Roman legionaries had a transit camp on what were the grounds of Nazareth House (a Roman Catholic Orphanage) near that villa. Nazareth House was used until the 1970s and was then demolished. Bombs fell in Roman Way during the Second World War, destroying one house completely.

SS Great Britain

SS Great Britain is a museum ship and former passenger steamship, which was advanced for her time. She was the longest passenger ship in the world from 1845 to 1854. She was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel for the Great Western Steamship Companys transatlantic service between Bristol and New York. While other ships had been built of iron or equipped with a screw propeller, Great Britain was the first to combine these features in a large ocean-going ship. She was the first iron steamer to cross the Atlantic, which she did in 1845, in the time of 14 days. The ship is 322 ft in length and has a 3,400-ton displacement. She was powered by two propeller engines of the direct-acting type, with twin 88 in bore, 6-foot stroke cylinders. She was also provided with secondary sail power. The four decks provided accommodation for a crew of 120, plus 360 passengers who were provided with cabins and dining and promenade saloons. When launched in 1843, Great Britain was by far the largest vessel afloat. However, her protracted construction and high cost had left her owners in a difficult financial position, and they were forced out of business in 1846 having spent all their funds re-floating the ship after she was run aground at Dundrum Bay after a navigational error. In 1852 she was sold for salvage and repaired. Great Britain carried thousands of immigrants to Australia from 1852 until converted to sail in 1881. Three years later, she was retired to the Falkland Islands where she was used as a warehouse, quarantine ship and coal hulk until scuttled in 1937. In 1970, following a cash donation by Sir Jack Hayward that paid for the vessel to be towed back to the UK, Great Britain was returned to the Bristol dry dock where she was built. Now listed as part of the National Historic Fleet, she is an award-winning visitor attraction and museum ship in Bristol Harbour, with between 150,000 and 200,000 visitors annually.

Clifton Observatory

Clifton Observatory (grid reference ST564733) is a former mill, now used as an observatory, located on Clifton Down, close to the Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, England. The building was erected, with the permission of the Society of Merchant Venturers, as a windmill for corn in 1766 and later converted to the grinding of snuff, when it became known as 'The Snuff Mill'. This was damaged by a fire on October 30, 1777, when the sails were left turning during a gale and caused the equipment to catch light. It was then derelict for 52 years until in 1828 William West, an artist, rented the old mill, for 5 shillings (25p) a year, as a studio. In 1977, the Merchant Venturers sold the observatory to Honorbrook Inns; however, they were obliged to maintain public access to the camera obscura whose ownership was retained by the Merchant Venturers. It has been designated by English Heritage as a grade II* listed building and is on the Buildings at Risk Register.

Old Market

Old Market is a Conservation Area of national significance, to the east of the city centre in Bristol, England. Old Market Street and West Street form the central axis of the area, which is approximately bounded by New Street and Lawfords Gate to the north, Trinity Road and Trinity Street to the east, Unity Street and Waterloo Road to the south and Temple Way Underpass to the west. Old Market Street is an ancient market place which developed immediately outside the walls of Bristol Castle on what was for many centuries the main road to London ; on market days Jacob Street and Redcross Street, which run parallel to Old Market Street, took the through traffic. Old Market’s Pie Poudre Court, which dealt out summary justice to market-day offenders, was not formally abolished until 1971. The area contains some of Bristol’s most ancient buildings, including the last two remaining houses jettied over the pavement and over sixty listed buildings. Old Market suffered decades of neglect and severe decline in the mid-20th century due to the removal of Bristol’s historic central shopping area from Castle Street to Broadmead and the construction of Temple Way Underpass and Easton Way, which severed it from Bristol’s pre-war shopping axis in both directions. Some important buildings still suffer from neglect, but the actions of local conservationists together with grant-aided schemes in the wake of its declaration as a Conservation Area in 1979 have done much to arrest the decline. Old Market has in recent years become a centre of Bristol’s gay scene, and has been proclaimed as ‘Bristol’s Gay Village’.

Denny Island

Denny Island is a small rocky island of 0.24 hectares , with scrub vegetation, in the Severn Estuary. Its rocky southern foreshore marks the boundary between England and Wales. Above high water mark, the island is reckoned administratively to Monmouthshire, South Wales. The island also marks the north-western limit of the City of Bristol's water boundary in the Severn estuary. It is located approximately three miles north of Portishead, midway between Redwick in Wales and Avonmouth in England. It is surrounded by sandbanks known as the Welsh Grounds. Its foreshore area changes dramatically according to the state of the tide, because tides in the estuary and Bristol Channel are the second highest in the world, reaching 13.7 m at the spring equinox. It is known as a nesting-place for gulls, cormorants and other seabirds, which are regularly seen and ringed there.

Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery

Bristol Museum Art Gallery is a large museum and art gallery in Bristol, England. The museum is situated in Clifton, about 0.5 miles from the city centre. As part of Bristol Museums, Galleries Archives it is run by the city council with no entrance fee. It holds designated museum status, granted by the national government to protect outstanding museums. The designated collections include: geology, Eastern art, and Bristols history, including English delftware. In January 2012 it became one of sixteen Arts Council England Major Partner Museums. The museum includes sections on natural history as well as local, national and international archaeology. The art gallery contains works from all periods, including many by internationally famous artists, as well a collection of modern paintings of Bristol. In the summer of 2009 the museum hosted an exhibition by Banksy, featuring more than 70 works of art, including animatronics and installations; it is his largest exhibition yet. It was developed in secrecy and with no advance publicity, but soon gained worldwide notoriety. The building is of Edwardian Baroque architecture and has been designated by English Heritage as a grade II* listed building.

Wild Place Project

The Wild Place Project is an extension to Bristol Zoo. In 2008 Bristol Zoological Society announced plans to submit plans to South Gloucestershire Council for the development of a new 55-hectare park. It is expected to cost for the circa £70 million and is scheduled to open in 2012. It will be on the northern outskirts of Bristol, close to Junction 17 of the M5, opposite Cribbs Causeway. The Park has been designed to link specific ecosystems and conservation programmes across the world, and will be split into biomes, representing species found only in specific habitats. Some of the biomes to be included are Congo Basin Tropical Forest, Central American Swamp, African Savannah, Sumatra Tropical Forest, Nepal Riverine Forest, Coral Reef, British Ancient Woodland and British Wetlands. The species list for each ecosystem has not yet been finalised, but is likely to include Manatees, Crocodiles, Bonobos, Okapi, Bongo, Sudan cheetah, Sumatran tiger, Orangutan, Giraffe, Zebra, Warthog, Kudu, African hunting dog, Rhinoceros, Brown bear and Wolf. Development of the Park has been supported by the South West of England Regional Development Agency through a grant of £1.5million. The park officially opened on 22 July 2013. On 13 March the Wild Place Project announced via Facebook that The wolves had arrived. They are five European grey wolves.

Fire-float Pyronaut

Pyronaut (originally Bristol Phoenix II) is a specialised form of fireboat known as a fire-float. It was built in 1934 by Charles Hill & Sons Ltd., Albion Dock Bristol, Yard No. 208. Registered number 333833. She is owned by Bristol Museums and based at M Shed in Bristol's Floating Harbour. Originally powered by two Petter Atomic diesel engines rates at 55 bhp (41 kW) each. Two Merryweather & Sons three-cylinder reciprocating pumps capable of delivering 500 imperial gallons (2,300 l; 600 US gal) of water per minute. This equipment was replaced in 1968 by two Ruston & Hornsby 6YDM six-cylinder diesel engines rated at 90 bhp (67 kW) each, driving screw propellers from the front power-take-off, and Coventry Climax centrifugal pumps capable of delivering 1,000 imperial gallons (4,500 l; 1,200 US gal) of water per minute from the main drive.

Lawrence Weston

Lawrence Weston is a post war housing estate in north west Bristol between Henbury and Shirehampton. The estate is bounded in the east by the Blaise Castle estate and woods. It is situated at the edge of the Severn flood plain, directly beneath the wooded Kingsweston Hill. The industrial complex and port of Avonmouth is a mile or so west, across the flood plain. Lawrence Weston forms part of the city ward of Kingsweston. Lawrence Weston was originally a hamlet, a tything of the parish of Henbury. It was transformed in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when the estate was built, absorbing both the original hamlet and the neighbouring hamlet of Kings Weston. Originally council owned, much of the housing stock is now in private hands. It is known as "El Dub" or "L Dub" to its inhabitants. The row of shops in Ridingleaze has been revamped and each shop is now adorned with a mural. Lawrence Weston is well known locally for its vibrant facilities for young people. There are two youth centres, a BMX track, a young peoples shop called Juicy Blitz and a Youth Inclusion project. It has a community farm and a range of clubs and groups for young people. Kings Weston House and Kings Weston Roman Villa both lie near the western end of the estate.

Glenside Museum

Glenside Museum is situated within the Glenside Campus of the University of the West of England in Fishponds, Bristol, England. The museum was founded by Dr Donal F. Early; a consultant psychiatrist at Glenside Hospital from the 1950s. He collected items of memorabilia and started a collection on the balcony of the dining hall of Glenside. When the building closed, the collection was re-located to the Glenside Chapel, and the collection slowly was built up to the museum it is today. The chapel was built in 1861 and is a grade II listed building. The museums collection consists of a wide range of paraphernalia and images from the life of Glenside Hospital and of the local Learning disability Hospitals of the Stoke Park Group and the Burden Neurological Institution. The museum has drawings and paintings by the accomplished artist Dennis Reed who painted images of life at Glenside during the 1950s. These painting are located in the chancel. The museum charges no entrance fee, but depends on donations from the public. Exhibits include several early Electroconvulsive therapy machines. One of the most celebrated workers at the former Bristol Lunatic Asylum was the painter Stanley Spencer who worked there in 1915-1916 as medical orderly in the Royal Army Medical Corps. During the Great War the asylum was turned over to military use and renamed the Beaufort War Hospital. It had to accommodate some 1,460 wounded soldiers at any one time, usually more. A number of the patients were retained to perform menial duties. As is recounted in Paul Goughs book, Journey to Burghclere Spencer had a difficult time in the hospital, leavened by moments of quiet reverie, as the painter wrote of his second day: "I had to scrub out the Asylum Church. It was a splendid test of my feelings about this war. And I still feel the necessity of the war, I have seen some sights, but not what one might expect. The lunatics are good workers one persists in saluting us always with the wrong hand. Another one thinks he is an electric battery... " On 14 December 2009, on the 50th anniversary of Spencers death the University of the West of England — who now own the hospital building — held a celebratory event to unveil a series of artwork and a blue plaque remembering the painters time in the vast teeming metropolis of the Beaufort.

Arnolfini

The Arnolfini is an international arts centre and gallery in Bristol, England. It has a programme of contemporary art exhibitions, artists performance, music and dance events, poetry and book readings, talks, lectures and cinema. There is also a specialist art bookshop and a café bar. Educational activities are undertaken and experimental digital media work supported by online resources. A number of festivals are regularly hosted by the gallery. Arnolfini is funded by Bristol City Council and Arts Council England, with some corporate and individual supporters. The gallery was founded in 1961 by Jeremy Rees, and was originally located in Clifton. In the 1970s it moved to Queen Square, before moving to its present location, Bush House on Bristols waterfront, in 1975. The name of the gallery is taken from Jan van Eycks 15th-century painting, The Arnolfini Portrait. Arnolfini has since been refurbished and redeveloped in 1989 and 2005. Artists whose work has been exhibited, include Bridget Riley, Rachel Whiteread, Richard Long and Jack Yeats. Performers have included Goat Island Performance Group, the Philip Glass Ensemble, and Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company. The gallery reached a new audience in April 2010, when it was chosen to host one of the three 2010 general election debates.

Clifton Suspension Bridge

The Clifton Suspension Bridge is a suspension bridge, which opened in 1864, spanning the Avon Gorge and the River Avon, linking Clifton in Bristol to Leigh Woods in North Somerset, England. Since opening it has been a toll bridge. The income from the tolls continues to provide funds for its maintenance. The bridge is built to a design by William Henry Barlow and John Hawkshaw, based on an earlier design by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It is a grade I listed building and forms part of the B3129 road. The idea of building a bridge across the Avon Gorge originated in 1753. Original plans were for a stone bridge and later iterations were for a wrought iron structure. In 1831, an attempt to build Brunels design was halted by the Bristol riots, and the revised version of his designs was built after his death and completed in 1864. Although similar in size, the bridge towers are not identical in design, the Clifton tower having side cut-outs, the Leigh tower more pointed arches atop a 110-foot red sandstone-clad abutment. Roller-mounted "saddles" at the top of each tower allow movement of the three independent wrought iron chains on each side when loads pass over the bridge. The bridge deck is suspended by 162 vertical wrought-iron rods in 81 matching pairs. Two men were killed during the bridges construction; since opening it has gained a reputation as a suicide bridge. It has plaques that advertise the telephone number of The Samaritans and above the railings on the bridge there are anti-climb barriers. The Clifton Bridge Company initially managed the bridge under licence from a charitable trust. The trust subsequently purchased the company shares, completing this in 1949 and took over the running of the bridge using the income from tolls to pay for maintenance. The bridge is a distinctive landmark, used as a symbol of Bristol on postcards, promotional materials, and informational web sites. It was also used as a backdrop to several films and television advertising and programmes. It has also been the venue for significant cultural events such as the first modern bungee jump in 1979, the last ever Concorde flight in 2003 and a handover of the Olympic Torch relay in 2012.
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