Bristol tourist information

There is evidence of settlement in the Bristol area from the palaeolithic era, with 60,000-year-old archaeological finds at Shirehampton and St Annes. There are iron age hill forts near the city, at Leigh Woods and Clifton Down on the side of the Avon Gorge, and on Kingsweston Hill, near Henbury. During the Roman era there was a settlement, Abona, at what is now Sea Mills, connected to Bath by Roman road, and another settlement at what is now Inns Court. There were also isolated villas and small settlements throughout the area.

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 growth of Bristol's population, 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 shopping area, near the bridge and castle, is now a park containing two bombed out churches and some tiny fragments of the castle. A third bombed church nearby, St Nicholas, has been restored and currently houses private city council offices despite containing a triptych by William Hogarth, painted for the high altar of St Mary Redcliffe in 1756. Like much British post-war planning, the rebuilding of Bristol city centre was characterised by large, cheap tower blocks, brutalist architecture and expansion of roads. Since the 1980s this trend has changed with the closure of some main roads, the restoration of the Georgian period Queen's and Portland Squares, the current demolition and rebuilding of the Broadmead shopping centre and, in 2006, one of the city centre's tallest post-war blocks was torn down. The removal of the docks to Avonmouth, seven miles (11 km) downstream from the city centre has also allowed substantial corporate 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 viewed as a derelict industrial site rather than a potential asset.

In summer the grounds of Ashton Court to the west of the city play host to the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta, a major event for hot-air ballooning in the U.K. The Fiesta draws a substantial crowd even for the early morning lift that typically begins at about 6.30 am. Events and a fairground entertain the crowds during the day. A second mass ascent is then made in the early evening, again taking advantage of lower wind speeds. Ashton Court also plays host to the Ashton Court festival each summer, an outdoors music festival which used to be known as the Bristol Community Festival.

The city's principal theatre company, the Bristol Old Vic, was founded in 1946 as an offshoot of the Old Vic company in London. Its premises on King Street consist of the 1766 Theatre Royal (400 seats), a modern studio theatre called the New Vic (150 seats), and foyer and bar areas in the adjacent Coopers' Hall (built 1743). The Theatre Royal is a grade I listed building and the oldest continuously-operating theatre in England. The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which had originated in King street is now a separate company. The Bristol Hippodrome is a larger theatre (1981 seats) which hosts national touring productions, while the 2000-seat Colston Hall, named after Edward Colston, is the city's main concert venue. Other theatres include the Tobacco Factory, QEH and Redgrave Theatres. Bristol is home to many live music venues, of which The Old Duke is perhaps the best known.

The music scene is thriving and significant. From the late 1970s onwards it was home to a crop of cultish bands combining punk, funk, dub and political consciousness, the most celebrated being The Pop Group. Ten years later, Bristol was the birthplace of a type of English hip-hop music called trip hop or the Bristol Sound, epitomised in the work of artists such as Tricky, Portishead, Smith & Mighty and Massive Attack. It is also a stronghold of drum n bass with notable artists such as the Mercury Prize winning Roni Size/Reprazent and Kosheen as well as the pioneering DJ Krust and More Rockers. This music is part of the wider Bristol Urban Culture scene which received international media attention in the 1990s and still thrives today. Bristol's musical pioneering spirit continues as the home to one of the largest and most diverse DIY music communities in the UK.

The Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery houses a collection of natural history, archaeology, local glassware, Chinese ceramics and art. The Bristol Industrial Museum, on the dockside, shows local industrial heritage and operates a steam railway, boat trips, and working dockside cranes. The City Museum also runs three preserved historic houses: the Tudor Red Lodge, the Georgian House, and Blaise Castle House. The Watershed Media Centre and Arnolfini gallery, both in disused dockside warehouses, exhibit contemporary art, photography and cinema.

Stop frame animation films and commercials painstakingly produced by Aardman Animations and high quality television series focusing on the natural world have also brought fame and artistic credit to the city. The city is home to the BBC's regional headquarters, and the BBC Natural History Unit. Locations in and around Bristol often feature in the BBC's natural history programmes, including the cult children's television programme Animal Magic, filmed at Bristol Zoo. The slang term "Bristols", meaning breasts, was popularised in the Carry On series of films - "Bristol City" is Cockney rhyming slang for "titty".

In literature Bristol is noted as the birth place of Thomas Chatterton, chief poet of the 18th-century Gothic literary revival, England's youngest writer of mature verse, and precursor of the Romantic movement. Robert Southey was born in Wine Street, Bristol in 1774, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Southey married the Bristol Fricker sisters; and William Wordsworth spent time in the city where Joseph Cottle first published Lyrical Ballads in 1798.