England, Picturesque and Descriptive: A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel

by Joel Cook

BRISTOL.

Proceeding about twelve miles down the beautiful valley of the Avon, we come to its junction with the Frome, where is located the ancient city and port of Bristol, the capital of the west of England. A magnificent suspension-bridge spans the gorge of the Avon, connecting Bristol with its suburb of Clifton, and it is believed that the earliest settlements by the Romans were on the heights of Clifton and the adjoining Brandon Hill. The Saxons called it Bright-stow, or the "Illustrious City;" from this the name changed to Bristow, as it was known in the twelfth century, and Bristold in the reign of Henry III. When the original owners concluded that it was time to come down from the hills, they founded the city in the valley at the junction of the two rivers. A market-cross was erected where the main streets joined, and Bristow Castle was built at the eastern extremity, where the Avon makes a right-angled bend. The town was surrounded with walls, and in the thirteenth century the course of the Frome was diverted in order to make a longer quay and get more room for buildings. Few traces remain of the old castle, but portions of the ancient walls can still be seen. In the fifteenth century the city-walls were described as lofty and massive and protected by twenty-five embattled towers, some round and some square. The abbey of St. Augustine was also then flourishing, having been founded in the twelfth century. Bristol was in the Middle Ages the second port of England, enjoying lucrative trade with all parts of the world, and in the fifteenth century a Bristol ship carrying nine hundred tons was looked upon with awe as a leviathan of the ocean. Sebastian Cabot, the great explorer, was a native of Bristol, and his expeditions were fitted out there, and it was Bristol that in 1838 built and sent out the first English steamer that crossed the Atlantic, the Great Western. It still enjoys a lucrative trade, and has recently opened new docks at the mouth of the Avon, seven miles below the city, so that this venerable port may be considered as renewing its prosperous career. It has over two hundred thousand population, and in past times had the honor of being represented in Parliament by Edmund Burke. When ancient Bristol was in its heyday, Macaulay says the streets were so narrow that a coach or cart was in danger of getting wedged between the buildings or falling into the cellars. Therefore, goods were conveyed about the town almost exclusively in trucks drawn by dogs, and the wealthy inhabitants exhibited their riches not by riding in gilded carriages, but by walking about the streets followed by a train of servants in gorgeous liveries and by keeping tables laden with good cheer. The pomp of christenings and funerals then far exceeded anything seen in any other part of England, and the hospitality of the city was widely renowned. This was especially the case with the banquets given by the guild of sugar-refiners, where the drink was a rich beverage made of Spanish wine and known as "Bristol milk." In 1831 the opposition of the Recorder of Bristol to the Reform Bill resulted in serious riots, causing a great fire that burned the Mansion House and a large number of other prominent buildings. The troops suppressed the riots after shooting several rioters, and four were afterwards hanged and twenty-six transported. The city has since enjoyed a tranquil history.

BRISTOL CATHEDRAL, FROM COLLEGE GREEN.

NORMAN DOORWAY, COLLEGE GREEN.

Bristol Cathedral was the convent-church of St. Augustine's Abbey, and was begun in the twelfth century. It formerly consisted only of the choir and transepts, the nave having been destroyed in the fifteenth century, but the nave was rebuilt in uniform style with the remainder of the church in 1876. The cathedral presents a mixture of architectural styles, and in it are the tombs of the Earls of Berkeley, who were its benefactors for generations. Among them was Maurice, Lord Berkeley, who died in 1368 from wounds received at Poictiers. The abbot, John Newland, or Nail-heart, was also a benefactor of the abbey, and is said to have erected the magnificent Norman doorway to the west of it leading to the college green. The most attractive portion of the interior of the cathedral is the north aisle of the choir, known as the Berkeley Chapel, a beautiful specimen of Early English style. The side-aisles of the choir are of the same height as the central aisle, and in the transepts are monuments to Bishop Butler, author of the Analogy, and to Robert Southey, who was a native of Bristol. This cathedral is not yet complete, the external ornamentation of the nave and the upper portions of the western towers being unfinished. Forty-seven bishops have sat upon the episcopal throne of Bristol. The old market-cross, which stood for four centuries in Bristol, was removed in the last century, but in 1860 it was replaced by a modern one erected upon the college green. The church of St. Mary Redcliffe, standing upon a red sandstone rock on the south side of the Avon, is the finest church in Bristol, and Chatterton calls it the "Pride of Bristowe and Western Londe." It is an Early Perpendicular structure, two hundred and thirty-one feet long, with a steeple rising over two hundred feet, founded in the twelfth century, but enlarged and rebuilt in the fifteenth century by William Canynge, who was then described as "the richest merchant of Bristow, and chosen five times mayor of the said town." He and his wife Joan have their monuments in the church, and upon his tomb is inscribed the list of his ships. He entered holy orders in his declining years, and founded a college at Westbury, whither he retired. It has for many years been the custom for the mayor and corporation of Bristol to attend this church on Whitsunday in state, when the pavement is strewn with rushes and the building decorated with flowers. In the western entrance is suspended a bone of a large whale, which, according to tradition, is the rib of the dun cow that anciently supplied Bristol with her milk. Sebastian Cabot, in all probability, presented the city with this bone after his discovery of Newfoundland. The chief popular interest in St. Mary Redcliffe, however, is its connection with Thomas Chatterton, born in a neighboring street in 1752, the son of a humble schoolmaster, who ultimately went up to London to write for the booksellers, and there committed suicide at the early age of seventeen. A monument to this precocious genius, who claimed to have recovered ancient manuscripts from the church-archives, stands in the churchyard. Bristol is full of old and quaint churches and narrow yet picturesque streets, with lofty gabled timber-houses.

CLIFTON SUSPENSION-BRIDGE, BRISTOL.

The great gorge of the Avon, five hundred feet deep, is, however, its most attractive possession. The suspension-bridge, erected by the munificence of a citizen, spans this gorge at the height of two hundred and eighty-seven feet, and cost nearly $500,000. It is twelve hundred and twenty feet long, and has a single span of seven hundred and three feet crossing the ravine between St. Vincent's Rocks and the Leigh Woods. Alongside this gorge rises Brandon Hill, which Queen Elizabeth sold to two citizens of Bristol, who in turn sold it to the city, with a proviso that the corporation should there "admit the drying of clothes by the townswomen, as had been accustomed;" and to this day its western slope is still used as a clothes-drying ground. From this the tradition arose—which, however, Bristol denounces as a libel—"that the queen gave the use of this hill to poor freemen's daughters as a dowry, because she took compassion on the many plain faces which she saw in one of her visits." Some hot springs issue out of St. Vincent's Rocks, and these give Clifton fame as a watering-place. A fine pump-house has been built there, and the waters are said to be useful in pulmonary complaints. From this beginning large and ornamental suburbs have been terraced on the rocks and hills above the springs, while on the summit is an observatory. There is a hermitage cave of great antiquity carved in the perpendicular face of the rock just above the river, and known as the "Giant's Hole." The entire neighborhood is full of charming scenery, and thus the ancient port presents varied attractions, combining business profit with recreation, while from the hilltops there are glorious views extending far down Bristol Channel to the dim hills of South Wales.