Out by the Western Gate the Avon runs, with Holloway Hill and Beechen Cliff conspicuous landmarks on its left. By Twerton—“the town on the banks of the Avon”—there are large cloth-mills on the riverside, relics of the monastic industries established by the monks of Bath so far back as the fourteenth century. Fielding Terrace, in this town, is the reputed neighbourhood of the residence of the novelist, who is said to have written a part of “Tom Jones” during his stay.
VIEW FROM NORTH PARADE BRIDGE, BATH.
VIEW FROM THE OLD CITY BRIDGE, BATH.
Now the Avon is in its beloved valley, deep and green again. Three miles, or a little more, from the city, a beautiful circling knoll seems to shut in the vale. The hill is crowned with a handsome house, and ornamented with woodland and lawn. Kelston Round Hill, as this impressive eminence is called, is 730 feet above the sea-level, the Avon winding at its foot and the ascending groves of Newton Park reaching to the fine prospect and the highest hill in this part of Somerset. Ere, at this point, we bid a reluctant adieu to the beauties of Bath, it should be pointed out that in most of the commanding and delightful views obtainable from all the vantage points in and about the city the Avon and its fertile valley conspicuously figure, heightening the interest of each entrancing scene. It is no exaggeration to say that the neighbourhood of Bath is rife with scenic charms. The cliffs, ravines, and deep excavations in the strata lend endless variety to the landscape, which is finely compact of hill, vale, rock, wood and water, the striking beauties of the Avon’s course ever and anon lending a crowning grace to the view.
Below Kelston the more expanded vale of the Keynsham Hams succeeds. Flowing round this rich tract of land, the Avon becomes the dividing line between Gloucester and Somerset. Just beyond, within the parish of Keynsham, and midway between the sister cities of Bath and Bristol, the waters of yet another tributary, the Chow, a stream which has come down from the north side of the Mendip Hills, are gathered up.
Contracted in its channel for more than a mile between lofty rocks at Hanham, the Avon, emerging from its straitened circumstances, diverts itself with the strikingly sinuous course which it then follows between Brislington and St. George’s, ere it is sobered and dignified by its contact with the traditional Caer Oder, “the City of the Chasm,” the birthplace of Sebastian Cabot, of Southey, and of Chatterton. Before the river begins to be tidal, it has another, perhaps its greatest, recruit in the Lower Frome. After a picturesque course, the Frome washes the Bishop’s Palace at Stapleton, enters Bristol, and there loses itself in the Lower Avon.
Between modern Bristol and the great port of the “spacious times” the difference is one of degree only, for the commercial spirit is still strong in the sons of Cabot and Canynge; and, amid the thick smoke that overhangs the very centre of the city, there rise e’en to-day the tall spars, fluttering pennons, and the rigging of the ships of the mercantile marine that made the name of the opulent city known in every port and on every sea, and brought to Bristol by the tidal river the trade that trimmed her sails to the breeze of fortune and set her course fair on the voyage to fame and prosperity. One of the earliest chapters of the history of the city is connected with the river. It records the building of the first bridge over the Avon in 1247, an undertaking mentioned in a charter of Henry II. This bridge united the city with what was then the suburb of Redcliffe. To-day, this association is splendidly preserved by that golden historical link, the “finest and stateliest parish church in England,” as Queen Elizabeth pronounced the edifice of St. Mary Redcliffe on her visit to Bristol in 1753. The style is the Early English, though the richly sculptured northern doorway and some other portions belong rather to the Decorated Period. The structure was founded about the year 1300, but was enlarged, beautified, and, in fact, refounded by William Canynge, whose effigy, with that of his wife Joan, will be found at the end of the south transept. The upper part of the stone steeple was struck down by lightning in 1445, and not rebuilt for upwards of four hundred years. It was in the muniment room of this church that young Thomas Chatterton professed to have found a number of curious MSS. in prose and poetry, the boy-poet’s ingenious deception long escaping detection. Such success, which might never have attended the confessed productions of his own precocious genius, gave the gifted lad of seventeen the necessary stimulus, and his growing ambition led him to London, where he became a mere literary hack, and took a life threatened by starvation. A handsome monument in St. Mary Redcliffe churchyard pays Bristol’s tribute to her great, but unhappy, son. Of St. Mary Redcliffe, the “pride of Bristowe,” Camden said it was “the most elegant of all the parish churches I have ever seen.”
The present bridge replaced the thirteenth-century causeway in 1768. It was in 1247 that the course of the Frome was diverted to a new channel. Anciently, the city boundaries were the two confluent rivers which environed it with a natural defence on all sides save one, where a castle stood, protected by a broad deep moat supplied with water from the Frome, which at that time flowed by its northern walls. In Bristol Castle the son of the Conqueror, Robert, was shut up by his brother Henry.
Though it has been justly said of the Cathedral that it is remarkable neither for antiquity nor beauty, being far inferior to St. Mary Redcliffe in at least one of these respects, the Berkeley chapel, forming the north aisle of the choir, is worthy of note as an elegant example of Early English. The spacious nave, with side aisles and clerestory in the Early Decorated style, is a modern addition. Among the animated busts are those of Joseph Butler, of “Analogy” fame—one of Bristol’s famous line of bishops, two of whom were of the “glorious company” of seven—Robert Southey, and the “Dorcas” of the city, Miss Mary Carpenter.