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.
[Illustration: BRISTOL CATHEDRAL, FROM COLLEGE GREEN.]
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.