.The Oldbury Court Park and housing estate is situated about 3.5 miles from the centre of the city of Bristol. It has a recorded history dating back to 1086 and the core of the original Domesday land holding has remained remarkably clear of development for over 900 years. Its proximity to Bristol has inevitably meant that throughout its long history it has been intimately connected with the economic and social development of Bristol'. Anthony Nott looks at the events that transpired, and how it has shaped the history of the place.
Tag: merchants
Bristol in the 1490s
Five hundred years ago, Bristol was the second or third largest town in England ( only London, York, and possibly Norwich outstripped it in wealth and population), but was finding it difficult to maintain this position in the face of increasingly difficult economic conditions. Bristol shared in the problems besetting many of its rivals: population growth was held back by recurrent epidemics, with the result that levels of trade and demand for manufactured goods remained low, while the shortage of tenants meant that houses fell empty and soon decayed; the increasing competition from rural clothiers hit the urban textile industry, and the town's elite showed growing reluctance to volunteer for burdensome and costly civic office. Peter Fleming offers an insight to life in Bristol in the last decade of the fifteenth century.