Richard Coates addresses another place-name mystery of Bristol, putting forward a number of persuasive possibilities. This article explores the exotic-sounding name of the polluted three-and-a-half-mile stream which joins the Bristol Avon from the south in Bedminster.
Tag: the River Avon
‘Far below her former station’: Jessop, Brunel and Bristol’s Floating Harbour
The opening of the Floating Harbour on 1 May 1809 was followed by an open-air feast for 1,000 of the workers who had laboured for five years to create the world's largest area of impounded water for shipping. Unfortunately, this happy event soon degenerated into an unseemly drunken brawl apparently involving groups of English and Irish labourers, resulting in numerous arrests and personal injuries. In a sense the working class were simply standing in for rival factions among the city's elite, who were taking a breather after half a century of argument about how to modernise the ancient port of Bristol, and who would soon be at it again, once the consequences of the new harbour began to emerge. Peter Maplass retells the story of ingenious civil engineering, crediting William Jessop, and reframing Brunel’s contribution.
The Severn District Sea Fencibles 1803 to 1810
Although the greatest popular movement in Georgian Britain was probably that formed around military volunteering during the wars against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, historians have written comparatively little on the subject and even when an attempt has been made the maritime volunteers have hardly ever commanded more than a few vague paragraphs. This is unfortunate as an examination of pay lists in the Public Record Office, letters in the Bristol Record Office and the columns of contemporary local newspapers have revealed a useful amount of information. John Penny investigates this shadowy corps, put in place to protect the Severn Estuary against possible French naval incursions.