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Having a harbour right in the city centre gave Bristol an unrivalled attraction for visitors who gazed in wonder at the sight of tall masts -'In the middle of the street, as far as you can see, hundreds of ships, their masts as thick as they can stand by one another, which is the oddest and most surprising sight' imaginable wrote Alexander Pope in 1732.
Bristol... with a thousand-year history as a port, the sea reflects the heart of the Bristol
A long street, full of ships in the middle and houses on both sides, looks like a dream. It's a dream that no one will ever see again. Picturesque it may have been but the ships got in the way of the traffic.
The Changing Face of Bristol's Centre - it's had more facelifts than Michael Jackson
Bristol people wanted the centre to be opened up to show the River Frome running through it. The City Council have spent a great deal of time and money renovating our city centre. Some people absolutely hate what they've done.
The Centre has been redesigned with illuminated pillars and water gardens. But it all hides one of the great engineering feats of the early Middle Ages. The new look Centre is, says the city council, what most people want.
But there is still a lot of nostalgia for the days when ships could still moor outside St Mary-on-the-Quay.
image above: Looking down on the City Centre 1951
It was such a major project for what was little more than a small town that Henry II ordered the men of Redcliffe - then an independent and bitter trade rival to Bristol - to help with the digging.
image above: The Tramway Centre 1958
The King said the trench was for the common good of Bristol and Redcliffe so - ships coming to our port of Bristol may enter and leave more freely and without impediment.
image above: 1936 work began on cutting new roads across the City Centre
The Trench was one of the biggest engineering schemes carried out in medieval times and it provided Bristol with a safe anchorage for centuries.
image above: 1941 machinery arrived to dig up the Centre Gardens in order to provide a pedestrian area spot anything familiar about this scene? - with the more modern developments the 1990s
An open area called The Quay was built on the eastern side of the Trench for ocean-going ships, and Bristol Bridge was rebuilt, closing off the old port of Bristol which was opposite modern Castle Park.
image above: The Old Drawbridge St.Augustine's Parade 1880 back to a time when the River Froome came right into the city centre
It is safe to say that the Trench changed the shape and the fortunes of Bristol, and the medieval walls and remains of old dockside houses are still there, beneath the Centre.
Having a harbour right in the city centre gave Bristol an unrivalled attraction for visitors who gazed in wonder at the sight of tall masts -'In the middle of the street, as far as you can see, hundreds of ships, their masts as thick as they can stand by one another, which is the oddest and most surprising sight' imaginable wrote Alexander Pope in 1732.
A long street, full of ships in the middle and houses on both sides, looks like a dream. It's a dream that no one will ever see again. Picturesque it may have been but the ships got in the way of the traffic.
image above: 1970's Neptune looks out across the City Centre
The work hides one of the most impressive medieval engineering works in the world. A drawbridge was built across the Trench in 1712 and lit with a lantern. It probably wasn't built too well - by 1722 laden carts were forbidden from using it.
In 1788, it was proposed to replace the drawbridge with a fixed stone bridge. The idea was rejected and it was nearly a century before it was raised again.
The Trench wasn't just picturesque - it was smelly as Queen Charlotte discovered in 1817. She was due to be driven across the drawbridge when a ship's rigging became entangled in the lifting mechanism. The stench from the water -then the main city sewage outlet - was so bad the Queen was forced to 'snuff her nose'.
image above: The Tramway Centre 1903 before the river Frome was covered over.
The drawbridge was replaced by a swivelling design in 1817 and a new drawbridge, which could be opened by two men in less than a minute, in 1868. But by 1891, the pres sure of traffic was too great and it was decided to cover in the Trench from the end of the modern Centre to opposite Baldwin Street, and St Mary-on-the-Quay became off the quay..
image above: view of Bristol's Centre 1950
The workmen had to move 1,189 bodies from Sr Augustine's churchyard during the widening of St Augustine's Parade to build replacement wharves. The water was finally covered over by 1893.
image above: 1946 Just after the second World War and the City Centre was used as a car-park
But the harbour was still open from Baldwin Street and it remained that way until 1938. It was then that the river from Baldwin Street to where Neptune's statue is today vanished beneath tons of concrete, 1,600 tons of reinforcing steel and 30,00 tons of rubble, leaving just the short length of the ancient Trench seen today - A lot of people hoped this stretch at least could be opened up again, but the council insisted that more people preferred the option of water gardens.
image above: 1960's view of the City Centre
image above: St.Augustine's Parade looking towards Colston Avenue before the River Froome was covered over
image above: 1929 The Centre viewed from the former CWS building
So that remarkable 700 year old engineering triumph remained buried and unseen and its possible that ships will never again be seen in the centre of the city It seems a very curious way to treat such an important part of Bristol's history...
The Centre has been redesigned with illuminated pillars and water gardens.
Bristol people wanted the centre to be opened up to show the River Frome running through it.
The City Council have spent a great deal of time and money renovating our city centre.
Some people absolutely hate what they've done.
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