Bristol Bridge, now modified but basically still the stone structure completed in 1768, stands almost on the same site as the late Anglo-Saxon Umber crossing which gave rise to its name. Brycgstow, the place of the bridge became colloquialism to Bristol, thus indicating its much later foundation compared with that of Bath.

image above: The Imperial Tobacco Building Bedminster

The development of Bristol was closely related to that of the inland port which evolved at this lowest bridge-point over the Avon. The port also provided much of the impetus for growth in local Industry.

Early exports of woollen cloth together with imports of agricultural produce, dried fish, wine and other continental luxuries were added to later by trade in the new raw materials from North America. Sugar, tobacco and dye-woods were among the goods which required processing, but the New Plantations also required supplies of domestic and industrial materials which increased the local range of production, to become notable for its diversity.

Natural resources augmented the trend. Supplies of coal locally available from the thirteenth century had encouraged a number of trades from soap making to dyeing, and later glass manufacture and innovation in the smelting of metals. Resources from nearby Mendip added lead, calamine and ochre, all of which were processed within city boundaries. Bristol's long sea-faring involvement proved a springboard for a wider interest in other methods of transport as they developed, with Brunel leading the way with his great ships and his Great Western Railway which followed Clifton Suspension Bridge.

image above: Maintenance workers on the Clifton Suspension Bridge high above the Avon

Sir George White later provided other connections with transport history when his early interest in urban electric tramways progressed to the establishing of Bristol's aeroplane industry. Features of the industrial archaeology of Bristol represent the wide spread of its industrial history from early to more recent times.

Harvey's Wine Cellars, Denmark Street

The cellars are believed to date back on this site to medieval times, when owned by the monastery of St Augustines. Harvey's created a museum from their central premises here after moving into the suburbs. The wine and sherry trade, its tools, bottles, fine glasses and all accroutrements are displayed.

Brunel House, St George Street

Recently renovated, the frontage survives from the hotel built at Brunel's instigation, to accommodate a proposed passenger service for those travelling from the Great Western Railway to embark on the SS Great Western.

image above: Bristol Gas Company 1932 Brandon Yard Holder under construction at Canons' Marsh

Canons Marsh Gas Works

The shell of Bristol's first gas works built in 1816 survived at Temple Back until demolition in the early 1980s. Its rival at Canon's Marsh, originally established to produce oil gas in the 1820s eventually merged with the earlier company and became the main site. A classical office building and some bold pennant-sandstone remains of the working structures are all approaching dereliction.

Victoria Pumping Station, Oakfield Road

An early Bristol Waterworks pump- house which still retains in situ a 1912 Halthorn Davy inverted triple-expansion engine of 1912, a successor to earlier steam pumping equipment The system is now electrically operated.

Goldney Tower, Goldney House, Clifton

Built by Thomas Goldney in 1754, this ornamental tower housed a Newcomen engine used to pump water to the fountains and grottoes of his garden. Engine replacements suggest that it did not work successfully until 1766 but this building, now somewhat modified appears to be the oldest surviving steam-engine house in the country.

image above: John Harvey Wine Merchants Bristol Cream sherry for the 1953 coronation

Clifton Suspension Bridge

Brunel's first proposals for the bridge met with complete rejection by Telford when adjudicating competitors schemes but his modified design was eventually accepted. Work on the abutments, started in 183 was abandoned a few years later through lack of funds. Only after Brunel's death was the 630ft span of Clifton Gorge finally completed, again slightly modified, as a memorial to the great engineer.

After its 1864 opening this spectacular bridge soon became one of the best-known symbols of Bristol.

Clifton Observatory

A camera obscura displays the surrounding countryside in the adapted shell of a former windmill. Built in 1768 as a corn mill, it was later converted to the processing of snuff which ceased after a disastrous fire in 1777. The observatory dates from 1828.

image above: Ashton Gate Tollhouse

Clifton Rocks Railway

Along the Portway the lower entrance of the rocks railway still has its name displayed although the facade is much obscured by time and the mire of constant traffic. Opened in 1893 the system used the hydraulic water balance method of operation until closure in 1934.

Ashton Gate Tollhouse

A fine example of an urban tollhouse from Bristol Turnpike Trust which has been very well restored and incorporated into residential accommodation. A bow-fronted building with its veranda supported on slender cast iron pillars.

W 0 & H 0 Wills Tobacco Factory, Bedminster

Having moved its main business to the Hartcliffe suburbs of Bristol during the late 1970s, great changes were inevitable at the company's great complex of buildings at Bedminster. During 1986-7 most of the premises were demolished leaving the facade of the 1884.

image above: St Vincent's Works Silverthorne Lane 1982 Offices housed in T.R.Lysaght's neo-Norman 'castle' built 1891

Number One Factory, flanked by two later sections. This now forms the frontage of an arcade behind which is inserted a row of small retail businesses.

Redcliff Glass Cone Prewett Street

The truncated cone of a glass-works, now adapted as a restaurant, is the sole surviving building of a once flourishing Bristol industry. Built c.1870, it housed fertilisers and chemicals until the 1930s when the 60ft cone was reduced to its present height.

The Wool Hall, St Thomas Street

A stone-built warehouse constructed by H S Pope in 1830 exemplifies Bristols last remaining connection with the West Country woollen trade of former centuries. This dignified building is now used as an inn.

Finzel's Sugar Refinery

A huge nineteenth-century building for processing sugar has now all but disappeared, its site having been engulfed by the growth of Georges Bristol Brewery, now Courages. A riverside wall of pennant sandstone with three high windows still survives as a relic of Finzel's factory. The Building now stands empty after Courages moved out of Bristol.

image above: Tramway Generating Station - Counterslip 1978 built by the Bristol Tramways and Carriage Company 1899-1900

Bristol Tramways Power Station

An imposing building constructed in 1899 to house the generating equipment of the growing Bristol service which had formerly been powered from Beaconsfield Road. This later building remained in operation until World War II bombing severed cables on nearby St Phillip's Bridge.

image above: George's Brewery 1920

Central Electric Lighting Station

This building, which still displays its title,opened in 1893 to supply private consumers and public street lighting, eventually housing eighteen Willans central-valve steam engines. By 1802 an additional electricity works was required at Avonbank in Feeder Road, which remained in use until 1955.

Jacob Street Brewery

A surviving section of a large stone-built complex of c.1865 has recently been well restored and incorporated into modern business premises. The high window of the former engine house remains as do the rusticated arched entrances and windows.

Christopher Thomas soap works, Broad Plain

Brick-built with castellated parapets and oorner turrets, now reduced in height, this c.1845 building is the earliest of a group which housed the manufacture of Puritan Soap, now occupied by a furniture and DIY store. An 1865 stone building in Straight Street which displays bold rusticated arched entrances and windows was also part of the soap works complex.

St Vincent's Works, Silverthorne Lane From mid-nineteenth galvanising business John Lysaght progressed being described as largest of its kind country by 1873. Later in century a grand neo-Norman entrance was added to the premises which still survives.

image above: Temple Meads Railway Station is boarded up after it was damaged in a bombing-raid

image above: Evidence that the great engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was not always right! This was taken in the 1870s and shows workmen at Temple Meads replacing Brunel's much vaunted broad gauge lines with the standard gauge used by most of the rest of the country In the background is the Bristol and Exeter railway building

Old Temple Meeds Station

The Bristol terminus of Brunel's Great Western Railway is the oldest surviving mainline terminus still virtually intact, and an outstanding historic railway monument Threats of demolition in 1966 were thwarted and the building is now undergoing extensive restoration. Behind the highly decorative neo-Tudor facade, a cast-iron columned engine shed gives way to the train shed. The 72ft central span of the timber roof is flanked by 20ft aisles over the platform, all part of a cantilever construction often described as a hammerbeam roof from its superficial appearance.

Temple Meads tramways track

At ground level, between Brunel's old station and the incline of the station approach, a length of track laid in cobbles still survives although rather hidden away.

Temple Meads Station

The present-day working station, built by Sir Matthew Digby Wyatt in 1878 accommodates the sharp bend needed to link the original routes of the GWR and the line of Bristol and Exeter Company. The clock tower lost its high Victorian roof during World War II bombing but the building is still an impressive accompaniment to, and often mistaken for, Brunels original Temple Meads.

Bristol & Exeter Railway Offices

image above: 1954 - The mill was later rebuilt next to Hazel Brook on Blaise estate

A neo-Jacobean style building, designed by S C Fripp, and completed in 1854. Demolition was thought to be imminent in the late 1960s but the building has since been renovated aid the stonework cleaned, retaining the striking collection of railway architecture to be seen at Temple Meads today.

Three Lamps Fingerpost, Totterdown

Junction of A4 and A37 A fine cast-iron doric-columned post indicating the way to either Bath or Wells with cut-out lettering. It was replaced during 1986 after a long absence through road alterations and has now been refurbished and surmounted by three lamps at the instigation of the Bristol Civic Society.

image above: The Black Castle in 1946

Brislington Tram Shed

A long row of arched sheds built by the Bristol firm of Lysaght c.1914 was approached through an imposing stone entrance block Later used by the bus service, the tall iron gates still retain the Bristol Omnibus Company initials, but the building is now used as a depot for council vehicles.

Black Castle, Arno's Vale

Outbuildings and stables built mainly of copper slag blocks were added to Arnos Court in 1764 by the owner, William Reeve. He had married into the Andrews family, major partners of the Bristol brass company who were smelting copper at nearby Crew's Hole.

image above: The Brabazon under construction in its enormous purpose-built assembly hall

Engine Cottage, Brislington

This dwelling within yards of the A4 in Brislington, clearly converted from a colliery beam-engine-house illustrates the known records tor coal-mining activity in Brislington. although the history of this particular site is not known at present.

image above: Tobacco Bond B and Ashton Swing Bridge 1978 The upper deck of the swing bridge has been removed B Tobacco Bond was built in 1908

Netham Alkali Works

Bricked-up archway entrances through a high wall which once gave access from the riverside to the chemical works beyond are the main relics of a century of large-scale alkali production which closed in 1949.

Crew's Hole Tar Distillery

Originally, creosote was the main product produced here from coal tar from the 1840s, for the preservation of timbers used by the GWR The manager, William Butler, later acquired the business and gradually increased the range of products. More recently passing to South-West Gas, then British Steel, the works closed in 1981 and the site was quickly cleared. The boundary walls still retain copper slag fragments of the earlier copper-smelting site once situated here.

image above: Bristol Wagon & carriage Works at Lawrence Hill

Crew's Hole coalworks

A square chimney containing copper slag blocks sited at the bottom of Troopers Hill is from a former colliery engine-house. Spoil from the mine can be seen further up the hill.

Troopers Hill Chimney

The pennant-stone chimney which creates such a landmark on the summit of the hill is from a sulphur-extraction flue system leading from the Crews Hole copper-works of the eighteenth century.

Tramway Depot and Power Station, Beaconsfield Road

The stables and shed of an earlier horse-drawn tram service, established in 1875, were converted to use for electric trains in 1895 and a power station added. There are plans to demolish the building.

The Old Poorhouse, St George

An interesting old poor-house built in 1800 was abandoned during the 1830s and converted to industrial use. After being used as a pottery, it was converted to a soap-works then occupied by Avon Tin Printers within more recent memory. It is now being used as an engineering works.

Pin Factory, Two Mile Hill

The traditional pin-making industry of the Bristol area was revived by eighteenth-century production of brass wire. Robert Charlton, quaker industrialist established a factory in the following century. Another factory at Staple Hill was later used by a ladder-making business.

Whitwood Mill, Stapleton

Traditional watermill sites have almost disappeared within city boundaries but traces can be discovered of a series of mills on the Bristol Frome above Stapleton, where snuff-grinding became the main activity. Whitwood Mill still retains some original masonry and a modified water-wheel together with an egg-ended boiler and flywheel from its latter days as a part steam-driven grist mill, all of which has been more fully revealed and conserved by a voluntary project of recent years.

image above: Butler's Tar Distilling Works Crew's Hole 1950

Filton Aeroplane Works

The original offices of Sir George White's conglomerate of aeroplane companies, established in 1910, are still standing although dwarfed by by the enormous growth of the industry since its establishment. In this complex but just outside the city boundaries, stands the Brabazon Hangar built specifically for the construction of the ill-fated Bristol aircraft but now used for contemporary projects.

Reinforced concrete railway bridge, Hallen

A bridge carrying the Avonmouth Docks to Filton line over an accommodation road near Hallen was the first mainline railway bridge to be built of reinforced concrete in Great Britain. Using the Hennobique system it was constructed in 1907.

Stratford Mill, Blaise Castle House Museum

A typical small country grist mill with an undershot wheel driving one pair of stones retains much of its timber-work although reconstructed here. It was dismantled from the bed of Chew Valley Reservoir before flooding for rebuilding at the museum. Displays in the museum also include material from Fry's chocolate works, pinmaking machinery and other items of industrial interest.

Cast-Iron footbridge, Kingsweston Lane

A small footbridge erected for the Kingsweston estate is of the attractive circled-span design used extensively by the Coalbrooke Company, but its date and provenance are so far unknown.

Tram Depot. Westbury

A small shed from the urban electric tram era is still recognisable in its adaption to garage premises.

Horfield Tram Shed

Less obviously showing its original purpose in its adaption to business premises, this tram shed is situated north of the Church Road junction with Gloucester Road.

Railway Bridge, Cheltenham Road

Clifton Extension Railway opened in 1874 linking the Avonmouth line to the route from Bristol to South Wales by means of an extensive tunnel beneath Clifton Downs and this handsome iron bridge.

The Academy/Plaza, Cheltenham Road

Of the many city cinemas which have been abandoned for their former purpose, the Academy which opened in 1914, later to be called the Plaza, still retains its original appearance. It now houses a Christadelphian Hall.

Stokes Croft Carriageworks

Designed in 1862 by Edward Godwin for the Perry carriage-building business, this dignified building in typical Bristol style was later occupied by Anderson's rubber factory. It has been restored in recent years in its re-adaption to modem business premises.

The Rolls Royce Of Buses

Bristol's world famous bus-building company in Brislington was closed 20 years ago. We look at how one of south Bristol's last factories finally reached the end of the road BUSES had been built in Bristol since 1913 - exactly 90 years ago. But in 1983, the bus manufacturer, which had been in sad decline for some years, finally had the rug pulled from underneath it by motor giant British Leyland. It was yet another big factory closure in the area in the wake of Robertson's Jams (of the famous Golliwog brand) and St Anne's Board Mills. British Leyland, which had owned Bristol Commercial Vehicles since the late 70s, approved the death sentence because of a decline in demand for buses - brought about by reduced Government money to operators.

It was a sad end for BCV, a company launched in 1913 with a truly bright future before it. It had all begun when Sir George White, the chairman of Bristol Tramways and Carriage Company, decided he could build his own buses. A factory was set up next to the Colonial Aeroplane Company premises in Filton and the first bus rolled out of the factory later the same year. It was of a type C45, the pride of the Bristol bus fleet, and was followed by the C50 type in 1914. A new motor constructional works was begun in Brislington in 1912 where Bristol Boxkites and Fighter planes were also built. And by the 20s, BCV was building not only buses, but goods vehicles and lorries.

The double-decker arrived in 1936, as the company grew bigger and bigger. Towards the end of 1935 it became too big for its Filton factory, and bought another factory in Chatsworth Road, half a mile from the present Brislington site. In the 50s and 60s, BCV was at its peak, producing hundreds of vehicles a year, and employing more than 1,000 people. But then British Leyland, a predatory motor giant, elbowed its way into control by buying up shares. It eventually took full control in 1982 when it bought up the National Bus Company's interest in BCV.

But Leyland faced increasing pressure to cut costs, and the end of Government subsidy for public transport led to the death of Bristol Commercial Vehicles. It was a sad fate for the highly skilled work force who only 20 years earlier were celebrating BCV's first 50 years with a special magazine devoted to that triumphant half-century. 'That Bristol has maintained a position in the forefront of this field of vehicle development, and reached and upheld so high a reputation among the heavy vehicle manufacturers is to the credit of all those who have given devoted and faithful service throughout these 50 years, ' the magazine trumpeted in 1963.

They were quite justified in their pride - Bristol buses were exported across the world and were known as the Rolls-Royce of buses for their style and quality. The problem was that when the Government decided to reduce its grants to public transport, bus operators bought fewer and kept hold of old vehicles longer. This meant less work for the men at BCV. BL, in far-off Lancashire, began to look at ways of cutting back at Brislington in 1981, but insisted there were no plans to close down. Even as late as 1982, when more than 90 jobs were axed, BL said the plant was safe from closure. For the workforce who walked through the gates at the Brislington factory, there was sadness mixed with bitterness. Not surprisingly, some never worked again.

On the day they were sacked, workers began to leave for home as early as 9.30am, disenchanted over the way they had been sacrificed by British Leyland.BCV spent its latter years producing bus chassis only while the top parts were fitted at Lowestoft on the east coast. It was a long and ridiculous journey, but half-finished buses with drivers in open cabs muffled against the chilly winds were a regular sight in Bristol. In 1982 BCV built 470 chassis but made a loss for the first time. But even as the 530 sacked workers left the premises, they still believed the company could have a future.

'We've been sold down the river by British Leyland, ' said cleaner Brian Matthews, aged 36.

'This could still have been a great firm under Bristol Commercial Vehicles. Once Leyland moved in we were finished.' The end of an era for BCV was also the end of an era for mother and son Sylvia and Alan Mountain, from Sea Mills, Bristol, both of whom worked at the firm and who left together for the last time. Mrs Mountain worked in the accounts office for five years, and Alan, aged 23, had been there three years. Alan, a driller, said: 'Everyone on the shop floor said the firm could have stayed open. We've been sacrificed.' Mrs Mountain said: 'Everyone came in today with smiles on their faces, and they were sad smiles. It's a sad day.' Management at the factory declined to comment and inquirers were told to ring British Leyland in Lancashire.

Around the world Bristol buses were exported to South Africa, India, America and Rhodesia, and preserved ones can be seen as tourist attractions in the most unexpected places like Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe in the US Former Bristols have ended up as a fire brigade control unit, a tar boiler, a fairground boxer's dining room and a nesting place for birds in the Transvaal One is home to an Arab family in Iraq, another rests at the bottom of a Peruvian river after it sank on a round-the-world trip and a fleet of second-hand models used to run in China.

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