THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE
Hncient Cities
General Editor : B. C. A. Windle, F.R.S., F.S.A.
BRISTOL
A HISTORICAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL
ACCOUNT OF THE CITY
ST. MARY REDCLIFFE, FROM THE FLOATING HARBOUR
BRISTOL
A HISTORICAL AND
TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCOUNT
OF THE CITY
WRITTEN BY
ALFRED HARVEY, M.B.
ILLUSTRATED BY
E. H. NEW
VI SD.GT>I71Z\>mJXCTC,y&
LONDON
METHUEN AND CO.
First Published in igo6
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
PREFACE ........ xiil
I. ORIGIN AN1> EARLY HISTORY ..... 3
II. BRISTOL UNDER THE NORMAN AND PLANTAGENET
KINGS ........ 19
III. BRISTOL IN THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CEN-
TURIES ........ 45
IV. BRISTOL UNDER LATER SOVEREIGNS .... 67
V. THE CASTLE AND THE WALLS — EARLY HARBOUR
WORKS ........ 95
VI. THE ABBEY AND THE SEE . . . . .119
VII. THE CATHEDRAL ....... 135
VIII. THE LESSER MONASTIC AND COLLEGIATE FOUNDATIONS 155
IX. THE PARISH CHURCHES ...... 183
X. MUNICIPAL INSTITUTIONS ...... 217
XI. CUSTOMS AND AMUSEMENTS — STREETS, HOUSES, AND
CHARITIES ........ 241
XII. SOME DISTINGUISHED NATIVES, RESIDENTS, AND
VISITORS ........ 267
APPENDIX ITINERARY ...... 292
INDEX ......... 297
Vll
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FULL PAGE
PAGE
1. St. Mary Redcliffe, from the Floating
Harbour ...... Frontispiece
2. Bristol, from St. Michael's Hill ... 2
3. St. Mary Redcliffe, from the North-east . 18
4. St. Mary Redcliffe, from the South ... 44
5. The Dutch House ...... 66
6. St. John's Church and Gate .... 94
7. St. Augustine's Abbey . . . . . .118
8. Bristol Cathedral, Interior of Choir . . 134
9. The Mayor's, or Gaunt's Hospital, Chapel . 154
10. St. Mary Redcliffe, Interior .... 182
11. Corn Street ........ 216
12. St. Peter's Hospital 240
13. Clifton Suspension Bridge ..... 266
MAP
Plan of Bristol
290, 291
SMALLER ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Norman House in Small Street .
2. The Red Lodge .....
3. St. Michael's Hill, from Small Street
4. Vaulted Hall in Castle
27
62
70
106
IX
5. Vestibule of Chapter-house at Cathedral
6. The Norman Gateway, St. Augustine's Abbey
7. Berkeley Arch and Effigy .
8. The Elder Lady-chapel
9. The Chapter-house ....
10. The Mayor's Chapel ....
11. St. Bartholomew's Hospital
12. High Street and Christ Church Steeple
13. Tombs in St. Peter's Church
14. St. John's Church .....
15. Doorway at the Temple
16. King Street ......
17. Mary-le-Port Street ....
18. The Llandoger Tavern
19. Merchant Taylors' Almshouses .
20. Colston's Almshouses ....
ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS
CHAP.
I. Initial. The City Arms .
From ironwork at St. Mary Rulcliffe
Tailpiece. The Sea Walls .
II. Initial. Christmas Steps
Tailpiece. The Cross ....
III. Initial. The Tolzey
From an old engraving
Tailpiece. Old House in St. Peter Street
IV7. Initial. The Cathedral, from the East
Tailpiece. Statue of William III.
x
CHAP. PAGE
V. Initial. The Castle ...... 95
From Millerd's Map
Tailpiece. Temple Gate . . . .117
Adapted from old engravings
VI. Initial. Doorway of Abbot's House .119
Tailpiece. Miserere in Cathedral . . . 133
VII. Initial. The Cathedral, from the West 135
Tailpiece. Carving in Lady-chapel . . . 153
VIII. Initial. The Dominican Friary . . 155
Tailpiece. St. James's Church .... 180
IX. Initial. The Leaning Tower, Temple Church 183
Tailpiece. Candelabra at Temple . . . 214
X. Initial. The Brass Tables . 217
Tailpiece. The City Crest ..... 238
From ironwork in St. Mary Redcliffe Church
XL Initial. The Assembly Rooms .... 241
Tailpiece. Doorway at Merchant Taylors' Hall 265
XII. Initial. St. Stephen's Tower .... 267
Tailpiece. View on the Avon .... 288
XI
PREFACE
It is the object of the series of which this book
forms one to link incident and place as closely as
possible one with the other ; to describe the buildings
and other objects in the city dealt with, not so much
in their topographical order, as in connection with
those chapters of the city's history, political, ecclesi-
astical, or civic, which they illustrate ; with those
periods during which they had their origin. That
this has not been attempted, at least in a compact
form, is the justification for yet another book about
Bristol.
Many volumes have already been written on the
subject of Bristol history and topography, and I have
availed myself freely of the work of others, and take
this opportunity of acknowledging my obligation
rather than by frequent references in the narrative.
Owing to Chatterton and his 'Rowley'' forgeries,
Bristol histories have been looked on with a distrust
which is scarcely deserved : even William Barrett,
who suffered most from Rowley, has produced a work
which, read with caution, is of great value ; not only
xiii
Preface was he a careful observer, but he had access to much
material not now accessible. The City Corporation
possess several manuscript records of extreme im-
portance, chief among which are The Little Red
Book, commenced by Colford, the Recorder, in 1344,
and recently printed for the Council ; and Robert
Ricarfs Maire of Bristowe is Kalendar, a volume
singularly rich in information concerning the minute
history of Bristol in the Middle Ages, edited by
Miss Toulmin Smith for the Camden Society, 1872.
Contemporary with Ricart's Kalendar is the Itinerary
of William Worcester, edited by Nasmyth (Oxford,
1778), the larger portion of which is devoted to a
laboriously detailed account of the topography of
the city in the latter half of the fifteenth century,
with, incidentally, a good deal of general information.
The two last-named books taken together ffive a
vivid picture of a mediaeval mercantile town, and
the life and manners of its citizens. Of more modern
works in addition to Barrett, I have relied chiefly
for the earlier history on Seyer's admirable Memoirs,
Historical and Topographical (Bristol, 1823), a book
characterised by caution and accuracy ; and for the
later, on the late Mr. John Latimer's monumental
Annals of Bristol in the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and
Nineteenth Centuries. The three volumes, Bristol
Past and Present, by Nicholls and Taylor, contain,
xiv
among much irrelevant matter, a mine of useful Preface
information, but they are not entirely trustworthy ;
this censure does not apply to the volume by John
Taylor on the ecclesiastical history. Mr. Hunt's
Bristol in the * Historic Towns Series , gives a valuable
account of the history of Bristol, particularly as a
great mercantile community, in short compass; and
the fairest account of the Reform Riots may be found
in Molesworth's History of England, vol. i.
Of works dealing with special subjects, the anony-
mous charters of 1736, and Seyer's charters, 1812 ;
Garrard's Life and Times of Edward Colston (1852) ;
Barker's Mayors Chapel; Latimer's History of the
Merchant Venturers'' Company ; Fox's papers on the
guilds, and an anonymous pamphlet on the two
sieges (Bristol, 1868), have been drawn upon, and the
large collection of newspaper cuttings and magazine
articles at the Bristol Museum Library has been
utilised.
Further, I desire to express my obligation for kind
help and advice to Professor B. C. A. Windle, F.R.S.,
the General Editor of the series, and to Mr. J. E.
Pritchard, F.S.A. ; to the Council of the Archaeo-
logical Institute, for permission to make use of the
plan in their Bristol volume ; and not least, to the
artist, Mr. E. H. New, for the illustrations which
illuminate the pages which follow.
xv
BRISTOL FROM ST. MICHAELS H1LI.
CHAPTER I
01UGIX AND EARLY HISTORY
ABOUT six miles
Ix. from the point
where that river Avon,
which is distinguished
by the name of the
most important city on
its banks as the Bristol
Avon, joins the sea,
and one above the spot
where it bends sharply
to the north to enter
the deep and narrow
limestone gorge now
spanned by the world-
famous Clifton Suspension Bridge, it receives the
waters of a lesser river, the Frome, one of several of
that name in the south-west of England. Entering
the Avon valley from the north, the Frome flows for
some distance nearly parallel to the larger river
before bending round to join it, and between the
two streams there is a long narrow peninsula of red
THE CITY ARMS
Bristol marl, which, though of no great height, rises well
and boldly above the waters. On the north of the
valley, a range of heights, now covered by houses,
but once well wooded, rises almost abruptly from
the Frome bank. To the south, hills of equal height
but of gentler slope are separated from the Avon
by a tract of flat and marshy ground, while to the
east the peninsula is joined to the higher ground
beyond by a low and narrow neck. On this peninsula
the mediaeval town of Bristol was built.
The site was an ideal one for a commercial port
at a time when vessels were of no great magnitude.
Well sheltered and fertile ; possessed of a climate
warm and genial, though perhaps sufficiently enervat-
ing to give some reason for Byron's taunt of Boeotian;
well provided with fresh water and far enough re-
moved from the sea for shelter from storm, and for
safety from piratical hordes, from whom it was further
guarded by the peculiar chasm through which it
was approached by water; with a deep tidal river
whose soft mud enabled boats to be safely beached
at low water and whose wash acted as an efficient
scavenger, it was inevitable that Bristol should hold
a high place among English towns from the earliest
time that Englishmen put to sea in ships. Accord-
ingly we find that its rise and growth, its greatness,
its periods of decline and revival, have all been de-
pendent on the advantages of its situation and their
limitations. Bristol had a great and strong castle,
but it owed nothing, or less than nothing, to its
lords ; few towns were so rich in monastic and
4
ecclesiastical foundations, but these were the outcome Origin
of the town's prosperity, in no way the cause of it ; and
it received royal charters innumerable, but obtained Early
TT * 4-
nothing from royalty that it did not pay for in rtlsto1}
cash or other consideration ; it is, in fine, the one
town in England that rose purely by its convenience
for commerce, and became great and powerful, wealthy
and beautiful, solely through the energy, enterprise,
and public spirit of its citizens, especially its merchant
princes.
But though there seems scanty reason for supposing
that the town of Bristol had a local habitation and
a name until the Danish invaders and the Scandi-
navian settlers of Ireland taught the English the
advantages of over-sea commerce, yet there is abun-
dant evidence that the valley of the Avon and its
surrounding heights nourished a considerable popula-
tion many centuries earlier, even from a period
stretching far back into prehistoric times. Traces
of the sepulture of neolithic man have been found
at various places along the northern heights, and
finds of his implements and weapons have been
very numerous ; and at Druid Stoke, in the suburban
district of Stoke Bishop, a cromlech still remains by
the roadside, partly fallen but almost complete :
perhaps the only example of such a relic so near a
great town. Of a more recent date, but still at least
four or five hundred years before the Christian era,
relics of the Bronze Age have been found : a socketed
celt and a bronze sword or dagger have been re-
covered from the bed of the Avon, and in 1899 a
5
Bristol specially interesting find of a set of tools was made in
the valley of the little river Trym, within two miles
of Abona, the Roman precursor of Bristol. These
implements, which are now in the Bristol Museum,
are of extreme beauty, and highly finished, and
prove the possession of a considerable degree of
civilisation on the part of their makers. They are
four in number, and comprise three flanged celts
differing in size and ornamentation, and a chisel of
remarkable shape.
The site of a busy town, continuously inhabited
for a thousand years, is an unlikely place to expect
to find vestiges of still earlier antiquity ; but still in
the very heart of Bristol, within the narrow circuit of
its earliest walls, relics have been found which are
assigned by Professor Boyd Dawkins to the pre-
historic Iron Age. The most impressive monuments
of very early antiquity, however, are to be seen, not
in the valley, but on the heights which the modern
city is gradually overspreading. These are three
camps, or forts, which command the narrowest part
of the Avon gorge, at the point now spanned by
the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Of these camps one
is on the Clifton or Gloucestershire side of the gorge,
and the other two in the high woods on the Somerset
side. The Clifton camp is the smallest, but gives
evidence of greater building skill, in that its ramparts
are of cemented masonry. It crowns the height im-
mediately above the approach to the bridge, and
its works are, on the whole, well preserved. It con-
tains between three and four acres, and is protected
6
by a triple rampart stretching in a curved direction, Origin
from cliff to cliff, for nearly three hundred yards ; the ano-
entrance may still be traced near the north-east end of ~.. ^
the ramparts, and there seems to have been a lesser ^
entrance or postern at the other end, from which a
path led down the face of the cliff to the spring
which provided the fort with water, and on to the
ford through the Avon, by which communication
was gained at low water with the encampments on
the other side of the river. The Somerset entrench-
ments are placed on the heights exactly opposite,
and are separated by a deep and narrow ravine,
usually known as the Nightingale Valley, but more
correctly Stokeleigh Coombe, which runs far inland.
The larger and more accessible of the two, known as
Bower Walls (Burgh Walls) Camp, is traversed by
the Bridge Road, and its site is occupied by houses
and gardens, so that it is almost entirely destroyed.
It measured between seven and eight acres, and
formed a quadrant, the straight sides formed on the
east by the cliff overhanging the Avon, and on the
north by the almost equally precipitous slope of the
Nightingale Valley ; the landward side was protected
by three great curved ramparts, parts of which remain
in the gardens. The third and most perfect of the
group is that known as Stokeleigh Camp, which is
less easy to find as it is hidden away in the Leigh
Woods; the pedestrian who has crossed the bridge
will reach it by turning sharply to the right, and
then following the road which skirts the Nightingale
Valley almost to its head. He must then plunge
7
Bristol into the woods, cross the valley, and retrace his
course on its northern side, when he will come upon
the great earthworks near their southern end.
Stokeleigh Camp is very similar in plan to that of
Bower Walls, but a little smaller; its great inner
rampart of loose stones rises to the height of thirty
feet above the ditch at its foot. Outside there is a
second, lower rampart, less perfect, and traces of
a third. When Seyer wrote a century ago the in-
terior of the camp was quite open and free from
trees, and he described remains of two stone buildings
within its area; and as late as 1894 Mr. Baker, in
his Bristol and the Channel Circuit, said that it was
free from trees and that the buildings could be
traced : the woodland has now completely overgrown
the camp, and the buildings, if they still exist, are
concealed in the undergrowth. At the apex of the
triangle, overhanging the Avon, there still remains
a small rounded mound, which was probably a sig-
nalling station, and from which the hills of St.
Brendan and St. Blaise, with their names suggestive
of beacon fires, could be seen. These camps were not
intended as towns, but formed a citadel or acropolis
in which the dwellers in the plain and the valleys
could take refuge, with their herds, in time of danger,
though it is probable that the chieftains with their
immediate dependants had their habitations there.
No part of England seems to have attained a
higher pitch of prosperity during the Roman
occupancy than Gloucestershire, if we may judge from
the number and the richness of the villas found
there; but there was no colony at Bristol, and no Origin
evidence of a town of even the fourth degree of im- a"d
portance. This does not mean that the district was -^ar^}T
unknown to the Romans ; it is certain that as early ls 01^
as the reign of Claudius, the general Ostorius spent
some time in the neighbourhood, which he defended
by a range of earthworks, many of which still remain ;
and finds of coins, pottery, and even of portions of
buildings have not been infrequent. Moreover, the
Antonine Itinerary very definitely shows that there
was a town, Abona, which, if not actually occupying the
site of the more modern Bristol, was within a measur-
able distance of it. The passage in the old road-book
which relates to the Bristol district occurs in the four-
teenth of the fifteen British journeys, and reads — ' from
Isca Callevam (Caer leon) to Venta Silurum ix miles ;
to Abona ix miles ; to Trajectus, ix miles ; to Aqua
Sulis (Bath) vi miles/ Of the five places mentioned the
situation of three is certain, so that there is not
room for much difference of opinion in placing the
other two. The situation of Abona has been placed
at Bitton on the Avon below Bath, at Bristol, Sea
Mills, and Avonmouth, all on the Avon, and at
King's Weston on the Severn. Seyer suggested that
Sea Mills was Abona, and most subsequent writers
on the subject have agreed with him. Not only is it
the one place which fits in with the Itinerary without
any unnecessary torturing of the figures, but there
is evidence of a considerable Roman station at that
place, which we may regard as fairly certainly the site
of Abona.
The camp at Sea Mills is situated on the shore of
the Avon, within the present limits of the city of
Bristol but below the gorge. The entrenchments
contain about fifty acres, a fair size for a smaller
Roman station, and more than twice the area of the
mediaeval Bristol. It slopes down to the little tidal
river, the Trym, which bounds it on the north-
west ; on the south-west is the Avon, and on the
north-east a deep and steep ravine; on the
exposed fourth side there are remains of a mound
strengthened by bastions, and the whole position
is characteristically Roman both in form and situa-
tion. It has never been systematically explored,
but tiles, coins, fragments of pottery of Upchurch,
Salopian, and Samian ware have been found, and
a portion of a funereal inscription to the memory
of Spes, the wife of one Sentius, now in the Bristol
Museum. The road from Bath to the South Wales
district, known since the thirteenth century as the
Julian Way, can be traced in the neighbourhood of
Sea Mills. It led from Bath to Bitton (Trajectus)
and on to Hanham, where it is lost ; it then probably
skirted Bristol on the north, past Baptist Mills,
where traces of Romano-British interments have
been found, and Redland, where the suggestive name
of Coldharbour occurs, and reappears on Durdham
Down, near the reservoir of the Bristol Water Com-
pany. Having crossed the Down the road bifurcates,
one half leading straight to Sea Mills, the other
turning off to King's Weston, while another road of
very early date connects the two last-named places.
10
Other signs of Roman occupation have appeared Origin
from time to time : a notable one was the discovery ano^
in the bed of the Frome of a pig of lead bearing the ™rly
name of Antonine, now in the museum. The lead J
mines of the Mendips had been worked at least from
the time of Vespasian, and this discovery affords
reason to believe that the metal was brought down to
the neighbourhood where it occurred for shipment ; if
this is so, a small commercial port must have existed
on the actual site of modern Bristol from a very early
time. Lastly, a very fair example of a detached and
isolated villa, of moderate size and somewhat late
date, was discovered in some building operations on
the south side of the Avon, above the city, in 1899.
The foundations of this building were nearly perfect,
and it contained some good pavements, which have
been in part preserved. It contained also a number
of coins, ranging in date from a.d. 265 to 36'1 — dates
which give a roughly approximate idea of the time of
the villa's building and of that of its destruction.
Many examples of Upchurch and Salopian ware were
found, and some of Samian and Pseudo-Samian ; there
were, too, many objects of household use and of
personal adornment of bronze and iron, bone and
ivory, and not least in interest a series of seven large
vessels of pewter : all these objects are now deposited
in the museum.
The five centuries which followed the departure
of the Romans were even more absolutely blank
in the history of Bristol than the earlier times.
Seyer, it is true, believed that the Romano-Britons
II
came down from the heights after the introduction
of Christianity, and founded a town on the Bristol
peninsula. That Bristol was of Roman origin he
argued from the plan of the streets, and that it
was Christian from the position of churches at three
of the angles at the High Cross, if not at all four.
This may be true, but it is pure conjecture; no trace
of Roman masonry has ever been discovered within
the limits of the city proper.
He further suggested that Abona was destroyed by
the Saxons or Danes and not rebuilt, and that the
former utilised, or rebuilt, the town already existing
in the more sheltered position when they obtained
possession of the district after the battle of Deorham,
in 577.
There is some evidence, though it is not conclusive,
that Bristol existed as a town during the period of
the Mercian supremacy, 659-821, in the dedication of
one of its churches to the Mercian Saint Werburgh,
daughter of King Wulfere. As far as is known, all
churches bearing this dedication belong to an early
date. But the first definite information about our
town comes, curiously enough, from Stockholm,
where, with many other rare Saxon coins, relics
doubtless of the hated and ignominious Danegelt,
there is a silver penny of Ethelred n., surnamed the
Unready, having on the obverse the king's head,
with his name and titles, and on the reverse a cross
with the inscription .elfwerd ox brio, signifying
minted at Bristol by ^lfwerd the moneyer. From
this reign to the Norman Conquest examples of
12
Bristol money are fairly numerous, every reign being Origin
represented except the short one of Hardicanute. ar>d
Here then at last we are on solid ground : this Early
penny shows that at the beginning of the eleventh ±llst0ly
century Bristol had, from its small and obscure
origin, become an established town and one of
sufficient importance to be the seat of a mint, and
negatively that it had at that date only recently
attained such importance, notwithstanding the un-
corroborated statement of Roger Hoveden that in
the days of Athelstan it was decreed that there
should be a monetary at Bristol among other places.
The first authentic mention of Bristol in English
history occurs in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, where
under the date 1052 it is recorded that Harold the
Earl and Leofwine went to Bristol in the ship which
Sweyn the Earl had before got ready for himself and
provisioned.
Of the condition of Bristol, and of its status at
the time of the Conquest, a little may be gleaned
from the meagre entry in Doomsday Book. The
entry runs : ' In Bertune apud Bristou were 6
hides. In demesne 3 teams, and 22 villeins, and 25
bordars with 25 teams. Here were 10 serfs and 18
co-liberts having 14 teams. Here were 2 mills worth
27 shillings.
' When Roger received this manor from the king
he found there 2 hides, and 2 teams in demesne, and
17 villeins, and 24 bordars with 21 teams. Here
were 4 serfs and 13 co-liberts with 3 teams.
1 In Mangotsfield a member of this manor are 6 oxen
13
in demesne. Of the same land the churches of
Bristou have 3 hides, and have then one team.
' One Radchenist holds one hide, and has one team
and 4 hordars with 1 team.
'This manor and Bristou pay the king 110 marks
of silver. The Burgesses say that Bishop G. (Geoffrey
of Coutance) has 33 marks of silver and 1 mark of
gold, besides the king's ferni.''
This statement is not too full, but from it we are
able to glean that Bristol was not even yet a separate
borough, but officially at least only a hamlet in the
royal manor of Barton, whose name still survives in
the local government district of Barton Regis,
though, curiously enough, owing to successive changes
of boundaries the modern district now contains no
portion of the old manor. Further, that there were
already more churches than one, and that the town
was probably surrounded by some sort of wall, in
all likelihood a rampart of earth : this seems to be
implied in the word Burgesses ; and lastly, that
the ferm payable, most of which would fall on the
town as the rest of the manor was very thinly
populated, was one of the largest in the kingdom,
proving that Bristol was already ranked among the
wealthy and important towns of the realm.
To sum up, out of a mass of tradition and con-
jecture, the few known facts of the earlier history of
Bristol appear to be : that the lower Avon valley
was inhabited from the earliest times ; that without
crediting the legends of Brutus or the mythical
Brennus and Belinus, or even the story of the founda-
14
History
tion of the city by Dyfnwal Moelmydd, b.c. 390- Origin
350, received by the cautious Seyer, there was a and
British town at Clifton having its citadel at the ^ry
three camps ; that the Romans had a military station
and port, Abona, at Sea Mills, and probably a com-
mercial port at Bristol ; that after a period of intense
darkness, lasting for some centuries, a Saxon town
grew up on the peninsula, whose inhabitants, shut oft'
from the rest of England by the impenetrable forests
of Horwood and Kingswood, took little part in the
general politics of the kingdom and suffered little by
its troubles, but devoted themselves successfully to a
foreign trade, chiefly with Ireland and Scandinavia ;
that already the slave-trade, which in later years
was to contribute so much to the wealth of Bristol,
had commenced, and that before the beginning of the
eleventh century the town had attained sufficient
importance to be the seat of a mint ; that at the
Norman Conquest the town, though still only a
hamlet in the manor of Barton Regis, was a populous
place surrounded by a rampart and containing several
churches.
Now that at last Bristol has become a town with
a name, it is time to consider the origin and signifi-
cance of its title. Few place names have probably
more variants in spelling : Seyer has a list of thirty-
five different forms in addition to seven French varie-
ties, but up to the time of Queen Elizabeth or even
later the one most usually accepted was Bristow,
while in Latin it has been generally Bristollia. The
derivation of the name has in time past been much
15
.Bristol disputed, and various etymologies have been sug-
gested ; of these we may discard at once that from the
fabulous Brennus or Brynne, and that from Brictric,
the Saxon Lord of Gloucester at the time of the Con-
quest, a derivation suggested by Chatterton and
supported only by his forgeries ; Camden's Bright-
stow, the famous town, has as little to recommend it ;
and there remain only Britostow, the town of the
Britons, favoured by Seyer, and Brigstow or Bridge-
stow, the enclosure of the bridge, first suggested by
Gibson in his notes on the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:
the last is now universally accepted. From the name
we glean one more fact about the early town, namely,
that the wooden bridge, which is known to have
preceded that of stone, was already in existence long
before the Norman Conquest.
THE SEA WALLS
16
STMARYREDCLIFF
CHAPTER II
BRISTOL UNDER THE NORMAN AND I'LANTAGENET KINGS
w
HEN the Norman con-
querors came to Bristol
they found in existence an en-
closed town which was already
ranked among; the largest in
the kingdom, and it may be
wise to try to picture what that
town was like. It occupied the
summit and slopes of the low
hill which forms the centre of
the present city, and was sur-
rounded by water, except at its
east end ; on the south was the
broad and deep bed of the
tidal Avon, while round the
north and west wound the
Frome, which, it must be
remembered, did not take its
present course, but curved to
the south at the base of the
hill, through a channel which was perhaps artificial,
19
Bristol past the site of St. Stephen's Church and along the
course of the present Baldwin Street, to join the
Avon just below the bridge. The surplus waters
then found their way across the marsh below the
town to enter the main river some distance lower
down. On the river Frome were two mills — one
above the town near the spot where the castle was
afterwards to be built, the other below, on the now
obliterated stream not far above the bridge. The
town itself was surrounded by a rampart of earth,
low internally but externally of some height owing to
the scarping of the hillside, and was entered by four
gates, one at the end of each of the principal streets.
The rampart followed the lines which were after-
wards taken by the first Norman walls, having a
space of varying width between it and the rivers, and
it enclosed not more than twenty acres. Within this
narrow enclosure a population of from two or three
thousand souls was huddled. Four main, though
narrow, streets traversed the walled space, meeting
at a cross almost at the highest point of the town,
and between these and the ramparts was a maze of
still narrower lanes. The houses were huts of timber
framing filled in with laths and mud, and few pro-
bably had more than one, or, at the most, two rooms.
Conspicuous among them rose several small churches :
St. Peter's, St Werburgh's, and St. Mary-le-Port almost
certainly, and probably St. Owen's, All Hallows1, and
the Church of the Holy Trinity ; the last where
Christ Church now stands. Outside the gate at
the foot of High Street a long narrow bridge of
20
timber afforded communication with the township of
Redcliffe and the county of Somerset, and at the
opposite side of the town a smaller bridge, possibly
of stone, crossed the Frome. By the side of the
Avon there was a broad quay, and the river itself was
crowded with small vessels, floating on its waters or
beached upon its steep mudbanks.
The men of Bristol do not seem to have offered
any resistance to the Conqueror ; on the contrary,
when in 1069 the three sons of Harold landed at the
mouth of the Avon with troops from Ireland, they
beat them off and drove them back to their ships.
The change of dynasty seems to have meant only
a new king to whom to pay their ferm, and as
a mercantile community they were on the side of
established law and order. They do not seem to
have met with any oppressive treatment, no doubt
because they belonged to a royal manor; and per-
haps on account of their loyalty to the new govern-
ment, the king^ local representative, the jjrepositus
or provost, was a fellow-townsman, one Harding, said
to be the son of a Saxon Thane Eadnoth, and founder
of a family destined to figure largely in the subsequent
history of the town.
During this reign the slave-trade became a national
scandal. Not content with the legitimate trade, which
was deplorable enough, the Bristol merchants bought
up the kidnapped youth of both sexes, without asking
questions, for shipment to Ireland ; and this to such
an extent that the town acquired the nickname of
the stepmother of all England. Law and authority
21
Bristol
under
the
Norman
and
Planta-
genet
Kings
Bristol were powerless against the disgraceful traffic, until the
saintly Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, in whose dio-
cese Bristol then was, took the matter up in earnest,
and by spending months at a time in the town and
preaching against the trade Sunday after Sunday at
last succeeded for a time in abolishing it. His bio-
grapher gives a graphic description of the evils of the
trade. ' There is a town called Brichstow, opposite
to Ireland, and extremely convenient for trading with
that country. Wulfstan induced them to drop a
barbarous custom, which neither the love of God nor
the king had been able to prevail on them to lay
aside. This was the mart for slaves, collected from
all parts of England, particularly young women whom
they took care to adorn so as to enhance their value.
It was a most moving sight to see in the public
markets rows of young people, of both sexes, and
some of great beauty, tied together with ropes and
daily sold. Execrable fact ! Wretched disgrace !
Men unmindful even of the affections of the brute
creation delivering into slavery their relations and
even their very offspring.''
During the closing years of the Conqueror's reign,
Bishop Geoffrey of Coutance, a man high in William's
council, was made Constable of Bristol with consider-
able, though not precisely determined, powers. He
was neither earl of the county nor owner of the
manor, but we have seen from Doomsday Book that
he received about a third of the geld payable by the
town, and he was the chief landowner in the
neighbourhood. He was a man, says Ordericus
22
Vitalis, who knew better how to instruct mailed
soldiers in warfare than vestured clergy in singing,
and it was he who built the first castle here, and who
probably surrounded the town with its first stone
wall. On the death of the Conqueror Bishop
Geoffrey declared for Robert of Normandy, and with
his nephew Robert of Mowbray took a leading part
in the fighting which took place, making his new
castle at Bristol a base from which he destroyed Bath
and plundered all the neighbouring country. History
is silent on the fate of the bishop, but the rebellion
was quelled, and within two years William Rufus
granted Bristol Castle to Robert Fitz-Hamo, the
conqueror of South Wales. During Fitz-HaiWs time
the castle appears to have been Caput Honoiis,
though he lived chiefly at Cardiff. Dying in 1107
from wounds received at the battle of Tenchebrai, his
vast estates including Bristol became the property of
his daughter Mabel, whom Henry i. married to Robert
of Caen, known also as Robert Consul, his natural son
by Nest, the daughter of Rees ap Tudor. An early
chronicler tells the story that on the king's proposing
the marriage to her, Mabel suggested that it would
be shameful to marry a man without a second name,
Avhereupon the king said that his son should be
known as Fitz-le-Roy. To this Mabel objected that
it was not a name which could descend to his sons,
and the king promised that he should be Earl of
Gloucester, with which the lady was well content.
With his wife's vast possessions and his own lands
in Kent and elsewhere, and an enormous fortune in
23
Bristol
under
the
Norman
and
Planta-
genet
King's
Bristol money estimated at the sum of .^60,000, Robert
was the most powerful subject in England, and he
seems to have been the ablest. He was handsome in
appearance, renowned for skill in arms, and dis-
tinguished for culture and love of letters, to which
testimony is borne by both Giraldus Cambrensis and
William of Malmesbury, who dedicated their books to
him. He made his home at Bristol, and under his
care the town prospered greatly, the harbour being
crowded with ships from all parts. On the site of
Bishop Geoffrey's castle on the neck of land between
the town and the mainland Earl Robert built a new
castle of great strength and magnitude, with a tall
square keep resembling that at Rochester, and said to
be one of the largest in England : this fortress was
soon to stand him in good stead. He was not un-
mindful of the duties of religion, and devoted a tithe
of the stone obtained for castle-building to the
erection of a priory for Benedictine monks outside the
walls, which he founded and liberally endowed.
On the death of Henry I., Robert took the oath
to Stephen, but he soon afterwards renounced his
allegiance and headed the movement on behalf of
the legitimate heir, the Empress Matilda. The war
which ensued, and which desolated the kingdom
almost until the death of Stephen, belongs rather
to general than to local history, but as the head-
quarters of one of the contending parties our town
took so prominent a part that the struggle has been
termed the Bristol war. It is not too much to say
that Bristol was, in fact, at this time what it has
24
since been its proud boast to be — the Capital of the
West, for nearly half the kingdom acknowledged
the title of the empress. Our chief knowledge of the
events of this time depends on chronicles wholly hostile
to Gloucester, chiefly on the Gesta Regis Stephani,
by Robert de Monte, a monk of Mount St. Michael
in Normandy, but through them all the military
ability and the statesmanlike qualities of the earl
stand out, as well as his personal character, the one
faithful and unselfish man where all was treachery
and self-seeking.
The direct interest of Bristol in the war began
early, for in 1138 or 1139, before the landing of
the empress and her brother, Stephen sat down
before Bristol Castle, and finding it impregnable to
assault, debated whether to blockade the town or,
by damming the Avon at the narrow point now
crossed by Clifton Bridge, to flood it out. He
finally determined to raise the siege : a momentous
decision, for had Bristol fallen twelve or fourteen
years of devastating strife would probably have
been avoided. After the battle of Lincoln, when
Maud's star was at its brightest, King Stephen
himself paid an enforced visit to Bristol, for he was
brought here a prisoner in 1141, and lodged in the
castle, where he remained nearly a year, until ex-
changed for the earl after the capture of the latter
at Winchester. In the following year Bristol Castle
received another illustrious visitor, for the boy prince,
Henry of Anjou, afterwards Henry n., was brought
over by his uncle and remained here four years.
25
Bristol
under
the
Norman
and
Planta-
genet
Kings
Bristol Here he was educated in letters by one Matthew,
who, we are informed, lived in Baldwin Street — a
fact significant as showing that the town had already
grown beyond the narrow limits of its walls. Matthew
was rewarded later by receiving the bishopric of
Angers. Henry and his cause received more tangible
assistance at the hands of another citizen, Robert
Fitzharding, whose money-bags were at the service
of the empress. Fitzharding was the son or grand-
son of that Harding whom we have met with as
the Conqueror's preposihis, and he was at this time
the richest citizen, and the owner of the two adjacent
manors of Billeswick and Bedminster, on the former
of which he erected the monastery of St. Augustine,
now the cathedral. He too received his reward,
for even before the death of Stephen Henry con-
ferred upon him the castle and estate of the dis-
possessed lord of Berkeley, and arranged a double
marriage between Fitzharding's eldest son and
Berkeley's daughter, and between the son of Berkeley
and one of Fitzhardinofs daughters : the double
marriage took place in 1153 at Bristol, in the
presence of King Stephen and Henry, who were
then at last reconciled. With Fitzharding began
the long and intimate, though not always friendly,
relations between the town of Bristol and the lords
of Berkeley.
Earl Robert had died in 1147, and was succeeded
by his son William, who in 1175 surrendered the
castle to the Crown, and arranged a marriage between
his daughter Isabella and the king's youngest son
26
John, whom he
made his heir : the
marriage took place
in 1189, some years
after the earl's
death. In this
reign the men of
Bristol obtained
their first royal
charter,dated 1163,
confirming existing
privileges, and
granting them ex-
emption from toll
and passage, and
other customary
payments for them-
selves and their
<;oods through the
king's own lands.
The intimate con-
nection between
Bristol and Ireland
is illustrated by a curious charter granted a few
years later, giving to Bristol the city of Dublin to
inhabit, with all the liberties and free customs
which they have at Bristow. A relic of this inter-
course perhaps lingers in the dedication of two of
the Dublin churches to Saints Werburgh and Audoen
(Ewen).
King John, who was everywhere, was often at
27
NORMAN HOUSE IN SMALL STREET
Bristol
under
the
Norman
and
Planta-
genet
Kings
Bristol Bristol. While yet Earl of Moreton, some years
before he succeeded to the throne, he granted to
the townsmen a charter which was the foundation of
their liberties ; by the terms of this charter the
burgesses obtained local courts, freedom from tolls,
exemption from the obligation to grind their corn
at the lord's mill, and liberty of marriage for them-
selves, their sons and daughters and widows, without
licence of their lords. It also ordained that no
foreign merchant should buy within the town of any
stranger hides, corn, or wool, but only of the
burgesses, and that no foreigner should have any
tavern but in his ship, nor sell cloth to be cut but
in the fair, and further that no stranger should tarry
in the town to sell his merchandise longer than forty
days. It further provided for local option by enact-
ing that no man should take an inn within the walls
against the will of the burgesses, to whom it granted
their holdings by free burgage with permission to
improve their houses, upon the bank, and elsewhere,
without damage to the town and borough. Lastly,
it provided that they should have their reasonable
guilds in as full a manner as they held them in the
time of his predecessors Robert and William, Earls
of Gloucester. Seyer says that this charter also
gave to the burgesses the right to choose their own
chief magistrate, but this crowning mark of freedom
does not appear to have been obtained until the
reign of John's successor. The growing importance
of Bristol at this time is shown by the assessment
of a tallage in 1199, when Gloucester paid 300 marks,
28
while Bristol was assessed at 500, with 100 more
for the men of Berkeley, that is to say, Redcliffe, and
50 for Temple Fee.
It was here that John's well-known act of cruelty
to a Jew occurred : a Jewry had grown up under
royal favour between the old wall on the north side
of the town and the river Frome. As early as 1177
we read that the burgesses were fined 80 marks
for one Sturmis, the usurer, whom they had probably
killed or injured ; but the royal protection was only
extended to preserve the unfortunate men as milch-
cows for the royal cupidity, and in or about 1210
John demanded from an old Jew at Bristol the
enormous sum of 10,000 marks. The wretched
man refused to ransom himself at such a price,
and the king ordered that one of his teeth should
be extracted each day until the money was paid.
The Jew held out for a week, but succumbed on the
eighth day and paid the fine.
Whatever John's general character, he proved him-
self a good and reasonable lord to his town of Bristol,
and its citizens were not ungrateful, adhering to his
cause through the troubled later years of his reign ;
and when on John's death in 1216 the young King
Henry in. had been hurriedly crowned at Gloucester,
he was immediately brought here for security, and
here his first council was held, under the presidency
of the Papal Legate, when allegiance was sworn to
him, and his opponents were excommunicated. The
men of Bristol seized the favourable opportunity of
the king's temporary residence among them to obtain
29
Bristol
under
the
Norman
and
Planta-
genet
Kings
Bristol the much-coveted right to choose their own chief
magistrate, and they elected Adam le Page as the
first of an unbroken series of mayors in 1216, only
six years after the ' barons' of London had obtained
the same privilege. This important change in the
government of the town does not appear to have been
made by charter, but in each succeeding charter
granted by the same king the mayor is recognised as
an existing officer.
In 1225 the king farmed to the burgesses the
revenues of the town for an annual payment of i?245,
reserving to himself a portion of the prisage of wines,
together with the bailiwick of Barton and its chase
and woodlands. In the year 1251 Bristol was in-
cluded among Prince Edward's settlements on the
occasion of his marriage with Eleanor of Castile.
The misgovernment of Henry at last alienated the
burgesses of Bristol, and during the Barons1 War
they showed active sympathy with de Montfort's
party ; and, when Edward demanded a contribution
of £ 1000 from the town towards putting the castle
in a state of defence, the turbulent townsfolk not
only refused the money but drove him from the
castle, 1263. Two years later, when Earl Simon's
cause was already desperate and he himself was
penned up beyond the Usk, the Bristol men had
the courage, greater because the castle was again
in the royal hands, to attempt his relief, and in
answer to his urgent request despatched to him at
Newport a fleet of transports. The attempt, how-
ever, was too late : Edward was ready with three
30
ships of war ; most of the unarmed Bristol vessels
were taken or sunk, and the Earl of Leicester was
forced to make the disastrous land march which
ended in his defeat and death at Evesham.
The long reign of Henry in. formed a very im-
portant epoch in the internal history of Bristol.
Its trade advanced by leaps and bounds, and to
accommodate it we shall see that between 1240 and
1247 a very extensive scheme of harbour improve-
ment was successfully carried out. The men of
Redcliffe were compelled to join in this undertaking,
which helped to hasten the incorporation of the
southern suburb with the more important town on the
northern side of the Avon. This desirable object
was not accomplished without much ill-will and not
a little bloodshed, and was not finally achieved till
a century later. As soon as the harbour improve-
ment was completed another public work of equal
magnitude was set in hand, which aided considerably
in uniting the rival townships. This was the erection
of the first stone bridge across the Avon, in place of
the narrow and decayed wooden bridge which had
been heretofore the only means of communication
between the two banks. As a preliminary, the Avon
was temporarily diverted into a new course, cut from
a point called Tower Harritz in Temple Back above
the town, to a point nearly opposite Redcliffe Church
below — no slight work of engineering in itself — and
then the old course of the river was dammed so that
the masons could work continuously. Then three
immensely massive piers were erected in the bed of
31
Bristol
under
the
Norman
and
Planta-
genet
Kings
Bristol the river, and abutments at each end, and from these
four narrow arches were turned. Barrett, who lived
at the time the old bridge was rebuilt, says that the
original arches were semicircular, but old drawings,
one of which is given in his book, represent them as
pointed. The bridge was narrow, onlv nineteen feet
in width, but was doubtless wide enough for the traffic
of the time. In after years secondary arches, pointed
in form, were erected on each side parallel to the
original ones, and on these lofty houses of timber
were built overhanging the water, as at London,
making a charmingly picturesque ensemble, but sadly
narrowing the road over the bridge, and converting it
into a difficult and dangerous tunnel. The first of
these encrusting buildings was a bridge chapel
attached to one of the piers on its upper side,
which William Worcester says was dedicated in
1361, and was 75 feet in length by 21 in breadth.
The chapel was raised on an undercroft which
appears to have been used at one time as a town
hall, or meeting-place for the council. This chapel,
which was dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed
Virgin, was destroyed in 1642, but the houses re-
mained until the bridge was rebuilt soon after 1760,
when the present graceful structure of three arches
was erected. Like its predecessor the new bridge
proved to be too narrow, and it has been widened
and disfigured by the addition of overhanging foot-
paths carried on iron girders. Upon the completion
of these great engineering works the suburbs on the
south and west were enclosed by new walls, which
32
more than doubled the fortified area of the town,
and which further marked the oneness of the com-
munity : the southern wall followed the line of the
temporary channel of the Avon, which was utilised as
its ditch. The growth in wealth and prosperity does
not seem to have been materially hindered by two fires
which occurred in 1237, which laid a great part of
the town, with its closely packed houses of timber
framing, in ashes.
Edward i. was in Bristol in 1276, and made an
excursion to visit the Abbey of Glastonbury, where he
is said to have exhumed the bones of King Arthur.
He came again in 1281 and 1284, on one of which
occasions he spent his Christmas here ' with much
content and satisfaction,1 and married his eldest
daughter to the Earl of Bar. It was on the occasion
of this visit that the one Parliament ever held in
Bristol sat. Towards the end of this reign, the long-
continued struggle between the lords of Berkeley
and the burgesses of Bristol over the jurisdiction of
RedclifFe culminated in open strife. The officers of
Sir Maurice Berkeley had seized and imprisoned a
Bristol citizen, whereupon the townsmen with the
mayor at their head crossed the bridge, broke into
the gaol and rescued their fellow-citizen, and, accord-
ing to Sir Maurice, carried off, in addition, plunder
worth 500 marks. Both sides appealed to the king,
who appointed a commission to inquire into the
case. The decision on the immediate issue was in
favour of the townsfolk, and the Berkeleys were
mulcted in a heavy fine ; but the vexed question of
c 33
Bristol
under
the
Norman
and
Planta-
genet
Kings
Bristol jurisdiction was left unsettled, and it remained an
occasion for conflict for seventy years longer.
During the next reign occurred the most remark-
able event in the annals of Bristol, the ' Great Insur-
rection,1 during whicli the town was for several years
in a state of open rebellion, an independent and self-
governed town where the king's writ ceased to run.
The exact cause of this singular civil war is obscure,
but there can be no doubt that it was only the weak-
ness of the monarch which made it possible. It seems
to have originated in the growing tendency, which
Bristol shared with most of the boroughs of the king-
dom at that time, for the government of local affairs
to pass from the hands of the burgesses at large to
those of a narrow and self-elected oligarchy. Here
the governing power was held by a small body of lead-
ing citizens, probably members of the Merchants'' and
Mariners'1 Companies, known as ' the Fourteen,1 who
were at this time a castle party, supported by and
lending their assistance to the constable of the castle,
Lord Badlesmere. Against them the commonalty, the
general body of the burgesses, were led by an able
man, John Taverner, who had been mayor twice and
had represented the borough in Parliament, and they
had on their side several wealthy and prominent
citizens who were not included in the Fourteen ; they
made the natural claim that all burgesses ought to
share equally in the privileges of the government of
their town. The popular discontent came to a head
when the king intrusted Badlesmere with the ferm of
the town, which had for many years been let to the
34
municipal body. Then began on the side of the
citizens a policy of passive resistance ; they refused to
pay taxes to the constable, and neither Badlesmere
nor his agents were allowed to enter the town. This
happened in 1312, and during the same year the king-
was appealed to, and sent down a commission of
judges to inquire into the matter. As the president
of the commission was Lord Thomas of Berkeley,
who was still smarting under the rebuff' he had so
recently received at the hands of the burgesses, there
was little doubt as to the upshot of the inquiry ; and
so it appeared to the townsmen, for, complaining that
the jury was packed with strangers, they attacked the
Guildhall where the commission was sitting. In the
struggle which ensued twenty lives were lost and the
judges with difficulty escaped. The next move on
the king's part was to deprive the town of its liber-
ties and privileges, taking the government into his
own hands, with Badlesmere as Custos. At the same
time, the ringleaders of the popular party were in-
dicted at the Gloucestershire assizes, and, failing to
appear, were outlawed. The people replied by elect-
ing Taverner mayor, driving the Fourteen from the
town, and imprisoning the king's bailiff. Under
Taverner's direction a wall was built across the
narrow eastern end of the town, on or near the
present Dolphin Street, so as to exclude the castle
from the general line of defence. The town had
hitherto, as we shall see, been dominated by the
castle on this side. Having put the place into a
state of defence the mayor undertook the whole
35
Bristol
under
the
Norman
and
Planta-
genet
Kings
Bristol government, collecting all the taxes and dues, and
disregarding royal mandates. His government seems
to have been judicious; the only act of oppression
occurring under his rule being the seizure of the
goods of the Fourteen, for which he perhaps was not
responsible. After this state of things had con-
tinued more than a year, the Earl of Gloucester was
ordered to raise a force in the counties of Gloucester,
Somerset, and Wiltshire, and early in 1314 he ap-
peared before the walls with no fewer, it is said, than
20,000 men. Taverner had the hardihood to close
the gates against them, and as the necessities of the
Scottish war drew away the troops he was left in
undisputed possession for two years longer. The
name of William Randolph, the leader of the
oligarchy appears, it is true, in the list of mayors
for the year 1315, but it is pretty certain that he
was not admitted within the walls. At length in
1316 serious and effectual measures were taken. In
March of that year a fresh inquisition into the whole
matter was held at Westminster, and the popular
party was so far recognised as to be represented there.
The case was decided against them, and Aymer de
Valence, Earl of Pembroke, was sent down to Bristol
to promise lenient treatment if the town was sur-
rendered and the ringleaders given up. His inter-
vention proved unsuccessful, and at last the town was
besieged in force : communication by sea was cut off
by Maurice de Berkeley, and Badlesmere with a large
land force laid siege trains against the walls. The
new wall was battered from the castle, and after a
36
few days the town surrendered. The rebellious town Bristol
was treated with singular leniency : Maurice de under
Berkeley, it is true, was appointed Gustos, but beyond ™e
the banishment of the Taverners, father and son, and °rman
the infliction of a fine of 4000 marks, no penalty was pjan4.„
exacted, and its liberties were soon restored. The o-enet
result may be considered a victory for the common- Kings
alty ; but the tendency of the time was not to be
resisted, and though the Fourteen disappeared, all
municipal power soon passed into the hands of a
close corporation of a few wealthy and influential
families.
In 1320 the king granted Bristol to the younger
De Spenser, and in the following year he was here
with him and gave the town a new charter, which
was simply a confirmation of previously granted
privileges. When in 1326 civil war broke out again
Edward took refuge in Bristol Castle, but on the
queen's advancing to its siege he and the younger
De Spenser fled into Wales, leaving the father of the
latter in command at Bristol. The townsfolk appear
to have forced De Spenser to surrender, and the next
day the old man was drawn on a hurdle outside the
town and executed as a traitor. On the same day a
council was held here, Avhich made the young Prince
of Wales, afterwards Edward in., regent of the king-
dom. The king was imprisoned for a time in the
castle, but on the discovery of a plot, engineered, it
is said, bv the friars of the neighbouring Dominican
convent, for his rescue, he was removed for safer
custody to Berkeley. The unfortunate king seems to
37
Bristol have been once more in Bristol during the obscure
wanderings which preceded the tragedy at Berkeley
Castle on September 81, 1327. After his death his
body was offered to the abbot of St. Augustine's, who
refused it the sepulture more generously, and as it
turned out prudently, given by the abbot and
convent of Gloucester.
On the accession to the throne of Edward m.
Maurice de Berkeley was made governor of Bristol
Castle, and his forfeited lands were restored to him ;
this was the signal for a renewal of the disputes
between the town and the Berkeleys concerning the
lordship of Redcliffe, disputes which we shall see
were finally set at rest a few years later. The ferm
of the town, according to what had become the usual
custom, was assigned to the queen on her marriage ;
this custom gave rise to the appellation often applied
to Bristol of ' The Queen's Chamber.1 When on
Queen Philippa's death in 1369 the ferm lapsed to
the king, it amounted to .P158, lis. 9d. annually. We
have already seen that, in the reign of Henry in., the
revenue was farmed to the burgesses for £%4<5 ; the
fall in the amount does not imply any diminution in
the wealth of the town, but rather that the community
was more powerful and in a position to drive a better
bargain for itself. In 1345 a very useful piece of
work was accomplished when William de Colford, the
Recorder, at the request of the commonalty, drew up
the ordinances, customs, and liberties of the town and
recorded them in writing, together with the bye-laws
and other memorable things for a perpetual remem-
38
brance ; and the mayor, calling to his assistance forty- Bristol
eight of the more powerful and principal citizens, they under
agreed on many useful laws and ordinances, which ^ne
were confirmed by the charter obtained of Edward in., x ,
dated the 16th of October in the fifth year of his pian4-a_
reign (Barrett). The king also granted an aid, the senet
beginning of the harbour dues, from all ships and Kings
boats of merchandise for the repair of the walls and
quays. An equally useful if less flattering privilege,
given by the same king, was the right to set up a gaol
for malefactors and disturbers of the peace.
In the general history of the country Bristol took
a part by furnishing ships for the French wars. For
the campaign of 1346, which culminated in the victory
of Crecy, Bristol furnished a contingent of twenty-four
ships and 608 men, almost equalling the contribution
of London, and for the later wars a still larger
squadron, which included the Gabriel, of 215 tons,
belonging to the well-known citizen Richard Spicer,
and the Gracedieu, a vessel of 200 tons, the property
of another merchant prince, Walter Derby, mayor in
1363, 1367, and several times later. These two vessels,
which were of unusual size at that time, were captured
by the Spaniards in 1475.
Edward's fiscal policy, prohibiting the export of
raw wool and the import of woollen manufactures,
proved to be of great advantage to Bristol trade.
The town had already a considerable weaving industry,
and under the fostering influence of protection it
soon became one of the chief seats of the cloth manu-
facture in the kingdom. And this in spite of the
39
Bristol Black Death, which in 1348 and 1349 carried off, it
is supposed, more than half of the population, and
left the grass growing inches high in the principal
streets. In 1353 Bristol was made one of the eleven
'staple1 towns — that is, towns fixed upon as the sole
places where certain taxable commodities known as
staple goods, including wool and leather, lead and tin,
might be exported. The object of this measure was
to make the collection of the royal dues easier and
more economical, but it gave an immense advantage
in the struggle for trade to the favoured towns. The
merchants trading in staple goods formed a corporation
in each town having its own officers, but at Bristol
the mayor of the town was, ex officio, mayor of the
staple. Some three years later the Bristol merchants
were represented at a council summoned to London
to advise upon trade.
This reign witnessed the granting of a charter
which satisfactorily ended the struggle of the towns-
men for a reasonable measure of freedom and self-
government, and makes an epoch in the history of
their town. The provisions of the charter are so
important that some little space may reasonably be
devoted to its consideration. It seems that the mayor
and commonalty had made representations to the king
that the town of Bristol was partly in Gloucestershire
and partly in Somerset, and more than thirty miles
distant from Gloucester and Ivelchester (Ilchester),
the respective county towns where the assizes and
county courts were held, and other public business
was transacted ; that the access was difficult, the
40
roads deep and dangerous in winter (Ilchester is even
now by no means easy of access from Bristol) ; and
that, notwithstanding, the burgesses were bound to
appear at the county towns at the taking the assizes,
jurats, and inquisitions, whereby they were sometimes
hindered in the management of their navigation and
merchandise, to the prejudice of their estates and the
manifest impoverishing of the town. The charter in
question was granted in 1373 in answer to these
representations to whose truth it assented, but it did
far more for the town than merely remedy the
grievance. It began by stating explicitly that it was
granted in consideration of the good behaviour of the
burgesses, and of their good services done to the state
by their shipping and otherwise in time past, as well
as for the sum of 600 marks paid to the royal treasury,
and its most important clause was to the effect that
the town with its suburbs and precincts should be
separated from the counties of Gloucester and Somer-
set, and that it should be a county of itself to be
called the county of Bristol. No other provincial town
had as yet received this honour, so that Bristol was now
undisputedly the second town in the kingdom ; York
attained the same dignity about twenty years later.
The charter went on to define the mayor's duties and
prerogatives, to provide for the election of a sheriff,
and to establish a county court and a mayor's court
for the trial of offences ; the old manorial court of the
Tolzey, which exercised summary jurisdiction in petty
cases, being preserved. It also made provision for a
number of justices of the peace, of whom the mayor
41
Bristol
under
the
Norman
and
Planta-
genet
Kings
was to be one. It further enacted that the mayor
should take the oaths, not before the constable of the
castle as heretofore, but before his predecessor in
office — a provision not perhaps of much practical
importance, but significant as marking the complete
civic freedom from feudal control. Another interest-
ing clause provided for the creation of a town council.
The mayor and sheriff were empowered to elect, with
the consent of the commonalty, forty of the better and
more honest men of the town to form a common
council, with power to raise a rate and make bye-
laws. It further provided that the two burgesses
who represented the borough in Parliament should
also be the knights of the new county, so that
Bristol should not be at the expense of paying four
members.
This charter was signed at Woodstock on August 8,
1373, and the next month a commission was ap-
pointed, consisting of twelve jurors of Bristol, and
twelve each from the two counties of Gloucester and
Somerset, to settle the boundaries of the new county.
The commission acted with commendable prompti-
tude, and on October 30 of the same year their report
received the royal assent. The new boundary line
included the city and its suburbs on both sides of the
Avon, but excluded the castle and its precincts. The
importance of the port was recognised by giving to
Bristol the control of the whole of the lower Avon,
with both its banks, including the estuary of the
Severn as far as the islands of Steep Holme and Flat
Holme. Incidentally it finally settled, in favour of
42
the burgesses, the long-standing quarrel with the
Berkeleys and the Templars and their successors over
the jurisdiction of Redcliffe and Temple Fee.
Bristol
under
the
Norman
and
Planta-
genet
Kings
THE HIGH CROSS
43
ST. MARY REDCLIFFE
CHAPTER III
BRISTOL IN THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES
BRISTl
attai:
THE TOLZEY
'OL had now
attained the undis-
puted position of the
second city in the king-
dom, and among pro-
vincial towns ranked
among the first for its
manufactures, while as a
mercantile port it was
easily pre-emiment. It
still played its part in the
general history of the
country, but henceforward the chief interest in its
history is purely domestic, and lies in the growth and
development of its trade and commerce, and in the
progress of its civic institutions. It will be well now
to consider what this trade was at the period at which
we have arrived, the closing years of the fourteenth
century. The chief articles of manufacture were
cloth, soap, and leather. A flourishing manufacture
of cloth had existed for many years, the weavers
45
Bristol dwelling and working chiefly on the south side of the
Avon, in Tucker Street and Temple Street, where
their guild had its hall. It received a great impetus
under Edward m., owing to the fostering influence of
his protective policy, and Bristol became for a time
one of the chief seats of the trade. Even more im-
portant in its effect was the Black Death which
depopulated Bristol at this time ; and which, by lead-
ing to an influx of population from the country dis-
tricts into the towns, completely altered the nature
and character of the industry. Hitherto each master
craftsman had worked in his own house, assisted
perhaps by one member of the craft who had not
yet commenced business on his own account, and by
one or two apprentices, and outside labour was
jealously excluded. Thus there was no social or civil
difference between master and man ; each was a
member, in his degree, of the craft guild, and crafts-
man and apprentice each looked forward to the time
when he too would be a master : thus, too, there was
a comfortable and assured position for all, no great
fortunes were made, but there was probably little
extreme poverty. With the incidence of the plague
this condition of the trade was changed ; a sharp line
of demarcation between master and man appeared,
and the struggle between capital and labour began.
The more wealthy manufacturers were able to employ
many journeymen who were not members of the guild,
had served no apprenticeship, and had no expectation
of ever rising from the ranks. So wealth tended to
accumulate in the hands of a few families, and hence-
46
forward the history of Bristol is for many years largely
the history of its merchant princes. It may be open
to doubt whether the change was beneficial to the
community, but it is certain that the accumulation of
wealth in a few hands contributed very much to the
beauty of the town, and especially of its churches and
public buildings, and it seems on the whole to have
been spent wisely and with public spirit. Signs of
the coming change in industrial methods were not
wanting in Bristol some few years before the time of
the Black Death. Soon after the export of raw wool
was forbidden, an enterprising townsman, Thomas
Blanket, commenced to make the better sorts of cloth
on a large scale by the help of foreign workmen. It is
doubtful whether the word ' foreign ' here has what
was then its usual significance — that is to say, men
who did not belong to the town — or whether it is used
in the more modern sense : it is not at all unlikely
that Blanket did import Flemish or French weavers
to instruct his men in the art of making the finer
cloths. Blanket at first met with the usual fate of
industrial innovators ; he was fined by the mayor and
bailiffs, and his men were interfered with to such an
extent that he was obliged to appeal to the king, who
sent down a writ commanding that he and others
should be allowed to employ such men as they pleased.
His unpopularity was not of long continuance ; he
himself was elected bailiff in 1341, and his fellows
in the trade paid him the sincere Hattery of imitating
his methods. He is commonly said to have invented
the article which still bears his name, but whose
47
Bristol
in the
Fif-
teenth
and Six-
teenth
Centu-
ries
Bristol manufacture is more usually associated with the little
town of Witney ; this, however, is not correct, as a
coarse white cloth had been known in England as
blanket or blanchette two or three centuries before his
time.
The two other less savoury staple industries had
also been carried on in Bristol for many years on
the bank of the Avon, in the low-lying parish of
St. Philip : Bristol soap was sent to London, and
the tanning of leather was carried on on a large
scale ; in the year 1438 over 40,000 skins of various
sorts were imported by sea in addition to those
of English growth.
Quite as important as the manufacturing industry
of Bristol was its export and import trade. An
extensive importation of French wines had begun
in the days when Henry n. was the ruler of the chief
wine-growing district of France. This was shared by
Bristol with London and Southampton, but of the
growing trade in the wines of the Spanish Peninsula
she had almost a monopoly, and sherry became known
as Bristol milk at an early date. The quantity of
fish brought in was very considerable, and much of
it was salted here for distribution inland. From
Ireland came linen and food-stuffs, and butter from
Wales. Another large item was iron ; and these,
with the hides and skins already mentioned, made
up the bulk of the imports, though the Bristol
merchants had already begun to obtain their share
of the rich Levant trade, though here they had to
contend with the keen and bitter rivalry of the
48
Genoese, the Lombard Janneys as they are called
in a contemporary calendar, who claimed a monopoly
of the Mediterranean trade and did not stop short
even of piracy to secure it. In 1459 a goodly ship
belonging to Robert Strange was seized by them,
and its cargo confiscated. On complaint being made
to the king he arrested and imprisoned all the
Genoese merchants in London, and did not release
them until compensation to the large amount of
9000 marks was paid. The chief articles of export
were cloth and leather, and in addition a small
quantity of cutlery and glass, but the value of the
goods exported seems to have been far less than
that of the imports. The goods imported were stored
partly in warehouses on the quay, but chiefly in
gi'eat vaulted cellars beneath the houses, some of
which still remain ; of these not less than 160
were in existence when William Worcester, who
made an incomplete list of them, wrote. From the
disgraceful slave-trade, which we have met with
earlier and shall meet with again in a different form
in later years, Bristol was at this time commendably
free.
During the reign of Richard u. several forced
loans were raised in Bristol, the sums contributed
being far larger than those raised by any other town,
London only excepted. The astute city fathers did
not pay over the money without a quid pro quo, as
they obtained in 1396 exemption for the town from
the vexatious jurisdiction of the steward, marshal,
and market clerk of the king. During this reign
d 49
Bristol
in the
Fif-
teenth
and Six-
teenth
Centu-
ries
Bristol Wycliffes ablest disciple, John Purvey, conducted
a mission here and made many converts to Lollardy,
and though it appears that some of them suffered
death, their doctrines obtained a hold which lasted
till the Reformation. The closing years of Richard n.
bore a curious resemblance to those of the second
Edward, and like that king lie visited Bristol just
before his fall. He came here on his way to Ireland,
accompanied by Bushey, Scrope, Bagot, and Green,
his trusted councillors, who remained behind on his
departure for Ireland. Bushey, Scrope, and Green
were refused admittance to the castle, but attempted
to hold the town ; on the appearance of Bolingbroke's
forces, however, the townsmen opened the gates, and
the three were beheaded at the High Cross. With
the last events in the life of the unfortunate monarch
Bristol had nothing to do, but another political
execution or murder took place here in the following
year, when Lord De Spenser, a grandson of the old
nobleman who had suffered death in the same place
three-quarters of a century earlier, was beheaded by
the townsmen.
During the troubled times which followed the
accession of Henry rv. the Bristol ships rendered
signal service to the king, and the town was again
rewarded — this time with a charter granting exemp-
tion from the jurisdiction of the Admiralty Court
on payment of a fine of i?200. The royal interest
in the revenue derived from the town was, as
had become usual, assigned as a portion of the
queen's dower. This revenue was steadily diminish-
50
ing, and when a few years later it was granted to
the wife of Henry vi. it had fallen to no more than
£60 annually. Eight Bristol ships helped to
carry the victorious army of Henry v. to Agin-
court, and during the long inglorious wars of the
following reign the town again took her share,
sending no fewer than thirty-three ships under the
great Earl of Shrewsbury to take part in the last
French invasion in 1453. In the following; vear,
when hope of success abroad had vanished and there
was actual dread of an invasion at home, a forced
loan was raised for naval defence to which Bristol
contributed more than any town except London.
The king himself was here in 1446, and lodged,
not at the castle, but at a little hospital in Redcliffe.
It appears from the testimony of William Worcester
that the castle was already dilapidated and ruinous,
and unfit for the reception of a royal visitor. During
the Wars of the Roses, Bristol, like most of the great
industrial towns, took the Yorkist side. It was a
Bristol merchant and member of Parliament, Young,
who had moved as early as 1451 that the Duke of
York should be declared heir to the throne, for
which, by the way, he suffered imprisonment ; and
Bristol sent a contingent to fight for the White
Rose at the great victory of Towton.
Edward iv. was at Bristol in 1461, when he
watched from the windows of St. Ewen's Church
the execution of the Lancastrian leader Sir Baldwin
Fulford at the High Cross. He visited the town
again in 1 474, and was lodged in the Royal Tower
5i
Bristol
in the
Fif-
teenth
and Six-
teenth
Centu-
ries
at St. Augustine's Abbey. On the occasion of his
first visit he received from the town, by the hand
of William Canynges, the sum of 3000 marks,
and granted it a new charter, and on his second
visit he again obtained a large sum of money as a
benevolence.
In spite of the long-continued and disastrous wars
the fifteenth century was a period of great prosperity
to the trading towns, which seem to have been little
affected by the civil strife, which was pretty much
confined to the great lords and their retainers, and
was actually beneficial to the rising middle class.
The contemporary observer Philippe de Commines
notices that there were no buildings destroyed or
demolished by the war, and that the mischief of
it fell upon those who made it. Of this commercial
prosperity Bristol had its full share, and its history
during the time in question is largely that of the
most famous of its merchant princes, William
Canynges the younger. This remarkable man was
the grandson of the elder William Canynges, a
wealthy cloth manufacturer who was mayor six
times between 1372 and 1389, and represented the
borough in Parliament, and has a claim on our
gratitude in that he commenced the building; of the
existing church of St. Mary Redcliffe. His son
John, mayor in 1392 and 1398, died young, leaving
a widow with two young children, from the elder
of whom descended George Canning and Lord
Stratford de Redcliffe, who paid a tribute to his
ancestor in his choice of a title. The widow married
52
Thomas Young, the richest and most enterprising
Bristol merchant of his day. In his house the
young William Canynges, the second son of John,
was brought up, and his connection with Young
was doubtless conducive to his success in life. Pro-
sperity came early to Canynges, and in 1432 when
he had reached the age of thirty-two he was appointed
bailiff of the town; in 1438 he was sheriff, and three
years later he served the first of his five terms as
mayor. He was now very rich and powerful, and
his influence was such that Henry vi. sought and
obtained for him from the Master of the Teutonic
Knights protection for his factors in Prussia, and
he was able to obtain from the same king a patent
for exclusive trading with Iceland and Finmark.
His fleet consisted of nine vessels, of which the
largest, the Mary and John, is said by Worcester
to have been of the then enormous capacity of
900 tons, and two others, the Mary Radclyf and
the Mary Canynges, Avere of 500 and 400 tons
respectively. These figures seem almost incredible
for English ships at that time, and Barrett suggests
that they may have been of foreign build, as the
Genoese were already constructing vessels of as
large a burden. He employed eight hundred seamen,
besides a little army of more than a hundred masons,
carpenters, and other workmen, and he is said to
have owned about a hundred houses in Bristol.
For his own use he built a palatial mansion in
RedclifFe, between Redcliffe Street and the Avon,
whose handsome hall is still in existence. Much
53
Bristol
in the
Fif-
teenth
and Six-
teenth
Centu-
ries
of his great wealth was spent for public or religious
purposes. In the winter of 1445-46 the steeple of
the still unfinished church of St. Mary Redcliffe
was partly demolished by a great tempest of thunder
and lightning, with much damage to the church ;
this damage Canynges set himself to repair, and at
the same time completed the work of rebuilding
begun three-quarters of a century earlier by his
grandfather. In connection with the church he
endowed a charity at the cost of ,£'340, and built
on the north side of the church a house, which still
exists, for its priest. During the later years of
his life he was dragged, probably against his will,
into public politics. In 1456, as mayor, he en-
tertained Queen Margaret, but his sympathies were
Yorkist, and in the following year he seized a con-
signment of ammunition which had been sent to
the town by the Master of the Ordnance, and held
it for the Duke of York. On the accession of
Edward iv. he sat on the commission which tried
and condemned Sir Baldwin Fulford, and on the
occasion of a royal visit he handed to the king the
sum of 3000 marks — as a personal peace-offering,
according to some writers, but more probably as a
fine raised by the town and collected by him as
mayor. Toward the close of his long life Canynges,
who had survived his wife and children, entered
religion, and joined the college of priests founded
by his friend Bishop Carpenter at Westbury-on-
Trym. He became an acolyte in 1467, and the
following year was ordained deacon and priest. He
54
was soon afterwards elected dean of the college, where Bristol
he died in 1474-75 ; he was buried, not in the collegiate in the
church, but in the great church for which he had *""
done so much, St. Mary Redcliffe. tee?™
riff fl ^1X-
Canynges, though the most prominent, was by no . ,i
means the only rich merchant of his time. One centu_
Strange is recorded as possessing a fleet of twelve r}es
vessels in 1480, and Oliver, Norton, Sturmy, Vyal
and Bagot were all owners of great mansions. Walter
Frampton had rebuilt the church of St. John on a
new site, and John Shipward added the noble tower,
which forms so conspicuous an object in views of
the town, to the church of St. Stephen. Another
citizen of more than local note at this time was
William Wyrcestre or Worcester, the father of English
topography. This interesting character was born
in a house on St. James's Back in 1415, and was edu-
cated at Hart Hall, Oxford ; he afterwards entered
the service of Sir John Fastolf, apparently as con-
fidential clerk, and remained with him till his death
in 1459 ; his name and his curious signature of W.
WorHRcestre are familiar to readers of the Paston
letters. After 1455 he generally adopted the name
of his mother's family, Botoner, the family to whom
is owing the great spire of St Michael's Church
at Coventry, and signed himself BotoHRner. In
Fastolfs service he travelled frequently over a large
portion of England, and wherever he went he jotted
down notes of the important buildings he saw, many
of which have since wholly or in part disappeared.
On the death of his employer in 1459, Worcester,
55
who had long been home-sick, proposed to retire to
his native town, but his intention was not carried
out for several years as he was detained in London
and Norfolk by litigation arising out of Fastolfs
will, of which he was an executor. At last in 1470
this was satisfactorily settled, and he bought a house
with a garden in the parish of St. Philip, outside
the walls, and spent his declining years in cultiva-
ting his garden, in translating Cicero's De Senectute,
published by Caxton in 1473 under the title of the
Boike of Tulle of Old Age, and especially in writing
the account of his native town which forms the chief
portion of his Itinerary. He paced every street,
lane, and alley, noting their length and breadth ;
measured every church and other important building,
sometimes enumerating every moulding; and recorded
his observations, with much interesting information
about the merchants and their wealth, the shipping
in the port, and about local customs, in a curious but
not unintelligible mixture of Latin and English,
so that we are able to form a better idea of the
topography of Bristol during the fifteenth century
than of any other mediaeval town in England. The
original MS. of the Itinerary is preserved in the
library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and it
has more than once been printed.
The year 1483 was long known as that of the
great storm. On the 15th of October of that year,
during an eclipse of the moon, there was an un-
usually high tide in the Avon, accompanied by a
tempest of wind and rain, resulting in floods which
56
caused the loss of about two hundred lives in the Bristol
town, with great destruction of property. Henry vn. in the
visited the town in 1487, and was received by the *""
mayor and corporation with an elaborate pageant, e^fc-
and lodged at the abbey. The merchants, however, . 1.1/
had already to complain of the decay of the cloth £entu_
trade and a diminishing fleet. The king advised them r\es
to build more ships, and promised his help ; the
promise was fulfilled when, a few years later, by the
treaty of 'The Great Intercourse,' some of the re-
strictions on foreign trade were removed. The king
was here again in 1490, when lie received a benevo-
lence of i?500, and rewarded the burgesses by fining
all those worth £20 or more the sum of twenty
shillings ' because their wives went so sumptuously
apparelled.''
During this reign trade received an enormous im-
petus by the discovery of America, and of the
prosperity which followed Bristol obtained, owing
to its advantageous geographical position, and to the
enterprise and adventurous spirit of its merchants,
a very full share. As early as 1480, two Bristol
merchants had fitted out an expedition in search
of the island of Brasyllo to the west of Ireland.
This expedition was unsuccessful, but it was followed
by others ; and at length, in 1497, the continent of
North America was discovered by John Cabot, the
Genoese navigator, in a ship which sailed from Bristol
and was manned by Bristol men. The next year
he sailed again, under a patent granted to himself,
with two ships and three hundred men, accompanied
57
by his son Sebastian, who is said to have been born
in Bristol. On this voyage Newfoundland was dis-
covered, and the explorer sailed down the coast of
the mainland as far as 36° north latitude. These
voyages were not at once commercially successful, but
the adventurous spirit they encouraged led to a
greatly increased trade with Spain, the Levant, the
Canaries, and the West Indies, notably by members
of the Thorn family, honourably known in Bristol
as the founders of the Grammar School.
The year 1521 was one of great scarcity, and it
is said that the poorer citizens maintained life by
eating bread made of fern root ground up with
acorns. A few years later the ' Sweating Sickness '
was so rife that Henry vm., who was at Thornbury,
twelve miles away, did not dare to enter the town.
In these periods of distress both the corporation
and the rich merchants did much for the relief of
their poorer brethren.
The principles of the Reformation spread rapidly in
Bristol, chiefly among the lower orders, the wealthier
citizens chiefly adhering to the older Church. The
changes which took place in church institutions and
government will be dealt with in their proper place
in connection with the ecclesiastical history of the
city, but as far as they affected the civic life they
may be treated here. Lollardy had apparently never
been absent from Bristol ; as late as 1498 a heretic
was burned here for his religious opinions, and when
in 1534 Latimer, then Rector of West Kington,
Wilts, preached a series of sermons in Bristol, he
58
obtained a large following. He was followed by
Hubberdin, a popular orator on the side of the old
religion, and the controversy which ensued ended in
riot. One intemperate young lecturer was brought
before the magistrates and bound in sureties for good
behaviour. This case is interesting as showing that
the local magistrates took a common-sense view of the
matter, and were not disposed to raise the preachers
to the dignity of martyrs ; but it is more interesting
in having called forth an anonymous letter which
still exists, which is curiously rich in the delightfully
racy epithets applied to the city magnates : — ' Your
foolish mayor, and that knave Thos. White, with
the liar Abynton, the prater Pacy, and featering
Sutton and drunken Touell, foolish Coke, dremy
Smith and the niggard Thorne, hasty Sylke, strutting
Elyott, simple Hart and grinning Pryn, proud
Addamys and poor Wodden, the sturdy parson of
St. Stevyns, the proud vicar of St. Leonards, the
lying parson of St. Jonys, the drunken parson of St.
Ewens, the brayling master of the Calendars, the
prating vicar of All-halowys, with divers other knave-
priests shall all repent this doing.1 In 1539 George
Wishart, afterwards the famous Scottish martyr,
preached a Socinian sermon at St. Nicholas which
' brought many of the Commons of this town into a
great errour1; for this he was sentenced to bear a
faggot in the church where the sermon had been
preached. During the reign of Mary, some four
or five persons were burnt at the stake for their
religious opinions; but on the whole, both that and
59
Bristol
in the
Fif-
teenth
and Six-
teenth
Centu-
ries
the following reign were commendably free from
religious persecution, which was left to a later
century.
In 1542 Bristol attained the dignity of being pro-
claimed a city on the establishment of its Episcopal
See, and two years later she was represented at the
siege of Boulogne by several ships, including the
Thome and the Pratt, barques of 600 tons. Soon
afterwards the mint was re-established, after the lapse
of several centuries, in the precincts of the castle,
and at the same time and in the same place the first
printing-press was set up. The collection of octroi
had long caused much confusion and turbulence at
the gates, in addition to its injurious interference
with trade, and about this time the mayor, aldermen,
and common council consented to its abolition,
agreeing to pay the sheriffs a fixed sum ; so that
on June 26, 1546, it was proclaimed at the High
Cross that the gates of the city should be free for
all manner of strangers going in and out with their
goods, and for all men on lawful business, and that
the Back and the Quay should be free for all manner
of merchandise except salt fish. This salutary reform
was obtained by an agreement between the corpora-
tion and the vestries, by which the latter gave up a
large portion of their church plate toward paying oft'
the town debt : a fortunate bargain for the vestries,
as events proved, for the plate would otherwise have
inevitably fallen, in a very few years, into the
rapacious hands of the advisers of Edward vi.
On the accession of that king a Papist rising
6o
took place in Bristol, which was put down without
severity. In the same reign the Tolzey, a quaint
wooden penthouse beneath the shadow of All Saints'1
Church, was erected ; it served the double purpose of
a court of summary jurisdiction and an Exchange.
The four handsome brazen tables which still stand on
the pavement in front of the Exchange were placed
beneath it a few years later for the convenience of
merchants, and hence is said to have arisen the
proverb 'to pay on the nail.' The policy of retalia-
tion was put into force about this time by an ordinance,
' that all strangers who exact anchorage dues from us
beyond the sea shall pay like anchorage here."1
Queen Elizabeth visited Bristol in 1574 in the
course of one of her progresses, and was received by
the mayor and corporation at Lawford's Gate, and
was conducted to Sir J. Young's great house on St.
Augustine's Back. This fine Tudor house, which
occupied part of the site of the Carmelite Friary,
took the place of the Abbey as a lodging for royal
or distinguished visitors ; it afterwards housed the
boys of Colston's School, and lasted until the last
century, when it was destroyed for street improve-
ment : the well-known Colston Hall occupies part of
its site. The queen was received with the usual
pageantry ; there were processions of the city guilds
or companies, boys representing Fame, Salutation,
Gratulation, and Obedient Goodwill, made hio-h-
sounding speeches in rhymed verse, and there was
much firing of musketry ; there was, however, in
addition one unusual and indeed original spectacle :
61
Bristol
in the
Fif-
teenth
and Six-
teenth
Centu-
ries
THE RED LODGE
this was a mimic siege of two forts erected in the
Avon, with fighting by land and water, with much
burning of gunpowder, to the great delight of the
queen and all who witnessed the spectacle. During
her visit, which lasted a week, Elizabeth viewed the
cathedral and the church of St. Mary Redcliffe, and
sailed down the Avon to inspect the shipping at
King Road. In spite of this brave show, all was not
62
well with Bristol at this time ; sickness was always
rife in the closely huddled, ill-drained, and ill-
ventilated town. In 1551 the sweating sickness had
caused great mortality, and in 1564 an epidemic of
plague had carried off about 2500 citizens. This
recurred in 1575, when 1900 of the inhabitants
perished, including many leading citizens ; and there
was a still worse visitation at the beginning of the
new century, when in a year and a half there occurred
2956 deaths, of which no fewer than 2600 were due
to plague. The population at this time is supposed
not to have been more than about 6000 souls. Then
the shipping trade had fallen off' to such an extent
that, in place of the noble squadrons which assisted
the Edwards and the Henrys, Bristol was represented
in the fleet which fought the Spanish Armada by
a beggarly contingent of three small vessels and a
pinnace, and the total number of ships belonging
to the port had fallen to thirty-seven. In addition
to pestilence the town had to contend with famine ;
a year of scarcity in 1596 was followed in 1597 by
one of the worst harvests on record ; grain rose to
famine prices, and the well-intentioned efforts of the
corporation to keep them down probably only aggra-
vated the evil. To their credit the rich merchants,
now as on other occasions, came to the rescue :
Alderman Whitson, in particular, imported 3000
quarters of rye from Dantzic, and sold it to the poor
at reasonable prices ; and the executors of Alderman
Kitchin set aside 100 marks a week for the relief of
the destitute. Fires too were very rife in the timber-
63
Bristol
in the
Fif-
teenth
and Six-
teenth
Centu-
ries
built city, and to lessen the danger of them spreading,
a bye-law was passed forbidding the employment of
thatch as a roofing material. Thus the sixteenth
century, which had dawned so brightly, closed in a
period of gloom which was little lightened, and of
depression which was not removed, till its successor
had run half its course.
OLD HOUSE IN PETER STREET
64
THE ' DUTCH HOUSE
CHAPTER IV
RRIST0T, UNDER LATER SOVEREIGNS
DURING the reigns
of the earlier
Stuart kings the pro-
sperity of Bristol seems
to have been at its
lowest ebb. Not only
was the town squeezed
more thoroughly per-
haps than any other in
England by royal exac-
tions, but its trade was
grievously hampered by
monopolies and restric-
tions. Every mercantile
community believed at that time in free trade for
itself, and protection against all rivals, and as the
wealthy London merchants and trading companies
had the ear of the king, they obtained monopoly after
monopoly to the detriment of the provincial traders.
One of the first branches to go was the Turkey trade,
67
CATHEDRAL FROM EAST
which was granted to a London company. The Mer-
chants'1 Company of Bristol made a strenuous fight
for this, and were finally successful in getting the
trade reopened in 1669. A more serious grievance
in Bristol was the soap monopoly of 1631, by the
provisions of which the local makers were restricted to
the production of 600 tons a year, forbidden to use
fish-oil in the manufacture, and heavily taxed. At
the same time the growing import of tobacco, which
was to become a most important factor in the com-
mercial prosperity of the town, was absolutely
forbidden. However, neither depression nor oppres-
sion could entirely extinguish the love of pageantry
or the spirit of adventure. In 1612 James's queen,
Anne of Denmark, paid a visit to her ' chamber,'' and
was so received that she is reported to have said that
she never knew she was queen till she came to
Bristol ; while in 1631 Captain Thomas James, a
lawyer by profession, but an explorer by nature,
made one of the earliest attempts to discover the
North-west Passage, in a tiny vessel, the Henrietta
Maria, of 70 tons : though he failed to accomplish
his attempt, yet by his discovery of James Bay he
managed to write his name boldly on the map of the
Western Hemisphere. Before James had returned
from his adventurous voyage another Bristol man,
Robert Aldworth, with his nephew Elbridge, had
sent out an expedition to found a colony in New
England.
Meanwhile King Charles's extortions grew apace.
In 1634 he demanded and obtained ^6500 from
68
Sover-
eigns
Bristol as ship-money, and the next year the town Bristol
paid £2163 for this hated tax, in addition to i*25,000 under
for customs. Further exactions in 1637-38 raised a
loud and angry protest ; and when war at last broke
out, there is small wonder that the mayor and most
of the leading citizens took the side of the Parlia-
ment. The corporation maintained three companies
of trained bands, and with these and the help of a
company of volunteers they proceeded to put the
walls and gates into a state of defence ; and when in
1642 a small Royalist force under Sir Ferdinando
Gorges applied for admittance, it was refused. With
a show of impartiality, the same refusal was given to
Colonel Essex, the Parliamentary governor of Glou-
cester ; but, no doubt with the connivance of the
authorities, one of the gates, Newgate, was left
open to him, and by it he entered, and took com-
mand of the town.
Conscious of the importance of the possession of
Bristol to either side in the struggle, Essex at once
began to prepare for a siege ; but it seems to have
been felt by the Parliamentary leaders that, though a
good soldier, he did not possess weight enough for
so important a position, and he was almost immedi-
ately superseded by Nathaniel Fiennes, a son of Lord
Saye and Sele, a brave and able man, but of no mili-
tary training. Fiennes continued the work of forti-
fication, but though he raised money in the city by
the sequestration of Royalist property and by taxes,
loans, and requisitions from the citizens generally, to
or beyond the verge of unpopularity, he had continu-
69
ST. MICHAEL S HILL
ally to complain to the Parliament of want of money
and of men.
The situation of Bristol itself, so strong before the
invention of gunpowder, rendered it now absolutely
untenable, commanded as it was on all sides by neigh-
bouring heights. To remedy this Fiennes drew an
70
Sover
eig-ns
extended line of fortifications on the north side of Bristol
the town, stretching from a point on the Avon below under
the town to another above, and occupying the crest ^ater
of the northern hills. Starting at the Water Fort,
which rested on the Avon at the foot of Brandon
Hill, a ditch and rampart climbed that steep eminence
to the strong fort which crowned its summit. Then
turning to the north-west, it crossed the slight dip
through which the main road from Clifton passes to
the city, and reascended to the height where the
stately 'Royal Fort1 House now stands ; there Fiennes
established a small fort known as Windmill Fort.
This portion proved to be the weakest part of the
lines, though it was strengthened by a small redoubt
called Essex Fort. From the Windmill Fort the
rampart continued across St. Michael's Hill and along
the whole length of the crest of the height of Kings-
down to a fort at the extreme end of the ridge known
as Prior's Hill, now Nine Tree Hill. This point,
which commanded the low lands to Lawford's Gate
and the Avon, as well as the pass through which ran
the nearest road to Gloucester and the north, was
looked upon by both sides as the key to the position,
and was very strongly entrenched. Between it and
the Windmill Fort was another small redoubt where
' Colston's Fort1 House now stands. At Prior's Hill
the line of defence turned sharply to the south-east,
and, crossing the Frome, reached Lawford's Gate, the
chief entrance to the town on the landward side.
This gate, which stood at the east end of the castle
precincts, was strongly fortified, and from it the line
71
was carried southward to terminate on the bank of
the Avon at a point opposite Tower Harritz, where
the old wall of the southern suburb commenced. No
attempt was made to strengthen the fortifications
south of the Avon, partly because the thirteenth-
century wall there was both strong and in good re-
pair, but partly, no doubt, because the possession of
the district of Redcliffe and Temple Fee was of no
advantage to an attacking force, consisting as it did
of a low-lying maze of lanes completely covered by
the older town and the castle on the northern bank,
from which it was separated by a deep and rapid
tidal river, or at low water by still more impassable
mud-banks, with, for the only means of communi-
cation, a long narrow bridge encumbered by lofty
timber-framed houses.
In the meantime, Fiennes's position in the city was
not an easy one. Though he took the precaution of
removing all the clergy, who were Royalists almost to
a man, from the city and putting Puritans into their
pulpits, there was yet a strong body of loyalist opinion ;
and this was joined by some disaffected adherents of
Essex, and in March 1642 a plot was formed, under
the leadership of Robert Yeomans, a merchant of
character and position, to seize the Frome Gate and
open it to Prince Rupert : it is said that there were
no fewer than 2000 men engaged in the conspiracy.
In accordance with the arrangement, Rupert appeared
on Durdham Down with a force of 6000 men ; but
there was the usual informer among the conspirators,
and on the eve of March 7, the day fixed for its
72
Sover-
eigns
execution, the plot was discovered and the ringleaders Bristol
seized. Yeomans and his lieutenant, George Boucher, under
or Butcher, were tried by court-martial and con- ™^
demned to be hanged, and the sentence was carried
out on the 30th of May following. Fiennes was
severely censured for this execution by members of
his own party as well as by Royalists, but it is diffi-
cult to see how he could have acted otherwise if he
wished to maintain his authority.
The long-expected siege began on July 22 of the
same year, when the whole country south-west of
Bristol had been swept clear of Parliamentary troops.
Prince Rupert, who commanded the besieging army,
had under him a force of 14,000 men, against which
Fiennes could only oppose 2500, including towns-
men. After two or three days of ineffectual skir-
mishing a general assault was ordered on July 26,
and the lines were attacked on all sides ; the main
attack was upon Prior's Hill Fort, which was defended
by the gallant Blake, afterwards the great Puritan
admiral. He beat off his assailants time after time
with great loss, and the Royalists were foiled too
in their attack on the Somerset side. In the mean-
time Colonel Washington, who commanded on the
north-west side, was more successful. He discovered
the weak point in the line between Brandon Hill and
the Windmill Fort, and with 300 men effected a
breach near the site of the present ' Blind Asylum,"
and drove back the few defenders ; then having
waited to level the rampart and obtain reinforcements
he swept down the hillside and occupied College
73
Green with the cathedral and other buildings sur-
rounding it, and the day was gained. Fiennes
decided, probably wisely, that once the lines were
pierced it was useless to attempt to hold the city, and
he arranged its surrender on sufficiently favourable
terms, which were not entirely observed by the other
side. In the hurry of the moment neither Blake at
Prior's Hill Fort nor Captain Husbands, who held
Brandon Hill, was informed of the surrender, and
they continued their resistance till the next day.
Rupert's victory was complete, and he found a large
store of ammunition and provisions in the town ; it
was not, however, lightly won, for he lost upwards of
500 men, including several valuable officers. Fiennes
was impeached before a council of war, convicted of
cowardice, and condemned to death. He was, how-
ever, pardoned by Lord Essex, but dismissed the
army. It is right to add that neither Fairfax
nor Cromwell considered him to blame for the
surrender.
The capture of Bristol put fresh heart into the
Royalist side ; the king, who was then at Oxford,
ordered a public thanksgiving, and hurried to Bristol,
where he was lodged in Small Street, probably in the
Norman house which is now the Law Library. He
attended a thanksgiving service in the cathedral, and
signed a pardon to the mayor and burgesses, from
whom he obtained i?50,000 in cash, and an under-
taking to clothe 1500 officers and men of the king's
army. He also settled a bitter dispute between
Prince Rupert and Sir Ralph Hopton over the com-
74
Sover
eigns
mand of the captured city, by appointing Rupert Bristol
governor, with Hopton as lieutenant-governor. At under
• • • It
this time the Royalist cause was at its brightest, later
and it seemed as if history were about to repeat
itself with Bristol at the head of an undisputed king-
dom in the west. The resemblance to the state of
things five centuries before was increased by the fact
that the young Prince of Wales took up his abode
here in March 1644. With the disastrous defeat of
Naseby the royal prospects faded, and Rupert hurried
back to Bristol to prepare for a siege. He adopted
the lines of Fiennes, but strengthened them consider-
ably, especially by building a very strong fort, the
Royal Fort, on the Windmill Hill site. He also
threw in abundance of stores and ammunition, and
a garrison of 5000 men. Like his predecessor he
had continually to complain of want of money, and
his exactions from the wretched citizens were even
more oppressive than Fiennes1*, reducing the majority
of the population to beggary. Before the attacking
army drew near, Rupert was able to burn Clifton,
Bedminster, and the College at Westbury-on-Trym,
so as to deprive it of much-needed shelter. He was,
however, foiled in his attempt to pursue the same
course in the case of the villages to the east of the
city by the timely appearance of General Ireton with
2000 cavalry, and he neglected to cut down the
hedges and fill in the ditches outside the lines,
leaving them to form a useful cover for his
opponents.
On August 25 Fairfax arrived from the south
75
with the main body of troops, and so important was
the occasion deemed that, in addition to Ireton, he
was accompanied by Cromwell, Fleetwood, and
Skippon. They slept that night at Keynsham,
about four miles above the city, and the next day
most of the troops crossed the Avon into Gloucester-
shire. On August 23 the town was invested on all
sides, and by the capture of Portishead at the mouth
of the Avon Fairfax obtained the command of the
river, and was able to prevent supplies and reinforce-
ments coming in from Ireland. The siege which
ensued bore a curious resemblance to that by which
Rupert had two years earlier gained possession of the
city. On several days the defenders made sorties in
force, but were always driven back with some loss,
and on the other hand the besiegers began to play
with their great guns upon Prior's Hill Fort. At
last, on September 2, it was decided at a council
of war to storm the town, but before this design was
carried into execution negotiations were opened
between Fairfax and Rupert with a view to surrender.
Rupert asked for time to communicate with the
king, which was refused, and then on September 7,
proposed such terms as could not possibly be accepted.
Fairfax seems to have come to the conclusion that the
prince was only trying to gain time, and two days
later wrote to insist upon his original propositions,
which were rejected. At 2 a.m. the following day,
everything being in readiness, the signal was given
by a bonfire, and the attack began on all sides. On
the Somerset side, where probably it was not seriously
76
intended, it failed. The main attack as before was
upon the Prior's Hill Fort, and after several hours''
desperate fighting this fell to Colonels Rainsborough
and Hammond, nearly all the garrison being killed.
In the meantime Colonel Montague and Colonel
Pickering obtained possession of Lawford's Gate, and
made a way for Desborough with the cavalry to enter
the lines, and penetrate as far as the castle, where he
obtained possession of one of the gates to the walled
town. By this time the whole eastern side of the
defences lay open, and finding further resistance
useless Rupert consented to parley. The city was now
in flames in several places, and Fairfax agreed to treat
on condition that the fires were extinguished by the
garrison. This was done, and terms were arranged
the same evening, which were not unfavourable to
Rupert, who marched out the next day with arms
and colours, and with a safe-conduct to any Royalist
garrison he should choose within fifty miles of
Bristol. The loss of Bristol was a grievous blow to
the king, who greeted Rupert angrily, ' You assured
me that if no mutiny happened you would keep
Bristol four months — did you keep it four days ? '
However, after a court-martial held at Newark in
October, Charles acknowledged that Prince Rupert
was not guilty of any the least want of courage or
fidelity to him, and the court gave the same opinion.
In fact, Rupert and Fiennes were each justified by the
failure of the other ; the lines were too extended to
be held against a large, resolute, and well-equipped
army by the scanty garrison that each possessed.
77
Bristol
under
later
Sover-
eigns
Fairfax found the city in a deplorable condition.
Of the 12,500 inhabitants who remained within the
walls at the beginning of the year not fewer than
3000 had perished from the plague, and the survivors
are said to have looked more like prisoners than
citizens ; while the town was so filthy that it was not
safe to enter it till it had been cleansed. He found,
however, 140 cannon and a plentiful supply of
powder, and his total loss was only about 200
men. Skippon was left in command as governor,
and he again removed the loyal clergy, and refilled
the pulpits with Puritans. He also expelled the
mayor and such aldermen as he could not trust, and
replaced them by his own partisans. A subsequent
mayor was the first to proclaim, in 1648, that there
was no king in England, and that the successors to
Charles i. were traitors to the State ; the Lord Mayor
of London had previously refused to issue the pro-
clamation.
Cromwell spent some time in Bristol in 1649 on his
way to Ireland, and in 1651 Charles n. passed through
the town as a fugitive in disguise. He spent some
days in concealment at Abbot's Leigh, and is said to
have endangered the party by insisting on turning out
of his way to inspect the Royal Fort, which had been
in process of erection on the occasion of his previous
visit.
Bristol soon showed its usual power of recuperation,
and now entered on a period of great prosperity.
It was able to entertain Charles n. and his queen
right royally in 1663; and when, in 1668, Pepys
78 *
made his memorable tour to the west of England,
he found it in every respect another London. He
visited the quay, which he found large and noble,
and inspected the frigate of eleven hundred tons, the
largest vessel hitherto constructed in Bristol, which
was then building for the king and which was launched
the next year. He found ' the uncle of my wife's
maid Deb., who was a man of no mark, so like one
of our sober, wealthy London merchants as pleased
me mightily."' Deb.'s uncle regaled him with straw-
berries, venison-pasty, plenty of brave wine, and,
above all — Bristol milk.
The source of this renewed prosperity was in part
the trade with Spain, especially the import of its
wines, but chiefly the practical monopoly which its
geographical position gave Bristol of the West India
trade. This led to the sugar refining industry be-
coming located here : already in 1653 Evelyn first
saw sugar refined and cast into loaves at Bristol,
and for two hundred years it was the chief manu-
facture of the place. A less legitimate but even
more remunerative development of the West India
trade was the traffic in negro slaves. Bristol ships
used to sail for the Guinea coast, take in there a
human cargo, and after disposing of those victims
who survived the terrors of the voyage at Jamaica
or St. Kitts, return laden with sugar, rum, tobacco,
and other products of the islands. The slave-trade
was not entirely confined to black skins : it is said,
and probably correctly, that many kidnapped children
were sent to the plantations, and it seems certain
79
Bristol
under
later
Sover-
eigns
that the mayor and justices used to compound with
small offenders by means of threats of excessive
penalties to induce them to work in their own plan-
tations in the West Indies in a condition indis-
tinguishable from slavery. This was so notorious
that when Judge Jeffreys was in Bristol on the
Bloody Assize in 1685, he took occasion in his charge
to administer a sharp and violent reproof to the
mayor, Sir W. Hayman, and others. It must have
produced a strange impression on the spectators in
the old Guildhall, and one suggestive of Satan
rebuking sin, when the infamous judge suddenly
began : ' Sir, Mr. Mayor, you I mean, kidnapper,
and an old justice of the peace on the bench, I do
not know him, an old knave : he goes to the tavern,
and for a pint of sack will bind people servants to
the Indies at the tavern. A kidnapping knave ! I
will have his ears off before I go forth out of the town.''
Then, turning again to the mayor: 'Kidnapper!
You I mean, sir ; do you see the keeper of Newgate ?
If it were not in respect of your sword which is
over your head, I would send you to Newgate, you
kidnapping knave. You are worse than the pick-
pocket who stands there. I hope you are men of
worth ; I will make you pay sufficiently for it.' He
kept his word, for he presently fined the mayor d^lOO.
The year 1671 was rendered noteworthy by the
issue of Millerd's accurate and interesting map or
plan of the city as it existed at that date. It shows
that the town was still confined pretty much to the
area it occupied when William Worcester wrote,
80
but that the monastic gardens on the north and the
castle site in the centre had become covered with
houses ; there had been little if any growth south
of the Avon. The population, which in 1607 was
10,549, had now it is supposed risen to about 29,000
souls. Millerd received from the corporation the
thanks of the house, with a piece of plate to the
value of £10.
The local history during the reign of Charles n.
is chiefly an account of the disgraceful persecution
of the Nonconformists, and of the great growth of
the Dissenting bodies under its stimulus. It is fair
to say that as early as the days of the Commonwealth
the Dissenters had set the example by persecuting
each other : Baptists falling foul of Quakers, and
Presbyterians, with all the arrogance of an established
church, attempting to suppress all free opinion. For
some years after the Restoration the Dissenting
bodies were little interfered with, and at the enforce-
ment of the Conventicle Act the three bodies already
mentioned, as well as the Independents, possessed
recognised meeting-houses in Bristol. From this date,
however, the hunting of Nonconformists became the
chief business of many of the highly placed citizens,
who had the direct encouragement of the bishop of
the diocese. An interesting account of the perse-
cution, and of the shifts the preachers were put to
to avoid arrest, may be read in the Broadmead
Records, written by an eye-witness and sufferer,
Edward Terrill. During the mayoralty of Sir John
Knight alone 920 Nonconformists suffered fine and
F 8 1
Bristol
under
later
Sover-
eigns
Bristol imprisonment for conscience' sake. This Sir John
Knight, who had himself been a Presbyterian, was
one of five prominent citizens of the same name who
gave further point to the sneer of the Recorder,
Sir Robert Atkyns, that the City Council was ' full of
trade and knighthood ' : it contained two baronets
and no less than twelve knights, including the
learned Recorder himself. The persecution abated
on the advent of the Duke of York, afterwards
James n., to power : a Dissenter himself, he hoped
that the Protestant Nonconformists would make
common cause with their equally oppressed Roman
Catholic brethren.
In 1683 the corporation of Bristol shared the fate
of the other municipal corporations. At the be-
ginning of that year a writ of quo warranto was
brought into the Court of King's Bench against the
mayor, aldermen, and burgesses of Bristol, calling
them to answer by what warrant they claim to be
a corporation after having broken their charter. In
answer, the corporation resigned the charter and threw
themselves on the king's mercy. They received a
fresh charter on June 2, 1684, which embodied the
provisions of the earlier documents, but in which
the king, who nominated the members of the new
council, reserved to the Crown the right of removing
the members and officers of the corporation. This
right was exercised by James n., to his cost, when in
1687 he removed the Tory members of the corpora-
tion and substituted for them men in sympathy
with the Dissenters.
82
eig-ns
The seizure of Bristol, where he had many sym- Bristol
pathisers, was Monmouth's first aim in his rebellion, under
and he advanced as near as Keynsham ; but though later
the streets were filled with excited crowds, shouting sover-
for Monmouth and the Protestant religion, the
prompt and vigorous measures of the Duke of
Beaufort, Lord-Lieutenant of Gloucestershire, who
hastened to the city with twenty-eight companies of
foot soldiers, prevented any rising, and Monmouth,
foiled, retired to meet with defeat at Sedgemoor, and
death on Tower Hill. After the rebellion was
quelled Judge Jeffreys visited Bristol on assize, and
sentenced six men to death for high treason, three
of whom were reprieved, while about four hundred
were sentenced to transportation. It was on this
occasion that the judge delivered his memorable
harangue to the mayor, which has already been
quoted.
Though the Duke of Monmouth obtained no active
support in Bristol, it was not on account of any
affection for the king ; and on the arrival of William
of Orange the majority of men of both parties
declared for him, and he obtained possession of the
town without bloodshed, though a 'No Popery1 mob
plundered the houses of the Catholic citizens.
William spent a night at the house of Sir E. South-
well at King's Weston hard by, but did not enter the
city. Queen Anne paid a visit to Bristol in 1702,
when she was staying in Bath. She was at Bath
again in the following year, and as she did not on
that occasion come to Bristol the corporation of the
83
Bristol poor sent twelve persons to her to be touched for
the King's Evil ; the result of the treatment is not
recorded. On July 24, 1710, the queen granted
to the town its last charter, under which it was
governed till the passing of the Municipal Corpora-
tions Reform Act of 1835. By this charter she
confirmed all former privileges, and renounced the
objectionable right to remove the officers and mem-
bers of the council at her pleasure.
The eighteenth -century history of Bristol presents
little of general interest, but it was a period of un-
bounded prosperity, and during its earlier years the
old, huddled town of timber-framed houses was com-
pletely surrounded by a new, well-built, and handsome
city of brick and stone. The new town was laid out
with great care, and a wise provision was made for
fresh air by planning numerous squares, the earliest
of which, called Queen Square, in honour of Queen
Mary, wife of William in., is one of the largest and
noblest in the kingdom. In 1736 a colossal equestrian
statue in bronze of William in. (No. 3 on plan) was
placed in the centre of the square, chiefly at the cost
of the corporation and the Merchant Venturers''
Company. The sculptor was Rysbrach, and the
statue is one of the most successful of such memorials
in the country.
The men of Bristol had not lost the old spirit of
adventure : in the eighteenth century it took the form
of fitting out privateers for the wars which were
waged almost incessantly during that period. The
earliest as well as the most famous of these priva-
84
Sover-
eigns
teering expeditions was that which sailed under Bristol
Captain Woodes Rogers in 1708. Two vessels, the under
Duke of thirty guns, and the Duchess carrying ^ater
twenty, were bought and equipped by sixteen
merchants, some of whom belonged to the Society of
Friends. Second in command was Dr. Thomas
Dover, a physician, and a shareholder in the expedi-
tion, who became celebrated as the inventor of the
powder which bears his name, and which still holds
its own as a valuable medicament ; and the famous
navigator Dampier sailed as pilot. The expedition
sailed round Cape Horn into the Pacific, stormed
Guayaquil, captured several prizes, and finally
returned home by the Cape of Good Hope, having
circumnavigated the globe in about two years. They
brought back with them no less than i?170,000 in
treasure and prizes, and brought back also Alexander
Selkirk, the original of Robinson Crusoe, whom they
had found on the island of Juan Fernandez, where
he had been living alone for upwards of four years.
Selkirk spent some time in Bristol, and it is said,
though on no reliable authority, that he met Daniel
Defoe here at the old ' Cock and Bottle ' Tavern,
and that he supplied him with details of his adven-
tures. The success of Rogers's expedition led to a great
increase of privateering, which reached its height
during the Seven Years' War. In 1757 there were
forty-one such vessels belonging to the port of
Bristol, carrying from 1200 to 1400 guns, and
manned by about 7500 hands. By the next year the
number had increased to fifty-one. Many of them
85
Bristol were successful, but on the whole the losses probably
exceeded the gains, and though such enterprises were
not altogether discontinued till the end of the cen-
tury the merchants soon reverted to a more healthy
form of business.
In 1761 the British merchants petitioned for the
repeal of the obnoxious Stamp Act, and in 1774 the
electors, in a rare fit of large-mindedness, chose
Edmund Burke as their Parliamentary representative.
He was proposed by Richard Champion, the founder
of the Bristol china manufactory, and seconded by
Joseph Harford, a member of a family still deservedly
held in honour. His independent conduct, however,
and especially his exertions in favour of freedom of
religion and trade in Ireland, alienated his constitu-
ents, and the alliance which had begun so honourably
was short-lived, terminating at the general election
of 1780.
After a long period of quiet progress but of little
general interest, Bristol was once more to play a
prominent and not too creditable part in the general
history of the country. The local mob had always
been notorious for its turbulence, especially when
reinforced, as it usually was when there was any
likelihood of fighting and plunder, by the rough and
uncivilised miners from Kingswood Forest. There
had been serious riots attended with bloodshed and
loss of life on the occasion of the celebration of the
accession of George I. and George n., and again in
1793, when the public authorities broke faith with
the public by continuing the toll on Bristol Bridge,
86
on which occasion eleven men and women lost their
lives, and about fifty were seriously wounded ; but all
these were thrown into the shade by the rioting
which broke out here, as at many other towns, in con-
nection with the agitation which sprang up on the
rejection of the Reform Bill in 1831, and its reintro-
duction after the general election in that year. The
eccentric but able Sir Charles Wetherell, who led the
bitter and obstinate opposition to that measure in
the House of Commons, was the Recorder of Bristol,
and only a year before, on account of his leaving
the Duke of Wellington's administration to oppose
Catholic Emancipation, had been the idol of the mob,
which was Protestant to a man. He was now the
most unpopular man in the country, and nowhere
more so than in Bristol, since he asserted, in the face
of a petition in favour of the Bill containing 12,000
signatures, that there was a reaction in that city
against Reform. As Recorder it was his duty to hold
the usual autumn gaol delivery on October 29, but
in consequence of the excited state of the population
some of the leading citizens made representations
to the Home Office suggesting that the assize should
be postponed, which might, from the state of the
calendar, have been done without much inconveni-
ence. Lord Melbourne, the Home Secretary, how-
ever, declined to interfere ; but some slight precautions
were taken. A few soldiers, two troops of the 14th
Dragoons and one of the 3rd Dragoon Guards, were
sent down under Colonel Brereton to be at the disposal
of the magistrates, with the express understanding
87
Bristol
under
later
Sover-
eigns
Bristol that they were not to be called in except in case
of necessity; a large number of citizens, including
some undesirable characters, were enrolled as special
constables, and the Radical Member for the city, Mr.
Protheroe, undertook to accompany the Recorder.
An attempt to enroll the sailors of the port as
special constables was unsuccessful, the seamen reply-
ing to the proposal by a resolution ' that they would
not allow themselves to be made a cat's-paw of by
the corporation.1
Sir Charles made a public entry into the city in
the forenoon of Saturday, October 29, and was
driven in the sheriff's carriage, escorted by special
constables, through a noisy and violent crowd to
the Guildhall, which he reached in safety, but with
no little difficulty, some of his guard being severely
injured by stones. At the Guildhall the Commis-
sion was opened with the usual ceremony, but amid
much interruption, and the court was immediately
adjourned till Monday, 31st. During the short
journey from the hall to the Mansion House, on
the north side of Queen Square, the disturbances
were renewed, but the Recorder reached his destina-
tion without injury, though the lamps of the carriage
were broken by a volley of stones. Once within he
was besieged by a noisy crowd of men and boys,
from 1500 to 2000 in number, kept at bay by a
body of constables, brave and energetic, but without
organisation or responsible head. From half-past
twelve till four, however, they managed to maintain
some kind of order, but at that hour half their
number, unfortunately, were ordered to retire for
refreshment and to reassemble at the Guildhall at
six. In the meantime the mob had become yet
more infuriated by the death of one of their number
from a blow on the head from the truncheon of one
of the special constables, and the weakening of the
guard gave the signal for a really serious attack on
the Mansion House. At this juncture the mayor,
Mr. Charles Pinney, himself a reformer, came to
the front of the Mansion House with some of the
magistrates, and addressed the crowd, begging them
to retire quietly and not to compel him to read the
Riot Act and call in the military. The reply was
a volley of stones and iron railings, and at five o'clock
the Riot Act was read and the troops sent for. This
was the signal for a renewed attack on the Mansion
House, and the rioters obtained possession of its
ground floor. At this time Sir C. AVetherell made
his escape from the roof and gained a neighbouring
house by means of a ladder, and managed to
leave the town undiscovered in the disguise of a
postillion. The mob now attempted to fire the
Mansion House, but it was saved for a time by the
arrival of the soldiers. Colonel Brereton was informed
that the Riot Act had been read, and that he must
use whatever force was necessary to clear the streets
and restore the peace. He however would not use
force, and contented himself with riding up and
down the square, shaking hands with the rioters
and entreating them to disperse, when vigorous
action would probably have saved the situation. At
89
Bristol
under
later
Sover-
eigns
Bristol last the Town Clerk asked him plainly whether he
had received any orders which prevented him from
obeying those he had received from the magistrates,
and distinctly ordered him to clear the streets.
Then at last, late at night, a charge was commanded,
the square and the streets were cleared, and the
town became comparatively quiet ; but pickets of
troops were left all night at the Mansion House and
the Council House.
The next day, Sunday, opened quietly ; but the
guard was most unwisely removed from the Mansion
House, which was again immediately attacked and
captured, the mayor and other occupants escaping
with difficulty. Its contents were destroyed and its
rich cellars of wine plundered, and the mob became
infuriated with drink. Colonel Brereton now refused
to fire upon the rioters, urging that it would be
better to wait for reinforcements, and he removed
most of the soldiers from the city, which was given
over entirely to the mob, which was increased by
a number of colliers from Kingswood. The three
prisons — Bridewell, the new City Gaol, and the
Gloucester County Prison at Lawford's Gate — were
next attacked, the prisoners released, and the build-
ings fired. Then the Bishop's Palace was set on
fire, and an attempt was made to burn the cathedral,
though this was frustrated, one account says, by
the exertions of the verger, another by the efforts
and persuasions of five respectable citizens, all of
whom were Dissenters. Before night the Mansion
House, the Custom House, and nearly half the houses
90
in Queen Square were in flames, and the shipping Bristol
in the floating harbour was in imminent danger of under
burning. At length, early on the morning of * *
Monday, the 31st, energetic steps were taken to
restore order : the dragoons were brought back
and were joined by a few yeomanry, other troops
came in from Gloucester, the mob was repeatedly
charged, and the riot was over. The Mansion
House, the Custom House, the Palace, three gaols,
four toll-houses, and forty-two private houses had
been destroyed, and a large but uncertain number
of lives were lost. These were chiefly rioters over-
taken by the flames when engaged in plunder : it
is said that at least fifty perished at the Custom
House alone. Four of the rioters were executed,
and a large number sentenced to transportation ;
on the other hand, Colonel Brereton and the mayor
were put on their trial, the former by court-martial,
the latter before the Court of King's Bench. Colonel
Brereton committed suicide during the trial, but
the mayor was honourably acquitted : his defence
was that the citizens refused to confide in or assist
the magistrates, and that consequently, deserted
as they were by their fellow-citizens, they could not
have acted more efficiently; and the jury gave it
as their opinion that in a situation of great difficulty,
and when deserted by those from whom he was
entitled to expect aid and encouragement, he had
conducted himself with great firmness and pro-
priety. The citizens were punished for their
apathy by having to pay a special rate of ten
91
Bristol shillings in the pound to defray the cost of the
damage.
HiumlTif
"rrmWITTITIlJTIilTITU
STATUE OF WILLIAM III.
92
ST. JOHN S CHURCH AND GATE
CHAPTER V
THE CASTLE AND THE WALLS EARLY HAHBOUll WORKS
THE casual visitor to
Bristol will not find
it easy to realise that the
city was the seat of a
large and famous castle
which was in existence so
recently as 1656, so thor-
oughly was the process
of ' slighting ' carried out
under Cromwell's orders,
and so completely has the
town overgrown its site.
Still even now the careful
explorer may trace its
limits with a fair degree
of certainty, and may even
find some scanty but not
uninteresting fragments
of the fortress above
the castle ground. Moreover, with
the help of Worcester's description, and some early
95
Bristol drawings, notably that engraved in Millerd's great
map, it is possible to form a fair general idea of
the plan and arrangement of the castle, and even
an approximately correct picture of its appearance
at the time of its greatness.
Stow says that the Saxon King Edward the Elder
built a castle at the mouth of the Avon in the year
915, and some writers have suggested that this was
at Bristol. If this were so, it has utterly dis-
appeared, both from the earth and from history; but
there is no reason to believe that any castle was
erected before the town was held by the militant
Bishop Geoffrey of Coutance at the close of the
Conqueror's reign, and it is not mentioned in Dooms-
day Book. The Bishop of Coutance certainly built
a castle which occupied the position on the neck of
the peninsula, to the east of the walled town, which
afterwards formed the site of the later and greater
fortress. Geoffrey's castle, like most of those of
early Norman origin, probably consisted of an earthen
mound and base court defended by stockades, but
without any masonry : had it been of stone, it is
not likely that it would have been completely re-
placed in less than thirty years. Yet it proved to
be a fortress of great strength, and formed a base
for the unsuccessful rising of the Norman lords, in
favour of Robert of Normandy, against Rufus. The
next lord of Bristol, Robert Fitz-Hamon, lived chiefly
at Cardiff", and was responsible for no work at
Bristol ; and the castle as we know it was probably
almost entirely the work of his son-in-law, the great
96
Wall
Earl Robert of Gloucester. Robert took in the The
whole of the isthmus from cliff to cliff, cutting it Castle
off from the town and the mainland by two deep an" the
ditches, and enclosing the area by a strong wall
fortified by towers and bastions; and at a point
opposite to the town he built on a great mound,
probably that of the earlier work, a mighty rect-
angular keep, of the type of that at Rochester,
second to scarcely any in the kingdom. He also
removed the adjacent section of the town wall, not
so much that the castle should form part of the
general line of defence, as that it should completely
overawe the townsmen.
Almost before it was finished, in the early years
of Henry i., it received Robert of Normandy, the
first of a line of royal and noble prisoners to be
secluded in its walls. Of the part it played in the
strife between Stephen and the Empress Maud, and
how King Stephen himself was its involuntary tenant
for nearly a year, we have already read. It proved
far too important to be intrusted to a subject, and
under John it became a royal castle, and remained
in the hands of the Crown until the days of Charles i.
In 1202 the ill-fated Maid of Brittany, sister of the
murdered Prince Arthur, entered it as a prisoner,
and for forty long years she lived here, kindly
treated but under the strictest surveillance. The
castle took a part in the Barons' War, and soon
afterwards received as a prisoner Eleanor, daughter
of Simon de Montfort, who was captured by a
Bristol ship when on her way to Wales to join her
G 97
Bristol betrothed husband, Prince Llewellyn. It sheltered a
more illustrious prisoner when, for a short space
before the tragedy of Berkeley, Edward n. was
confined within its walls. When in the reign of
Edward in. Bristol was made a borough and county,
the castle with its precincts was not included within
the extended boundary, and remained till long after
a portion of the county of Gloucester. In a later
charter, by which Henry vi. granted to the mayor
and corporation the revenues of the town, the castle
was expressly excluded. As a result, a new and
disorderly town, acknowledging no local jurisdiction
and possessing its own market, sprang up between
the castle and Lawford's Gate to the east, which
became an Alsatia, a resort of thieves, malefactors,
and other disorderly livers, and such a public nuis-
ance that in 1630 Charles i. by charter annexed the
whole to the city. The next year the corporation
purchased the castle itself, subject to certain re-
versions, for the sum of =£959, and three years later
by a payment of =£520 they bought up the re-
versionary interests and entered into possession.
Under the Lancastrian kings this, like many other
royal castles such as Richmond and Leicester, was
allowed to fall into a state of disrepair, and when
Worcester wrote his description the residential
portion had become an utter ruin, 'now naked and
uncovered, void of planchers and roofing.'' The
dwelling of the constable, too, was all pulled down
and ruinous. In this condition it remained when
Leland visited it about the year 1535, and said of it,
98
' there be many towres yet standynge in both the The
courtes, but alle tendith to ruine.' Afterwards, Castle
houses and other buildings were permitted to be an" "ie
erected in the enclosure, and when it was taken over a s
by the corporation it contained fifty-three dwellings.
On obtaining possession, the city authorities built an
armoury with a guard-room, and soon after, when
hostilities broke out, they proceeded to put the
castle in a state of defence. The keep was repaired
and found capable of bearing heavy guns. During
the two sieges which ensued, the castle was used as
the headquarters of the respective governors, but it
did not take any active part in the fighting, and no
attempt was made to hold it when the outer lines
of defence were pierced. With the second siege its
history ended. In December 1655 an order was
received by the town to slight it, but for some reason
this was not carried out immediately; but in May
1656, in consequence of the receipt of a peremptory
command from Cromwell, it was destroyed, and the
work of destruction is said to have been accomplished
in the incredibly short space of a fortnight. Across
the site from gate to gate the corporation drove a
new street, Castle Street, so that once more after a
lapse of six centuries the town obtained a direct
and easy approach from the mainland. The area
soon became covered with streets, courts, and houses,
among which the scanty fragments of the old
building which were permitted to remain above
ground have to be searched for by the curious
inquirer.
99
Earl Robert took for the site of his castle, as pro-
bably did Coutance before him, the whole width of
the isthmus from Avon to Frome. This he proceeded
to isolate by digging two ditches : the one towards the
town, a drv ditch, was a little to the east of St. Peter's
Church ; the other, towards the open country, was
broader, deeper, and wet ; it united the two rivers
from whose tide it received its water. The former
ditch has long been obliterated, the latter still exists,
though it is now covered in. It lies for part of its
course under the street now known as Lower Castle
Street, formerly as Castle Ditch. The steep cliffs
above the two rivers Earl Robert strengthened by
revetments or massive retaining walls, and from within
their parapets rose the strong and lofty enclosure
walls of the castle, strengthened by numerous towers
and bastions. The area thus enclosed, about three
and a half acres in extent, was divided by a cross wall
running north and south into two wards, an upper or
outer, and a lower or inner. The former occupied the
higher ground on the side towards the citv, while the
latter, which was somewhat larger, was to the east of
the dividing wall. There was a third ward or out-
work, called by Worcester a bastile, beyond the great
ditch ; but this, which was known as the King's
Orchard, was probably a later addition. Within the
outer ward, on the highest ground in the fortress, the
Earl built a great rectangular keep. Of this nothing
remains, and its exact position is not absolutely
known ; but Worcester's description, together with
MilleixTs view, enable us to form a very fair idea of
IOO
its size and appearance. Unfortunately in this instance The
only of all the buildings described by Worcester, he Castle
was unable to make his own measurements, and had a" d the
to content himself with those supplied by the porter ;
and granting the accuracy of these, it is not possible
to determine the exact points at which they were
taken. This keep is generally described as having
been second only to those of London and Colchester,
but it evidently belonged rather to the same type of
tower as that at Rochester ; that is to say, its height
was perceptibly greater than its other dimensions. It
was oblong in plan, measuring 60 feet from east to
west and 45 from north to south, and its walls at
the base had the enormous thickness of 25 feet,
which diminished to 9 feet 6 inches at the summit.
If, as is probable, the porter's figures represented the
internal dimensions at the roof level, we may picture
to ourselves a tower of about 80 feet by 65, rising
sheer from a boldly battering base to a height of
more than 100 feet. The four angle turrets seem
to have been of much bolder projection than was
usual in Norman keeps, and, according to Worcester,
one of them rose six fathoms above the parapet of
the tower ; this seems to be a mistake, but there is
reason to suppose that Worcester's ' fathom ' was
much smaller than the modern measure of that
designation. The keep had three, or perhaps four,
stories above the basement ; in Millerd's view the
lower portion is concealed by houses. The visible
portion shows two upper stages, with three small
coupled windows in each face, and a lower one which
IOI
UNIVERS! 7 ORNa
has two large plain round-headed openings. The
entrance was probably on the first floor above the
basement ; there seems to have been no fore-building;
to protect it, but from the evidence of early seals it
appears that it was approached by an outer gate-
way. The outer ward contained, in addition to the
keep, the constable's house and the garrison church,
or church of St. Martin ; their very ruins, too, have
perished.
The inner ward was larger than the outer, but
lower and less strongly defended by Nature. It
sloped gently down towards the ditch at the east, and
near its eastern margin was placed the palace, some
slight portion of which is still to be seen. This con-
tained a great hall, a withdrawing-room or principal
chamber, a chapel, and the usual offices. The hall
was large, 108 feet in length by just half that number
in width. It was divided into nave and aisles by two
rows of massive baulks or ' sparres ' of timber, like the
still existing hall at Leicester ; there were apparently
ten of these on each side, and Worcester says that
they were 4-3 feet in height. The side walls seem to
have been low, only 14 feet high ; if it is correct
that the windows were also 14 feet long, they must
have been surmounted by a long row of picturesque
gables. To the north of the hall stood the principal
chamber, 51 feet by 27, and to the south the kitchens.
These buildings were Norman in style and date, as a
still existing doorway proves, but in the thirteenth
century a beautiful vaulted porch was added on the
side facing the green, which still remains. At a date
102
Walls
a little, but not much, later a chapel was built, whose The
vaulted undercroft adjoins the porch just mentioned Castle
on its northern side. There is no indication of any an ,;'le
later building. There were three main gateways to
the castle : the chief entrance was that from the town
to the outer ward, which stood at a point opposite
to the end of St. Peter's Street, where Castle Street
now begins. This was approached by a drawbridge,
and further defended by a barbican in advance of the
ditch. At the opposite side of the inner ward there
was another great gatehouse leading to the open
country. The third gateway was the Watergate,
situated at the point where the great ditch joined
the Avon ; this appears to have been formed by a
strongly fortified group of towers, and is the gateway
which is conventionally represented in the city arms.
Outside the fortified enclosure, low down on the bank
of the Frome, stood the castle mill, whose position is
fixed by the street names, Castle Mill Street and
Broad Weir.
The following circuit may be recommended to the
visitor who is curious to see the little that remains of
this once celebrated pile. Leaving the High Cross by
Wine Street and its eastward continuation, Narrow
Wine Street, a slight dip or depression in the ground
is approached, which marks the site of the ditch
dividing the castle from the town. From this point
Castle Mill Street descends steeply, clinging to the
lofty escarpments. Its upper end was here formerly
spanned by Newgate, once the only entrance to the
city from the east, and later, like the more famous
103
Bristol Newgate of London, a prison. Descending the Castle
Mill Street, the ' Broad Weir ' on the Frome is
reached, but the river is now arched over and quite
hidden. At this point lofty, grim, and blackened
retaining walls may be seen on the right, which very
well represent Earl Robert's work, even if the actual
masonry is not his. They contain vaulted cellars or
dungeons, which certainly formed a part of the Nor-
man castle. Similar chambers, it may be mentioned
here, still exist beneath the buildings overhanging the
Avon. Now turning to the right along Lower Castle
Street, the great wet ditch which formed the eastern
boundary lies actually beneath our feet. It will be
remembered that it connected the river Frome with
the Avon, and it still exists, but its course is now for
the most part underground. A small portion near
its junction with the Avon remains open and may be
seen from the bridge in Queen Street, a little lane
leading south from Castle Street, as a black and for-
bidding canal far below. From this point the ware-
houses in Castle Street, which reach the edge of the
cliff, block the outer circuit ; and Castle Street, which
traverses the whole enclosure near its southern boun-
dary, must be followed. Though this street only
dates from the days of the destruction of the castle
in the time of Cromwell, yet it probably follows the
line of an old thoroughfare through the enclosure
from the east gate to that at the west. On reaching
the site of the latter a narrow lane beneath a pic-
turesque old house, timbered high with overhanging
upper stories, leads once more to our original starting-
104
Walls
point. Now having made the complete circuit of the The
outer walls, let us follow the street facing us, known Castle
as Castle Green. This ascends a little, and at the top ^^f
of the rise Ave are on the actual site of the keep, which
was probably attached, on its northern side, to the
wall of enceinte. Just beyond ' Cock and Bottle '
Lane follows, more or less closely, the line of the
dividing wall between the two wards. Castle Green
now descends gently till it ends opposite a large
school, in whose playground is a fragment of grey
wall, which may be a portion of the early building.
Turning here to the right, in Tower Street a Tudor
doorway is seen, and just beyond a curious penthouse
jutting out from the line of building. This marks
the most important part of the building now remain-
ing, the Early English porch to the old Norman Hall.
Entering we find ourselves in a room 24 feet in
length by 14 in breadth, and at present 13 feet in
height. It is roofed in two divisions by a groined
vault ; the ribs of the roof are delicately moulded,
and are carried by clustered vaulting shafts with
graceful capitals of conventional foliage. The floor
has been raised so that the bases of the shafts are con-
cealed, and the whole interior is so encrusted with
dirt and whitewash that the sharpness of the delicate
detail is lost, but sufficient remains to show that the
little building belongs to the most refined period of
English Gothic art, the earlier half of the thirteenth
century. At the end opposite the entrance may still
be seen a large, but plain, round-arched doorway, the
entrance to the Great Hall, a portion of the Earl of
105
Bristol
VAULTED ROOM IN CASTLE
Gloucester's building. Adjoining this apartment on
its northern side is another room of almost precisely
similar dimensions and arrangement, but a little later
in date, and plainer and rougher in construction. Its
vaulting ribs are simply chamfered instead of moulded,
1 06
Walls
and they spring from corbels instead of clustered The
shafts, without any carving. The east wall of this Castle
room, too, shows signs of Norman date, and a piscina ana tne
and an ambrey in its north side points to a religious
purpose. It was probably the crypt or undercroft of
the royal chapel, which, there is reason to believe,
was entirely reconstructed towards the end of the
reign of Henry in. One other piece of early work
remains to be mentioned. This is the so-called sub-
terranean passage which runs beneath the school, and
was probably a main drain which traversed the whole
length of the castle and carried the sewage to the wet
ditch, which was scavenged by the tide twice a day.
Earlier than the castle were the walls enclosing the
town, but they not only lasted longer, but have left a
much more distinct impression on the topography of
the city. Curiously enough, it is the earliest of the
three lines of circumvallation whose influence is most
marked. There seems no reason to doubt that Bristol
was already an enclosed town at the time of the Nor-
man Conquest, but there is as little reason to believe
that the enclosure was other than an earthen rampart
and a ditch. Messrs. Nicholls and Taylor are alone
in their contention, in Bristol, Past and Present, and
elsewhere, that the first wall was a Roman work ; and
the Anglo-Saxons, though they were not unwilling to
utilise those of their predecessors, never themselves
defended their town with walls of stone. The Saxon
inhabitants of Bristol, probably as late as the tenth
or even the eleventh century, then seem to have
107
Bristol scarped the low hillside, and to have excavated a
ditch where the presence of the river did not render
the latter unnecessary, and to have thrown the earth
inward to form a mound of considerable thickness,
but of no great height. The lower end of the penin-
sula they further strengthened by making of the ditch
a mill-leat, which carried most of the water of the
Frome to the Avon. Such were the defences at the
coming of the Normans, and the conquerors did not
at first make any alteration in the plan of their pre-
decessors. At an uncertain but early date, however,
they faced the mound with stone and erected on it a wall
of masonry, pierced by five gateways and one or two
posterns. The short eastern section was soon removed,
probably either by Bishop Geoffrey of Coutance or
the Earl of Gloucester, when the erection of the castle
rendered its retention not only unnecessary but unad-
visable, and its exact position is uncertain ; but the
site of all the rest of the wall is determined with great
accuracy by the position of the streets which follow the
course of the external ditch and mill-leat, and by the
narrow lane which closely hugged its inner side, form-
ing the pomcerium or open space at its foot, in whose
course the existing fragments of the old wall may be
seen. Starting at the summit of the cliff over the
Avon, the wall descended along the line of the houses
in Bridge Street to the south gate at the foot of High
Street, upon which the chancel of the church of St.
Nicholas was afterwards built. Then crossing High
Street, the narrow St. Nicholas Street, formerly
Collas Lane, marks its inner side. This bends round
1 08
Walls
to the bottom of Corn Street, where St. Leonard's Gate The
once stood. If now we cross Corn Street, an archway Castle
under an office opposite gives access to St. Leonard's ano* t'le
Lane, with its high warehouses on the left on the site
of the wall. Following this we reach Small Street,
where stood another gate and another church. The
wall, which up to this point had closely followed the
course of the Frome, now left it, continuing to skirt the
hillside. Still following the narrow passage, from this
point known as Bell Lane, the foot of Broad Street,
which is spanned by the one remaining mediaeval gate-
way, St. John's Gate, is reached. This is not a part
of the Norman work, having been completely rebuilt
in the fourteenth century. It consisted originally of
one narrow archway, through which the road rose
steeply ; in later years side arches have been added
for the convenience of foot passengers. The outer
arch was defended by a portcullis, whose groove or
chase still remains, and the inner face is still adorned
by statues of the fabled founders of the town, Brennus
and Belinus. The gate is surmounted by the steeple
which was common to the churches of St. John and
St. Lawrence, both of which were built on the old wall.
Continuing our course along the narrow lane, from
this point known as Tower Street, a few yards bring
us to the one piece of wall still visible. It is here
about 9 feet 6 inches in thickness, and is pierced by a
postern gate, a plain pointed arch. The wall now
rapidly ascended the hill as far as the Pithay, a
narrow street which until quite recently remained a
complete and scarcely altered example of an Eliza-
109
Bristol bethan street of half-timber construction. At the
Pithay the lane we have followed so far comes to an
end, but the wall seems to have crossed this street by
the upper Pithay gateway, and then, bending toward
the east, to have passed at the back of the houses in
Wine Street and Narrow Wine Street, where it turned
sharply to the south, and, crossing St. Peter Street to
the east, or, as some think, to the west, of St. Peters
Church, it reached the Avon Bank at our starting-
point, thus completing the circuit. The difference
between the inner and outer levels is very marked,
varying from about 14 feet between St. Nicholas
Street and Baldwin Street to 4 feet at St. John's
Gate. When Barrett published his History con-
siderable portions of the wall remained, notably in
St. Leonard's Lane, where even the battlements were
preserved, and more recently excavations for new
buildings have often uncovered its foundations. The
circuit may be completed in a short quarter of an
hour's walk, and the whole space enclosed did not
exceed nineteen acres — a scanty beginning which, at
the time of writing, has grown to at least as many
square miles.
Very soon after the completion of the inner line of
wall a second wall was added on the north-east side
of the town : this is usually attributed to Bishop
Geoffrey, and it was certainly not later than the days
of Earl Robert. It added to the walled area the dis-
trict known as the Pithay, the enclosure of the well,
now almost covered by the works of Messrs. Fry ; but
its object was not so much to add to the size of the
no
Walls
town, the space gained being very small in proportion The
to the length of the new wall, as to improve the Castle
defences by utilising the river Frome, and to provide ^11 ,?
a new entrance from the east. When the castle was
placed astride the isthmus which connected the town
with the mainland it completely blocked the old and
natural approach, and a new road had to be con-
structed. On reaching a point opposite the outer
gate of the castle the road was diverted to the right
by the side of the ditch, and across the Frome. It
then turned to the left by the side of that river, and
recrossing the stream below the Broad Weir, it
climbed the steep and narrow ascent of Castle Mill
Street, close under the walls of the fortress. At the
top of the hill a new and strong gate, known as New-
gate, was built adjoining the north-west angle of the
castle which overshadowed it. From this point the
new wall ran down the hillside to the left bank of the
Frome, which flows under Fairfax Street, and then
crossing the modern Union Street, it passed under
the works of Messrs. Fry, where portions of it have
been excavated, to the lower end of the Pithay,
where there was a gate and a bridge. Then still
following the course of the river, it reached Bridewell,
where there was another gate, leading to Bridewell or
Monken Bridge, and was continued to the Frome
Bridge opposite to St. John's Gate, where it was
defended by a very strong gate, the Frome Gate.
From this point its course is uncertain, but it pro-
bably rejoined the old wall near the gateway at
the foot of Small Street. This wall was very lofty,
III
Bristol and from 8 to 10 feet in thickness, and was defended
by massive towers, one of which was destroyed as
recently as 1879 in making improvements at the
Police Court in Bridewell Street. A portion of the
wall still remains on the south side of Fairfax
Street. The Frome Gate, which was to play an im-
portant part in later history, was very strong, and
consisted of two separate gatehouses, one at each end
of the bridge.
During the thirteenth century a very much larger
area was added to the walled town. This was done
in connection with an extensive scheme for the im-
provement of the harbour, which was carried to a
successful completion in the year 1247. Up to that
time the low-lying district to the south of the old
town, now occupied by Queen Square and the adjacent
streets, belonged to the manor of Billeswick, and
formed part of the Canon's Marsh, the estate of the
Abbey of St. Augustine, with which it was then
directly continuous. In the year 1240 an agreement
was entered into by Richard Aylward, the mayor, and
William Bradeston, the Abbot of St. Augustine, by
which this piece of land was transferred to the mayor
and commonalty of Bristol in perpetuity for the pur-
pose of making such a trench or harbour as should
best serve their purpose, the convent reserving the
strip of land on the west or outer bank of the new
trench, but granting to the citizens free passage and
access to their ships at all times, on the town under-
taking to keep the bank in repair. The consideration
for which the convent parted with their property does
H3
not appear ; the nine marks of silver mentioned in The
the agreement can only be looked on in the light of Castle
earnest-money, but as at this time the abbey became ano- the
possessor of the Treen Mills below the town it is a s
possible tliat there was an exchange of land. On
this piece of land, near its western margin, the
burgesses proceeded to construct a trench or canal,
40 yards in breadth and 18 feet in depth, ex-
tending in a straight line from a point on the
Frome near the bottom of Small Street, due south
to join the Avon, a distance of 800 yards. Into
this trench the Frome was diverted, and its old
course was filled up and a street formed on its site.
This important work, which even at the present
day would be thought no inconsiderable piece of
engineering, was carried out in seven years at a
cost of i?5000, the burgesses supplying the labour ;
in this they were assisted by the men of Redcliffe,
under a mandamus of Henry in. It is worthy of
note that the mayor, Ay 1 ward, under whose rule
the work was begun, was re-elected to the chief
magistracy to witness its completion. The new
channel, with its soft bottom and with spacious
quays on each side, became and remained the
favourite harbour, and though its northern portion
has recently been covered in to form the open space
known as Colston's Avenue, it still brings vessels
of 1000 tons burden into the very centre of the
city.
As soon as the harbour works were completed, the
burgesses fortified a large portion of the added area
h 113
Bristol with a wall. This third wall effected a junction with
the original rampart near the point where the second
one terminated, at the foot of Small Street. It
was carried along the new course of the Frome, at
the back of the quay, for about half its length. It
then turned to the east, and crossed the marsh in a
straight line parallel to the modern King Street, to
terminate at the right bank of the Avon. It crossed
the site now occupied by the Hall of the Merchant
Venturers'1 Company, and passed close behind the
St. Nicholas Almshouses. It was 6 feet in thick-
ness, and strengthened by numerous towers, and was
pierced by two gates, both in the southern portion :
the one at the end of Marsh Street, and the other at
the end of Back Street, not far from the Avon. No
portion of this wall remains above ground, but its
foundations have often been uncovered in building
operations. The portion of land newly enclosed
formed the parish of St. Stephen ; many houses had
long before been built there, and it soon became
thickly populated. The low-lying land outside the
wall, afterwards known as the town, or Bristol,
Marsh, was planted with trees, and became for many
generations the favourite place of outdoor recrea-
tions with the townsmen.
At about the same time a much larger area on the
south side of the Avon was enclosed by a wall, and
this also was done in connection with a public im-
provement. We have already seen that when the
building of the stone bridge was begun in 1247 the
waters of the Avon were temporarily diverted into an
114
artificial channel, which formed the base of the The
triangle which was occupied by the districts of Castle
Temple Fee and Redcliffe. When the completion an" "ie
of the bridge allowed the waters of the river to VValIs
resume their old course, this channel was not
entirely obliterated, but was retained as the ditch of
a new and strong wall, which was built on its inner
verge. This wall was the loftiest and strongest of
all, and during the war of the Great Rebellion twice
offered a successful resistance to the besiegers. This
wall, too, has completely disappeared, but its course
is marked by the line of the street which skirted
its inner side. Starting at a strong tower, Tower
Harritz, on the bank of the Avon in the Temple
Back, it curved gently to the south-west along the
south side of Pile Lane to Temple Street, close to the
point where that street is crossed by the railway.
Here stood the Temple Gate, Avhich became the chief
entrance to the city. At the Temple Gate the wall
turned to the west and followed the course of Port-
wall Lane, lying between it and Pyle Street, as far as
Redcliffe Street, which it crossed a little north of the
church of St. Mary Redcliffe, leaving the church still
outside the walled area. From Redcliffe Gate the
wall passed between Jones Street and Back Lane for
a short distance, to terminate at Redcliffe Back at a
tower overhanging the Avon. Both Temple and
Redcliffe Gates were rebuilt in the eighteenth century.
The former was a fine example of Renaissance archi-
tecture; it was not unlike Temple Bar, London,
which had been rebuilt a little earlier : a substantia],
US
Bristol heavily rusticated mass of masonry, having a lofty
central arch and two roomy lateral archways for foot-
passengers. It proved to be a great obstruction to
traffic, and was removed in the year 1810. Redcliff'e
Gate was a building somewhat similar, but neither so
handsome nor so well-proportioned ; it was taken
down to improve the street in 1788. It may be
mentioned here that Fro me Gate had already dis-
appeared in 1694, Newgate in 1766, and the Bridge,
or South Gate, at the foot of Broad Street, on the
rebuilding of St. Nicholas' Church, in 1762. These
additional defences brought the walled area of the
town from the modest 19 acres of the early Bristol
to the very respectable dimensions of about 335
acres.
One other defensive work remains to be men-
tioned. When in 1313 Bristol was in a state of open
rebellion the town, as we have seen, lay completely
exposed to the castle on the east ; to remedy this
the townsmen rebuilt the eastern section of wall,
so as to shut off' the town from the castle. The
new wall did not occupy precisely the same position
as its predecessor, but was a few yards to the west,
where the modern Dolphin Street, long known as
Defence Lane, now stands, leaving the church of
St. Peter outside the town. This new wall, hastily
constructed, was probably of no great strength,
and was again destroyed when the rebellion was
suppressed.
The later line of defence, thrown up during the
Civil War in the seventeenth century, has already
116
been described in our chapter dealing with the general The
history of that period.
Castle
and the
Walls
f f l£f.,j
TEMPLE GATE
u;
f cr cr rfi, £*■> |£
CHAPTER VI
THE ABBEY AND THE SEE
THE Bishopric of
Bristol is of
comparatively recent
origin, as it is one
of the six episcopal
foundations of Henry
viii., but its cathedral
church has already
existed, as the church
of a convent of Au-
gustinian Canons, for
about four centuries,
when it was raised
to the dignity of a
bishop's seat. Up to
that time, Bristol had been the most remote town
in the unwieldy West Mercian see of Worcester.
The founder of the abbey was Robert Fitzharding,
whom we have already met with as the richest and
most powerful citizen of Bristol in the reign of
Stephen ; a useful and valued friend of Henry 11., and
119
ENTRANCE TO ABBOTS HOUSE
Bristol founder of the House of Berkeley. He was son, or
grandson, of that Harding who was reeve of Bristol
in the time of William i., and a descendant of a
noble Anglo-Saxon family ; but it is not necessary
to believe in the descent from the Danish kings
assigned to him in later years by grateful ecclesiastics.
Fitzharding was the possessor of the manor of
Billeswick, just outside the city, but separated from
it by the river Frome; and here, in 1142, he began
to build his monastery. The site was a pleasant
one, on the summit and southern slope of a knoll of
no great height, but well raised above the marshes
by which it was surrounded, whose former existence
is called to mind by the names of Canon's Marsh
and Frogmore (Frog-marsh) Street. The situation
was particularly suitable for clergy of this order who
preferred to have their houses outside, but within
easy reach, of a large town.
The foundation was at first a very small one— for
six canons only ; and the church, the first portion
finished, was in every respect a smaller, plainer, and
more lowly edifice than that we see now. Like the
present church, it was built in the form of a cross,
with a central tower, and the transept or cross aisle
retains much of the original work, especially at its
south end. But the nave, or body of the church,
was shorter, narrower, and lower ; and in the place
of the fine and spacious choir we now see there was
a short, narrow chancel without aisles, whose founda-
tions still exist beneath the floor. The church was
finished in 1148 and consecrated by the Bishop
120
The
Abbey
and the
See
VESTIBULE TO CHAPTER HOUSE
of Worcester, assisted by his brethren of Exeter,
Llandafr', and St. Asaph. The church finished, the
founder next turned his attention to the provision
of a permanent place of residence — a close or college
—for the canons, and this was placed, as usual, around
a cloister to the south of the church. By this time,
Fitzharding's growing wealth and dignity had led
121
Bristol him to increase the scope of the foundation, and
these further buildings were erected on a scale of
magnificence out of all proportion to that of the
church. Much of the work of this second period
remains, including the chapter-house with its charm-
ing vestibule, the small gateway in Lower College
Green, and the lower part of the very fine gate-
tower in College Green, which formed the main
entrance to the close. The main buildings were
complete when Fitzharding died at the age of
seventy-five in 1170, and was buried in the church,
at the entrance to the choir. It is noteworthy that
the abbey was erected not only in the lifetime of its
founder, but* also in that of its first prior, John, who
reigned from the foundation to 1186.
Before the death of this abbot, according to one
account, though another places the event half a
century later, the Priory was promoted to the rank
of an Abbey, a very unusual dignity for a house
of Augustinian Canons, for the abbeys of Carlisle,
Leicester, and Oseney were the only other important
examples. The honour was due chiefly to the influ-
ence of the Berkeley family ; partly, perhaps, to the
growing importance of the town of Bristol.
The connection between the religious house at
Bristol and the noble family at Berkeley did not
cease with the death of the founder, but the pro-
sperity of the one was intimately bound up with the
fortunes of the other throughout its whole history.
During the life of the second lord, Maurice, who
survived his father nineteen years, little or nothing
122
See
was done in the way of building, but early in the The
thirteenth century, under the guidance of the fourth Abbey
or fifth abbot, William of Bradeston, and doubtless *nd the
with the aid of the third and fourth lords of Berkeley,
Robert n., and his brother Thomas, it seems to have
been thought needful to do something to make the
church more worthy the importance of the abbey,
and the beautiful building we now know as the
Elder Lady-chapel was the result. Bradeston showed
his interest in the affairs of the neighbouring town
by granting the burgesses a strip of the abbey land
for the improvement of their harbour ; and it was
he who first built the small parish church of St.
Augustine the Less to provide for the religious needs
of the population which had grown up round the
abbey. The Lord Thomas just mentioned is the
first of his family of whom any memorial exists in
the cathedral, though his predecessors were buried
there; he died in 1243.
After Bradestons death, a period of mismanage-
ment and corruption set in ; the canons neglected
their religious duties for hunting and other sport,
and their Abbot John de Marina was too weak a
man to guide and influence them. Barrett quotes
from the registry of Bishop Godfrey Gifford that on
a visitation (1278) he found the abbey 'as well in
temporal as spiritual matters greatly decayed (dam-
nabiUter prolapsam),'' and ordered ' that in future
they do not as bees fly out of the choir as soon as
service is ended ; but devoutly wait, as becomes holy
and settled persons, not as vagrants or vagabonds.1
123
Bristol As the abbot was not sufficiently instructed to
propound the Word of God in common, he appointed
others in his stead. He forbade, under a curse, that
any feign himself sick when he is not so ; to live a
dissolute life and fraudulently despise God's worship ;
and ordered that in their meals all were to abstain
from detraction and obscene speech, and he removed
several officers and appointed others more faithful
in their place. This rebuke and correction seems
to have been successful for the time, but similar
irregularities were recorded at several later visitations.
The next important building era was at the be-
ginning of the fourteenth century. From 1306 to
1332 Edmund Knowles was abbot, and whether
he was his own architect, or no, it was he who
made Bristol Cathedral what we now see it, and
made it unique among the great churches of this
country. The Augustinian Canons were bound to
perform parochial duties, and so every abbey, or
priory church, of this order came to belong, in part at
least, to the parishioners. This seems to have become
very irksome to the canons, and one way of lessening
the real or imagined discomfort was to build large
choirs for themselves, for the performance of the
canonical offices, and to make over the nave to the
parishioners ; this had been recently done at Carlisle,
the one Augustinian Cathedral, and this the clergy
determined to do here. To carry out their resolve
Abbot Knowles removed all the building east of the
centre tower, and replaced it with the present choir
and Lady-chapel with their lofty aisles, which cover
124
s
ce
an area some six or seven times as large as the original The
choir. The increased width of the new building Abbey
caused it to abut against the Elder Lady-chapel an" the
which was preserved ; but the south windows of the
latter were closed, and arches were pierced through
its wall to communicate with the choir aisle.
A recent writer has well said that ' it seems as if
Knowles, foretelling the rise of the busy city around
the abbey, and its consequent smoke-laden atmosphere,
designed his choir specially for light.1 Certainly the
great size of his windows, and especially their height,
suggest this. In the rebuilding Knowles provided
for the sepulture of the members of the founder's
family, and of the abbots, by constructing those
peculiar arched recesses in the walls of the form
now known as the Berkeley arch, which occurs later
in the Church of St. Mary Redcliffe, at Berkeley
Church, and appropriately nowhere else save at
Berkeley Castle itself, where plainer examples are
to be seen in the hall which was rising at the same
time as the abbey choir, and no doubt under the
influence of the same architect.
In the year 1327 Edward it. was murdered at
Berkeley Castle, without, it is fair to say, any com-
plicity on the part of the then Lord Berkeley who
had succeeded to the estates and title only the year
before. Edward's body was offered to the abbot
and canons of Bristol for burial, but they refused
to accept it: through fear it is generally thought,
but it is more charitable to believe that it was out
of loyalty to the memory of their former patron,
125
Bristol who had been imprisoned several years by Edward.
The monks of Gloucester gave the murdered king
a tomb at which miracles were soon wrought, and
with the golden stream of offerings which flowed
in they greatly enlarged and embellished their con-
ventual church. It is idle to speculate on what
might have been done if the Bristol treasury instead
of that at Gloucester had benefited.
Abbot Knowles died in 1332 and was buried
before the Rood Altar, that is under the central
tower, where no effigy or other monument com-
memorates him, the church itself being his best
memorial. At the time of his death the work of
rebuilding the choir was not quite finished, a little
being left to complete at the south-west angle : this
was done by his successor, Abbot Snow, who also
built the chapel now known as the Newton Chapel.
Snow was the only abbot of Bristol who sat in
Parliament. After the death of Snow there was
another pause in the work of building, till the time
of Walter Newbery, the seventeenth abbot. The
earlier years of Newbery \s rule seem to have been
very troubled ; a rival, Sutton, not only contriving
to oust him from his position but to hold it
himself for five years, during which the affairs of
the abbey again fell into such disorder that the
canons expelled him and brought back their old
abbot. Newbery, who was first elected abbot in
1428, lived to an advanced age and died in 1473,
having been a great benefactor and builder. The
chief part of the fabric we owe to him is the noble
126
See
centre tower, certainly the most dignified and im- The
pressive feature of the cathedral. Although it had Abbey
no doubt been the intention of Knowles to rebuild ^n" 1
the nave to match his choir more suitably, Newbery
was the first to make any attempt to carry out
the idea, and although he had not at the time of
his death actually commenced to build he had
provided the materials. The work was begun by
the last of the great building abbots, Newland.
John Newland, or, as he preferred to call himself,
Nailheart, with a view to provide himself with a
punning rebus, succeeded in 1481, and dying in
1515 was buried in the Lady-chapel in company
with his predecessors Newbery and Hunt. He began
his building operations by placing the stone vault
which still remains upon the transept, and added
the upper part of the gate-tower, and he then
proceeded to rebuild the nave. He began by laying
foundations on the north side, and at the west end,
outside the limits of the Norman nave, which was
still standing, and on these built as high as the cills
of the windows, when the work was stopped on
account of want of funds. It is significant that
just at this time the Berkeleys were not only
involved in a lawsuit, which concerned their title
to the estates, but were not in possession of their
castle ; whether or not this accounts for the failure
in supplies, operations suddenly ceased, and were
not resumed for nearly four hundred years. Abbot
Newland compiled the document known as the
Chronicle Roll of the Berkeleys, which is not only
127
Bristol
THE NORMAN GATEWAY
a history of that family but a chronicle of the
abbots of St. Augustine's ; from it most of the
information we have concerning the early history of
the house is derived.
The cloisters were completed, and the refectory
128
See
rebuilt, soon after NewlancTs death, and Abbot The
Elliot provided the stalls, while Burton completed Abbey
the reredos; but the next important change was one ^n" ™e
of destruction. It is curious that the actual date
of the removal of the Norman nave is not known ;
whether it took place in the early years of the
sixteenth century, with a view to rebuilding, or
a few years later at the time of the fall of the
monasteries, or whether, as some think, a century
later still, during the progress of the Civil War.
In any case, however, the convent had no time to
finish the work of rebuilding, for in 1539 the great
monasteries were dissolved, and among them Bristol.
At the time of the suppression the revenue of
the abbey was £169, worth perhaps ten times as
much in our money. The last abbot was Morgan
Williams who, with the prior and sixteen canons,
retired on pension.
When Henry vin. resolved on the destruction of
the monasteries he had no doubt a genuine intention
of filling their place by, and transferring their
endowments largely to, a number of new cathedrals,
and had prepared a large and liberal scheme to
this effect, which included a see of wealth and
importance at Bristol. However, his own necessities
and his friends'' importunities proved too much for
him, and the scheme dwindled to the creation of
half a dozen ill-endowed bishoprics, one of which,
that at Westminster, lived only a few years. The
see of Bristol was one that was retained, but with
an establishment shorn of its fair proportions, the
I 129
Bristol poorest of the English cathedrals. Meanwhile the
abbey church was kept in hand, neither sold to the
parishioners nor quarried for building, so that in
1542 it was ready to receive its bishop and chapter,
the latter consisting of a dean and seven canons.
Its dedication was then changed to the Holy and
Undivided Trinity.
As originally constituted, the see consisted of all the
county of Bristol, whether in Somerset or Gloucester —
that is to say, whether in the diocese of Bath and Wells
or of Worcester, together with a few neighbouring
parishes in Gloucestershire and the whole of the
county of Dorset, which was taken from Salisbury.
The boundaries of the diocese have since undergone
several changes : in 1836 Dorset was exchanged
for the northern deaneries of Wiltshire, Malmesbury
and Cricklade ; and Bedminster, which included most
of Bristol south of the Avon, was restored to Bath
and Wells, and at the same time the two sees of
Bristol and Gloucester were united. A few years
afterwards Bedminster was again added to the
united diocese, and in 1897 Bristol was separated
from Gloucester and again received a bishop of
its own, whose territory includes the modern county
of the city of Bristol, whether in Gloucestershire or
Somerset ; the southern parishes of Gloucestershire,
and the whole of northern Wiltshire, in which are
the historic abbey of Malmesbury and the modern
town of Swindon.
Of the bishops who have governed the see little
need be said here ; the bishopric was very poorly
130
See
endowed, and almost all its incumbents looked on The
it simply as a stepping-stone to higher or better Abbey
things, some even stipulating for the next promotion ^nd *ne
on accepting it. Between its foundation in 1542
and its union with Gloucester in 1836 it was ruled
by no fewer than forty-three bishops, most of whom
held other preferment, and visited their cathedral
city as little as with decency they might ; Bishop
Thornborough, for example, held at the same time
the bishoprics of Bristol and Limerick and the
deanery of York.
The first bishop was Paul Bush, the master of the
college at Edington, who was distinguished for his
knowledge both of theology and medicine ; as a mar-
ried priest, he was removed from his charge in the
reign of Mary, but not otherwise persecuted. He
died at Winterbourne, where he was buried, but a
cenotaph in his cathedral commemorates him. His
successor, John Holy man, is said by Fuller to have
lived peaceably, not embruing his hands in Protestant
blood.
Richard Fletcher (1589-1593) held the see only a
short time before his translation to Worcester on
the way to London. His distinguished presence com-
mended him to Queen Elizabeth, and he is famous as
the father of Fletcher the dramatist, infamous for his
persecution of Mary, Queen of Scots, during the last
moments of her life. John Lake was consecrated in
1684, and translated to Chichester in the following
year ; he was one of the seven bishops imprisoned by
James ir., and a Nonjuror. His successor, Jonathan
131
Bristol Trelawney, the hero of Hawker's song, was also one
of the seven bishops. The well-known name of Seeker
(1735-1737) belongs rather to the history of Canter-
bury than to that of Bristol.
The name of Joseph Butler is not only by far the
most distinguished in the long list of Bishops of Bristol,
but one of the most honoured in the English Church.
His epitaph, by Robert Southey, in the cathedral,
records of him that ' others had established the his-
torical and prophetical grounds of the Christian reli-
gion and the sure testimony of its truth in its perfect
adaptation to the hearts of man. It was reserved for
him to develop its analogy to the constitution and
course of nature ; and laying his strong foundation in
the depth of that great argument, there to construct
another and irrefragable proof; thus rendering philo-
sophy subservient to faith, and finding in outward
and visible things the type and evidence of those
within the veil.1 Butler had already published the
Analogy when he received the bishopric of Bristol,
which he held at first with the rich living of Stan-
hope in Durham, and afterwards with the deanery of
St. Paul's. He lived chiefly at Bristol, where he
maintained a princely hospitality, and he is said to
have expended the whole of his episcopal revenue on
the improvement of his palace. He refused the arch-
bishopric of Canterbury, but two years before his
death was translated to Durham ; he was, however,
buried in his old cathedral.
Thomas Newton, consecrated 1761, is favourablv
known as the editor of the best edition of Milton ;
132
while the episcopate of Robert Gray was rendered
memorable by the destruction of the palace at the
hands of the mob, during the Reform riots in 1831.
After the translation of his successor, Allen, to Ely,
in 1836, Bristol for a time was left with half a cathe-
dral, and less than half a bishop, and it was reserved
for our own day to complete the establishment and
its house by the building of a new and suitable nave
to the church from the design of Street, and the
appointment of Dr. Forrest Browne to the reconsti-
tuted bishopric. Two names among the lesser digni-
taries of the foundation deserve mention. Richard
Hakluyt, author of the great collection of The
Voyages and Discoveries of the English Nation, and
other works on cosmography, was installed as canon
in 1586; and the wise and witty reformer, Sydney
Smith, held a canonry here from 1828 until his pre-
ferment to St. Paul's. His connection with Bristol
does not appear to have been intimate.
The
Abbey
and the
See
~^sw&&?&
MISERERE IN CATHEDRAL CHOIR
*33
CATHEDRAL CHOIK
CHAPTER VII
THE CATHEDRAL
THE Cathedral of
Bristol has until
recently been the Cinder-
ella, the despised sister,
among the English Epis-
copal churches. Origi-
nally small, and shorn
even more thoroughly
than Oxford or Carlisle of
its nave ; with its ritual
arrangements altered to
suit its curtailed dimen-
sions, and its furniture
huddled together in an
unseemly manner around the altar at the very east
end of the building ; and outshone by the more showy
attractions of its celebrated neighbour, the church of
St. Mary Redcliffe, it has scarcely ever received the
attention it merits. In comparing it with the other
cathedral churches of this country, however, it is just
to remember that not only was it not built for a
135
CATHEDRAL FROM WEST
Bristol cathedral, but it was not an abbey church of the
great Benedictine order, like Peterborough and Glou-
cester, which became cathedral churches at the same
time ; and even of the convents of the less wealthy
order of St. Augustine, to which it belonged, it was
not among the largest. Notwithstanding it is still
of very great interest, not only for its own beauties,
which are not few, but also for being, in this country
at least, a unique experiment in building, and for re-
taining more of its monastic buildings and surround-
ings than perhaps any other Augustinian monastery
in England.
The cathedral is well placed on high ground on the
south side of the grassy, tree-surrounded College
Green, the most beautiful of those open spaces which
form a conspicuous feature of Bristol. From College
Green the whole north side of the church is visible,
and its great peculiarity is at once apparent — that,
unlike all other great Gothic churches in England, it
possesses no clerestory. From this point, too, there
is apparent its one great fault, a fatal want of height ;
and the exterior in no way prepares the visitor for the
charm of the interior. The most striking view of the
building is obtained as it is approached from the east,
where the lack of height is not so much felt, and all
the lines lead up naturally to the massive central
tower, which sits easily and well, and suitably com-
pletes a well-balanced composition. A more interest-
ing view is that depicted in Mr. New's drawing from
the south,1 from the site of some recently destroyed
1 See p. 118.
136
houses in Lower College Green, where an excellent The
picture of the work-day side of a mediaeval monastery Cathe-
is to be obtained. Here the whole length of the dral
cathedral is seen, and nestling under its shelter the
conventual buildings, the chapter-house, refectory,
ruins of the abbot's lodgings, afterwards the bishop's
palace, and some old houses which have taken the
place of other parts of the convent. On approaching
the cathedral by the usual route from the city,
Ivnowles's great choir first comes into view, with its
exceptionally lofty transomed windows, and buttresses
of enormous mass and great projection; then Abbot
Bradeston's Lady-chapel is seen, and then the north
transept, containing the masonry, though not the
detail, of Fitzharding's original church. We next
come to the modern nave, by Street, and lastly to
the twin towered west front completed by Pearson
in 1888, the last addition to the building; this is
low and not particularly satisfactory, but it still
remains for its great cavernous porch to be enriched
by sculpture.
On entering by the north porch, here as at most
monastic churches the usual public entrance, we find
ourselves in the fine nave built in 1877 to match and
complete the old choir ; it was until the erection of
Truro Cathedral the most important piece of modern
Gothic church architecture in England, and it is only
necessary to say of it that it is a very successful
attempt to produce a building which agrees with the
earlier work without deceiving the spectator into the
belief that it is ancient. Passing eastward up the
137
Bristol nave, we reach the transepts which contain the earliest
work remaining in the church ; in that to the north
there is a graceful Early English arch opening into
the Elder Lady-chapel. The south transept is of
more interest ; high up in its east wall there is a small
round-headed window, which is the only remaining
feature of the original building of Robert Fitz-
harding, and under the arch below it is the monu-
ment of Bishop Butler, with the inscription by
Southey, which has already been quoted. On the
right hand is a door leading by a staircase to a small
gallery which communicated with the canons1 dormi-
tory, so that the fathers might reach the church for
the nocturnal offices without going out of doors.
Similar galleries on a larger scale may be seen at
Oxford and Westminster. The vaulted roofs of both
transepts are later — the north having been built by
Newland, and the south by Elliot; the sculptured
bosses are worthy of attention. In the south wing
there is a portrait-bust of the eminent painter Miiller,
a native of Bristol, and in the north are memorials to
Mary Carpenter, philanthropist ; to Catherine Wink-
worth, the translator of Lyra Germanica ; to F. J.
Fargus, better known as a writer by his pseudonym
of 'Hugh Conway1; and to Emma Marshall, who
wrote many excellent books for girls. Under the
crossing were buried Robert Fitzharding, the founder,
and Edmund Knowles, the builder of the choir, but
no memorials mark their resting-place.
From the transept admission is gained to the
choir, Abbot Knowles's great work, and until recently
138
the main body of the building. The beholder's The
attention is struck at once by its air of spaciousness Cathe-
and apparent breadth, as well as by the size and dra*
beauty of its windows, especially that which fills in
the east end ; but it is struck too by its marked want
of height. The building we are in measures 54
feet from the floor to the ridge of its stone roof,
a foot or two higher than the nave of Lichfield, a foot
or two less than those of Worcester and Wells ; but
the effect derived is that it is not much more than
half as high as any of the three. Still this defect is
inherent in Knowles's method, and though we would
not perhaps wish the experiment repeated, we cannot
be sorry that it was made. If he had carried the
work up another 20 feet the effect of his centre aisle
would have been sublime, but the narrower side-aisles
would have been disproportionably lofty : it may be,
too, that he was timid, and exercised a wise discre-
tion in keeping well within his powers.
The peculiarity of Knowles's work lies in this, that
he boldly carried his main arches to the full height
of the building, and raised the side-aisles to the same
level, thus abolishing the stages of triforium and
clerestory, and obtaining all his light by huge windows
in the aisles, whose great length was broken by
traceried transoms at mid-height, which remove the
appearance of weakness produced by long unbroken
mullions. The vaulting of the side-aisles forms a
curious and interesting feature. There is an Indian
proverb that an arch never sleeps, by which is implied
that its own weight and any that it supports are
139
Bristol always tending to thrust it outwards, and if the
pressure were not counteracted the building would
sooner or later fall. In this choir the thrust of the
great vault is collected at a point a little above the
capitals of the pillars, and opposite this point a stone
beam is carried across the interior of the aisle,
strengthened and braced by an arch below it ; this
beam transmits the thrust to the immensely massive
buttresses outside, which counteract it with ease.
The beams also carry the vaults of the bays or
divisions of the aisles, which are placed transversely
to that of the main building so that their slighter
thrust is not added to that of the central roof; the
arches below them have the additional advantage
that they bring down the apparent height of the
aisles which would otherwise appear excessive, and
the expedient is as picturesque as it is clever. What
suggested this singular design to Knowles is not
known ; several churches on the same plan, the so-
called ' Hall Churches,1 were rising in Germany at
about the same time, but none of them are earlier in
date than the Bristol example, though the grim
Romanesque nave of Lubeck Cathedral had been
built on somewhat similar lines two centuries before ;
it seems reasonable to believe that he, or his archi-
tect, evolved it for himself, and certainly the
construction of the aisle-vaulting was original, and
was never repeated in this or any country.
When the building became a cathedral a screen
was built across the church two bays east of the
tower, converting a portion of the choir into a small
140
nave or ante-chapel ; the stalls were moved eastward, The
and the altar placed at the extreme east end of the Cathe-
church. Since the new nave has been built the old dral
arrangement has been reverted to : the stalls have
been replaced under the two western arches on either
hand ; the altar brought forward to the fourth bay,
leaving behind it a processional path and a Lady-
chapel, and the Tudor screen has been removed ;
portions of the latter are to be seen built up into the
backs of the sedilia. The actual choir occupies the
four western bays of Knowles's building ; the loftv
reredos which closes it in at the east is modern work,
a memorial to the long connection of Bishop Ellicot
with the see ; it has much beauty of detail, but is
cold in colour, and interferes with the view of the
east window. The very costly and unsuitable pave-
ment and the sedilia, five on each side, are also recent
gifts. The canopied stalls, the gift of Abbot Elliot
(1515) deserve notice, though the substitution of
plate-glass for their panelled backs has very much
lessened their effectiveness. The misereres, thirty in
number, are of much interest, and will repay a more
careful examination. Several of them illustrate the
History of Reynard the Fox, and almost all are
secular and more or less humorous. The character of
the carving, which is more than usually full of detail,
may be seen in the example depicted by Mr. New,
representing the favourite subject of the Fox, in a
friar's gown, preaching to the Geese from the text,
' God is my record how greatly I long for you all in
the bowels.1 The series has been described and illus-
141
Bristol
BERKELEY ARCH AND EFFIGY
trated by Mr. Hall Warren in the Archaeological
Journal, vol. xviii., and in the Proceedings of the
Clifton Antiquarian Club, vol. i. Passing into the south
aisle features of interest crowd upon the spectator.
The singular vaulting and the great windows first
attract attention, and then the range of Berkeley
arches beneath the latter ; their carving deserves
142
minute examination. Under the first is the recum- The
bent effigy of Lord Thomas (1243), and beneath the Cathe-
second is that of Maurice n., while the last to the dral
east covers a tomb without effigies to another Thomas
and his wife. From the first bay opens the Newton
Chapel, a lofty building crowded with the cumbrous
Jacobean monuments of the family from which it
takes its name; and from the fourth a doorway of
great beauty and delicacy of carving leads to the
sacristry. In this little apartment the skeleton
vaulting should be noticed, and the sculpture on its
south side, so realistic that the artist has represented
a snail crawling across a leaf. The ecclesiologist
will observe two rare features here — a stove for bak-
ing the altar bread, and a tall narrow cupboard
for the reception of the abbot's staff. At the
east end is another doorway which is curiously
adorned with representations of the Ammonite
fossil, employed as crockets. This doorway is built
with stone from Keynsham, and St. Keyne like St.
Hilda has the local reputation of having turned
the snakes of the neighbourhood into these fossils,
a belief which probably suggested the use of this
ornament.
The little sacristry proved too small for its object,
and the large and well-lighted Berkeley Chapel, to
which it gives access, was also used as a vestry ;
traces of its dual purpose may be seen in the two
recesses for altars, with their piscinas, beneath the
east windows, and in the cupboards recessed in the
walls. A small door leads to the sacristan's apart-
H3
Bristol merit above. This chapel is now used as a song-
school.
Returning to the aisle, a doorway, part of the
Tudor choir screen, beneath the easternmost arch
leads to the retro-choir behind the reredos. This is
of the same height and general character as the
choir, but the side aisles are not continued to the
end. It has three bays, one of which forms a pro-
cessional path, and the other two the Lady-chapel.
Every feature in this part of the church repays care-
ful attention. First, let us notice the great window
which entirely fills in the upper part of the east end ;
its tracery is both singular and beautiful, and much of
its glass is original and contemporary : Mr. Winston
places its date at about the year 1320. The lower
portion of the window represents a stem of Jesse ;
the figures are contained in medallions formed by the
ramifications of a vine branch ; nearly all are modern,
but most of the very graceful scroll work is ancient.
In the three lights above are represented the crucified
Saviour with the Blessed Virgin and St. John, while
the head tracery contains an unusually rich display
of heraldry. This window should be compared with
the more complete contemporary examples at Shrews-
bury and Selby. The four side-windows of the Lady-
chapel also contain glass of the same date, though of
a different character ; they are examples of the school
to which the better-known fourteenth-century glass
at Tewkesbury and Wells belongs. The three upper
lights of the first window on the south side are filled
by a spirited if quaint representation of the martyr-
144
dom of St. Edmund, the name-saint of the builder. The
Below the east window is a reredos composed of Cathe-
three deep arched recesses adorned with richly gilded aral
diaper work : this was the work of Knowles, but
the graceful cresting which finishes it was added by
Abbot Burton about two hundred years later. In
the Lady-chapel may be seen the effigies of three of
the abbots, placed in arched recesses, resembling
those already met with ; they are all in good pre-
servation, and are excellent illustrations of the
eucharistic vestments of a mitred abbot of the
fifteenth century. It is worthy of note that each
carries his pastoral staff in a different position, so
that the prevalent idea that an abbot always bore
it with the crook turned inwards to signify that his
jurisdiction was internal cannot be considered as
universally accepted. The three abbots buried here
are Newbury (1463) nearest to the altar, and Hunt
(1491) on the north side, and Newland (1515) on
the south. The rebus of the latter, a bleeding
heart pierced by nails, may be noticed not only
on the tomb itself, but elsewhere in the church.
The other space in the Lady-chapel is filled by
the graceful fourfold sedilia — modern work, but
said to be a reproduction of an ancient set. In this
part of the cathedral one piece of ancient furni-
ture is preserved ; this is a desk, solidly constructed
and mounted on wheels, whose purpose was to move
the heavy service-books from side to side of the
choir.
Under the arch opening into the north aisle is
k 145
Bristol a monument to the memory of the first bishop,
Paul Bush, who however was not buried here. The
tomb, which was probably erected by himself while
he held the bishopric, is an example of the curious
class of ' cadaver 1 monuments, which are perhaps
more common in the west of England than elsewhere.
These monuments were erected during the lifetime
of the persons they were intended to commemorate,
and they carried each a gruesome representation of
a decomposed corpse, to remind their owners that
they too were mortal. The intention was that after
death the unsightly object should be removed
altogether, or placed in an obscure position below,
and that its place should be taken by a portrait
effigy of the deceased fully vested. It not in-
frequently happened, however, that he was buried
elsewhere, or that his successors did not trouble
to complete the monument, and then the corpse-
effigy or cadaver was allowed to remain, as here,
in the place of honour. The north choir aisle
generally resembles that on the south, but owing
to the position of the Elder Lady-chapel its western
windows are small and high up. One of them is
rilled with glass of the fifteenth century. At the
east end of the aisle may be seen the mutilated
remains of an elaborate reredos, which was destroyed
to make place for the cumbrous Jacobean monument
to Sir R. Codrington (ob. 1618). The window above
and its companion in the south aisle are interesting
examples of the enamel glass of the seventeenth
century. They are popularly attributed to the
146
benefaction of Nell Gwynne, but were more probably The
the gift of Dean Henry Glenham, afterwards Bishop Cathe-
of St. Asaph, whose arms appear in each. The dral
subjects depicted in the north window, arranged
as type and ante-type, are the Resurrection and
Jonah and the Whale ; the Ascension and the Ascent
of Elijah to Heaven ; the Agony in the Garden and
the Sacrifice of Isaac. In the south are seen Christ
Purging the Temple, Jacob's Dream, Paying the
Tribute, and the Sacrifice of Gideon. It may be
said here of the large amount of modern glass in
the cathedral that, if none of it is specially note-
worthy, none is absolutely bad. The organ, a fine
instrument by Father Smith with later additions,
is now placed in this aisle. Its handsome case of
eighteenth-century woodwork, originally meant to
surmount an organ-screen, is not seen to advantage
in the comparatively narrow aisle. The familiar
tradition that the instrument was used by Handel
is current here, as at many other places which possess
organs which were in existence at the time of the
great composer. At the east end of the aisle there
is a bust of Southey, and at the west end a mural
tablet should be looked for to the memory of the
wife of the poet Mason, Gray's friend and corre-
spondent, with an inscription from the pen of the
poet. Under an arch opening into the Elder Lady-
chapel there is a high altar-tomb with two recumbent
effigies. An inscription on the jamb of the arch
attributes the tomb to Robert Fitzharding, founder
of the abbey and of the Berkeley family ; but another
147
ELDER LADY CHAPEL
inscription, on the tomb itself, assigns the effigies
to Maurice, ninth Baron Berkeley, who died in
1368, and to the Lady Margaret, his mother,
daughter to Roger Mortimer, Earl of March ;
neither inscription is ancient, but the latter is
doubtless correct.
From the north aisle of the choir is the usual
148
entrance to the Elder Lady-chapel, so called since The
the altar of Our Lady was transferred to the east Cathe-
end of the church. This chapel is of the Early dral
English period, and is a very beautiful and elegant
example of the work of that time. The workman-
ship of its windows — lancets arranged in triplets
with detached shafts — should be noticed, and special
attention should be given to the carving of foliage
and grotesques in the spandrils of the graceful arcad-
ing : in one an ape playing the Pan-pipes is accom-
panied by a ram on an instrument resembling the
violin ; in another a goat is represented as returning
from hunting with a hare slung across his back, blow-
ing a horn ; while a third has a fox running away
with a goose. These and other animals are very
spiritedly carved.
Having completed the circuit of the church there
yet remain to be visited the cloister and the remains
of the conventual buildings around it, which though
much mutilated deserve careful examination. The
cloister, which is approached from the south
transept, is small in area and late in date, though
it occupies the exact site of the original Norman
one. Only two of its four alleys remain, those on
the east and north, and the latter is contracted by
the increased width of the modern nave. Thev
contain numerous memorials, many to people of
importance in their day, most of which have been
removed here from the interior of the cathedral.
They include monuments to Mrs. Draper, Sterne's
Eliza, and to Cowpers Lady Hesketh ; to Bird the
149
CHAPTER HOUSE
artist, and to the Reverend John Eagles, ' Scholar,
Painter, and Poet,1 and a tablet to several members
of the Porter family, nearly all of whom wrote much
and one of whom, Jane, is still remembered for her
Scottish Chiefs. Upon the east walk of the cloister
the deeply recessed vestibule or portico of the
chapter-house opens;1 this is a picturesque piece
of late Norman work, part of Fitzharding's build-
1 Vignette, p. 121.
ISO
dral
ing : an early instance of the employment of the The
pointed arch may be seen in its vaulted roof. From Catne-
the vestibule entrance is gained to the chapter-
house, the glory of the cathedral, and one of the
most ornate pieces of Anglo-Norman building exist-
ing. The present east end is modern, the room
having been formerly longer, and perhaps apsidal,
but it is otherwise unaltered. The elaborate orna-
ment with which the walls are completely encrusted
never quite repeats itself. The great stone vault,
which is also much enriched, was a daring piece
of work for its time, if not quite so daring as that
of its contemporary neighbour at Gloucester. The
range of shallow niches round the chapter-house
served as the seats of the canons when they met
daily in chapter. Under the chapter-house floor
twelve stone coffins were discovered at a restoration
in 1831 ; they were in all probability the coffins
of the early abbots. The lid of one of these is
preserved in the canons1 vestry ; it is of Norman
date, and is curiously sculptured with a representa-
tion of the Descent into Hell : Christ tramples
upon Satan and sets free an imprisoned soul. To
the south of the chapter-house is another room
of the original monastery, once the canons' day-
room, now the lay-clerks' vestry. Passing along
the east alley, at its south end is seen a door
leading to the vestibule of the abbot's house, after-
wards the bishop's palace, destroyed by fire during
the riot of 1831. It contains the few books of the
cathedral library preserved from the fire, and from
I5i
Bristol its windows the blackened ruins of the palace may
be seen.
The south and west walks of the cloister are
wanting, but on the south side the refectory still
remains. It is a very late building, and like many
other late refectories, is raised on a basement story.
It contains the doorway of an earlier building, a
pleasing example of thirteenth-century art. Here
Lower College Green, the great west court of the
monastery, is reached. In it formerly stood a chapel
where tradition says that St. Jordan, one of the
companions of St. Augustine, was buried. On
turning to the left, a little Norman gateway will
be noticed which was the original entrance to the
abbot's house.1 Around this court many of the
buildings connected with the convent were placed,
including the king's tower, provided for the accom-
modation of royal guests ; these buildings have
now nearly all disappeared. At the highest point
of the green, near the west front of the cathedral,
is situated the great Norman gate-tower, the
principal entrance to the close, a particularly fine
example of enriched late Norman work ; its carving
is so fresh that it has been suggested that it is
not an original work, but a reconstruction of Tudor
or Elizabethan date. There seems no reason,
however, to believe that it is not of the date of
the founder. The upper portion of the tower was
rebuilt at the beginning of the sixteenth cen-
tury by Abbot Elliot, whose statue, with that
1 Initial to Chapter VI.
152
of Abbot Newland, adorns the south front, those
of King Henry n. and Robert Fitzharding occupy-
ing similar positions on the north. Passing through
the gateway the cathedral precincts are left, and
the visitor finds himself again in College Green.
The
Cathe-
dral
CARVING IN ELDER LADY CHAPEL
153
THE LORD MAYOR'S CHAPEL
CHAPTER VIII
THE LESSER MONASTIC AND COLLEGIATE FOUNDATIONS
THE proverb, < As
sure as God is
in Gloucestershire,1 no
doubt owed its origin
to the great group of
abbeys in the north of
the county, the three
mitred abbeys of Glou-
cester, Tewkesbury,
and Winchcombe, and
the important Cister-
cian house of Hailes ;
but Bristol, the city
of churches, certainly
deserved a share in the credit from the number of its
conventual and other religious foundations. These
religious houses, with their gardens and orchards,
formed a practically continuous semicircle around the
northern, or Gloucestershire, side of the town, sepa-
rated from it by the river Frome, whose curved course
they followed, occupying the gently rising ground
155
S^omiriiccin^riary
Bristol about it, and, to some extent, the heights beyond.
This amphitheatre of churches, with their conventual
buildings, large gardens and orchards, sloping up
from the river, and backed by steeply rising wooded
hills, cannot but have added immensely to the beauty
of the town.
Beginning at the south-west was the great Augus-
tinian abbey, already described, and next, on the
same knoll and only separated by College Green,
came the Gaunts' Hospital, beyond which was the
small house of Carmelites, the gardens of the two
joining. Beyond and lower down, but with its
grounds stretching high up the hillside, was the im-
portant friary of Franciscans in Lewin's Mead ; and
beyond this again, and standing a little higher up
the hill, was the one foundation for Benedictine
monks, the priory of St. James, built by the great
Earl Robert. On the high ground above the two
last there was a small convent of Benedictine nuns
on St. Michael's Hill ; and lastly, the semicircle was
completed by the house of the Black or Dominican
Friars, higher up the river, but occupying a low-lying
situation beneath the shadow of the castle, at the
east end of the town. Besides these there were
hospitals which were to some extent religious founda-
tions : the early St. Bartholomew's, near the Franciscan
Friary, just outside the north gate, and the more
recent, though still mediaeval, Foster's Almshouses on
St. Michael's Hill, with a pretty Late Gothic chapel
bearing the rare dedication to the Three Kings
of Cologne ; and lastly, beyond the ring and well
l56
removed from the populous town, there was a small The
hospital, perhaps two, for lepers, near the ford Lesser
through the Frome, known as Lawford's Gate. On Monas-
the south side of the Avon, too, there were some three p ,.
or four religious houses, all small and unimportant, • .
and now quite demolished. Founda-
The abbey of St. Augustine has already been tions
described ; of the others the earliest in date, and
perhaps the most important, was the Benedictine
priory of St. James, founded by Robert, Earl of
Gloucester, early in the reign of Stephen, or in the
closing years of that of Henry i. It was never an
independent house, but was a cell to the abbey of
Tewkesbury, of which the earl was a great benefactor,
as the son-in-law of its founder. It is said that one-
tenth of the Caen stone imported for the building of
the castle was devoted to the erection of the priory.
Earl Robert endowed his foundation with the manor
of Esselega, now Ashley, a northern suburb of Bristol,
the tithes of various rents, all churches of his fee in
Cornwall, and one church beyond the sea, that of
Escrimoville, in Normandy. In addition he gave it
the profits of a Whitsuntide fair held in the great
open space in front of the priory, and the prior had
also the prisage of all wines brought into the port of
Bristol during the octave of St. James; the two last
benefactions proved to be the source of much subse-
quent litigation.
The founder, who died October 31, 1147, was
buried in the centre of the choir of the church, in a
tomb of green jasper, which has entirely disappeared ;
iS7
Bristol the tomb in the nave, usually assigned to him, having
no claim to that honour.
The last prior, Richard of Cirencester, resigned
the house to the king at the dissolution of the
smaller monasteries, and received an annual pension
of £13, 6s. 8d., which he lived many years to enjoy.
When the priory was founded it was entirely extra-
municipal, but the town soon spread in this direction,
and in 1374 its church became parochial as well as
monastic ; to the parishioners being assigned the
nave, or rather that portion of it which still forms
the parish church. It does not seem that it was then
provided with a tower, as it was agreed that the
parish should build a bell-tower, the prior find-
ing stone, and earth for mortar, from the monastic
estates ; that the bells should be provided at the
joint expense of the two parties, to be used in com-
mon, and that repairs should be at mutual expense.
The buildings of the priory were granted in 1544
to Henry Brayne, and they were still standing in
1579, at which date they are minutely, but not very
intelligibly, described in a deed of partition between
the grantee's heirs. They afterwards passed, first by
lease and later by purchase, into the hands of the
mayor and corporation for public purposes.
Little now remains except the nave of the church,
or rather that part of it which was parochial, for the
one conventual bay perished with the eastern limb.
The part which does remain, however, is an excellent
and almost unaltered example of a Norman church of
moderate size, and it has the rare merit of preserving
l58
its original front. The south side is finely placed The
above the great open space which was once the site -Lesser
of the fair, now in part a beautiful garden with seats lvlonas-
for the aged and weary, in part a useful and pleasant f, ,,
playground for children; it shows the flank of the „:„+?
south aisle, rebuilt in the Gothic of the seventeenth Founda-
century, with the simple, substantial tower marking tions
the limits of the monastic and parochial por+: as of
the church. The Norman front has to be looked for,
as it is hidden away behind the houses which cling to
the south aisle of the church ; its lower portion is
severely plain, its upper part highly enriched though
sadly weather-worn, being executed in a soft freestone.
The lower stage is pierced by a plain doorway, the
upper has an intersecting arcade, adorned with chevron
moulding, three of whose arches are pierced for win-
dows. Above, again, is a circular window, well known
as a very early example of the use of tracery ; it is
made up of nine circles, one central and eight placed
around it, round which a cable moulding twines in
and out. Internally the church has an air of space
and airiness, due to the unusual width of the nave,
which is separated from the aisles by arcades of five
Norman arches on each side, moulded in two orders —
the inner plain, the outer highly enriched. The
arches are borne by light circular piers which have
semicircular shafts attached to their cardinal faces ;
the arrangement is varied on the south side by the
introduction of two piers of different section. The
lower stage is completed by a really striking string-
course of lozenge moulding combined with the billet.
159
Bristol There is no triforium, but a lofty clerestory with five
plain, deeply splayed windows on each side. The
three large and lofty windows at the west end are
adorned by jamb-shafts and chevron moulding. The
elaborately arcaded east end is modern, and, like
most modern Norman work, entirely unsatisfactory.
Modern, too, is the additional north aisle, by Sir
Gilbert Scott ; it has the one merit that it does not
attempt to masquerade as part of the original build-
ing. One or two monuments call for attention. In
an arched recess in the south aisle there is a freestone
effigy of a man bareheaded, with long curling hair,
clad in a civilian costume consisting of gown, girdle,
and cloak. This is erroneously assigned to the founder,
but it is evidently a work of the thirteenth century,
and is more probably the effigy of Richard Grenville,
buried here in 1240. In the outer north aisle there is
a good example of an Early Renaissance tomb : a
lofty Corinthian canopy covers three kneeling figures,
Sir Charles Somerset, son of the Earl of Worcester,
with his wife and daughter. The knight is in armour,
and the ladies in the costume of the period, 1598.
This tomb is soberly and agreeably coloured. The
Princess Eleanor, the ill-fated Demoiselle of Bretagne,
was buried in this church, but her body was after-
wards removed to Amesbury, and no memorial of her
remains at either place.
The monastic church lias entirely disappeared.
It seems not to have been cruciform, but, according
to William Worcester, who records its dimensions,
it consisted of a choir of about 66 feet in length
160
(Prioratus), and a Lady-chapel of the same length.
The conventual buildings have disappeared almost as
completely as the church; they do not seem to have
followed the typical monastic plan, but to have been
grouped around the eastern limb of the church,
chiefly on the north, but partly also on the south side.
Barrett says that in 1753 a part of the ruins of the
priory was still to be seen — 'a square room with
niches in the walls round it, in length 24 yards,
and of breadth in the clear 8 yards, possibly the
refectory for the monks. It appears to have been
vaulted with freestone, of which the side walls were
built very strong.' It was converted in his day into
two houses. This is probably the fragment now
remaining built into the houses to the east of the
church tower : two lofty buttresses to the south, and
two at its east end call attention to its mediaeval
character. This is the only portion of the monastery
remaining, but on the north side of the parish
church, at its west end, there is an old clergy-house,
of Elizabethan date, which has good plaster-work in
its ceilings.
The
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tic and
Colle-
giate
Founda-
tions
Next in point of date was the small nunnery or
hospital founded about 1170 by Eva, widow of Robert
Fitzharding, for nuns of the Benedictine Order. It
stood to the west of St. James's and higher up the
hillside, nearly opposite the east end of St. Michael's
Church. It was endowed with the manor of South-
mead, and possessed also Iron Acton, Bishop's Moor,
Lawrence Weston, and Codrington — all in the Bristol
l 161
Bristol neighbourhood. It was peculiar in having its own
rector. Its very fine seal is still in existence, but
all the buildings have disappeared, and their site is
occupied by the King David Hotel. The foundress,
dying in 1173, was buried, not in her own convent, for
she became the first prioress, but with her husband in
his greater abbey.
The abbey of St. Augustine and the nunnery just
described were not the only religious foundations
Bristol owed to the piety and liberality of the Hard-
ing family. Robert Fitzharding left, in addition to
his son Maurice — the first Lord Berkeley of his race
— a younger son, Robert, who inherited his father s
manor of Billeswick-juxta-Bristol. This Robert
married firstly, Hawisia, daughter of Robert de
Gournay of Barrow, in Somerset; and in second
nuptials, Avicia, daughter and heiress of Robert de
Gaunt. By his first wife he had one daughter who
married a de Gournay, probably her cousin, and left
one son, Robert. His second wife bore him two sons,
Maurice and Henry, who took their mother's name,
and are known as Sir Maurice and Sir Henry Gaunt.
The younger brother entering Holy Orders, and the
elder dying childless, their nephew, Robert de
Gournay, became their heir, in addition to succeeding
to the estates of his mother and his grandfather
(Gournay). These three men were the founders of
the important religious house and charity known as
Gaunfs Hospital.
The original foundation by Maurice Gaunt was
162
rather charitable than religious, being for the main- The
tenance of a chaplain, and for the relief of a hundred Lesser
poor daily ; and was under the control of the prior Monas-
and canons of St. Augustine's. Maurice died in plc,f
1230; it is uncertain whether he was buried in his • ,
hospital chapel, or at his other foundation for Black pount|a_
Friars, but his effigy is treasured at the former spot, tions
After his death, Robert de Gournay confirmed the
charter of his uncle, and further endowed the hospital
with additional lands ' to God and the Blessed Mary
and Blessed Mark, and to our monastery of Billes-
wyke ' ; he freed it from the control of the abbot of
St. Augustine's, and so enlarged the foundation as to
provide for a master, three chaplains, and the relief
of one hundred poor persons daily. His uncle,
Henry Gaunt, became the first master. De Gournay
died in 1260, and was buried at St. Mark's, where
his effigy lies side by side with that of Sir Maurice
Gaunt.
Henry Gaunt, the first master, was also a consider-
able benefactor ; under his rule the scope of the
foundation was changed, and it became more dis-
tinctly monastic, or rather collegiate, the staff of the
hospital being altered to a master, twelve brothers
(clergymen), and five brothers (laymen), and twenty-
seven poor persons, out of whom twelve are to be
scholars to serve only in the choir, in black capes and
surplices. It is usually stated that this was a com-
munity of ' Bonshommes,'' but this is a mistake ; it
was composed of secular clergy.
Henry Gaunt died in 1268, at a very advanced age,
163
and was buried in the chapel, the present building
which was probably begun by him. Before his death,
but after the separation from St. Augustine's, a dis-
pute arose between the canons of St. Augustine and
the brethren of St. Mark as to the right of the latter
to bury in College Green before their house ; the
question was submitted to the bishop, who ordered
that the burial should be permitted so long as the
ground was always kept level so as not to destroy the
amenities of the place.
No further change took place in the constitution
of the hospital until the Reformation, but it re-
ceived many benefactions, more particularly from the
Berkeley and Gournay families, and later, at the close
of the fifteenth century, from Miles Salley, Bishop
of Llandaff, who reconstructed the east end of the
chapel. The foundation survived the destruction of
the lesser monasteries, but in 1534 the master and
brethren executed a deed acknowledging the king's
supremacy, and in 1540 by another deed they sur-
rendered the hospital to the king. Its annual
revenue was then £112, 9s. 9d., according to Dugdale,
or £140, as Speed says. Though the old foundation
was destroyed the hospital did not entirely perish ;
the chapel and most of the buildings attached to it
were granted to the mayor and corporation, in con-
sideration of a payment of £1000, and after the lapse
of a few years the City School, or Queen Elizabeth's
Hospital, was established on its site, chiefly owing to
the liberality of two citizens, John Cave and William
Birde, both of whom were buried in the chapel. A
164
little later another portion of the site was utilised The
for the girl's school, known as the Red Maid's Lesser
Hospital, endowed by Alderman Whitson. Monas-
The corporation had for many years granted the p^f
use of the chapel to the French Protestant com- ~:ate
munity for the purpose of religious worship, but in Founda-
1720 the mayor and corporation, who had hitherto tions
worshipped in state at the cathedral, having
quarrelled with the dean and chapter over some
trivial question of precedence, decided to restore and
adorn St. Mark's or Gaunt's Chapel for official use,
' it being a chapel belonging to the mayor, burgesses,
and commonalty.' This was done, and ever since that
date the building has been known as the Mayor's
Chapel, and used for civic worship. It is just to add
that the city provided other accommodation for the
dispossessed strangers.
Queen Elizabeth's Hospital was not the only
educational establishment in Bristol which grew up
on the ruins of the monastic system ; a Grammar
School occupied the buildings of St. Bartholomew's
Hospital, which we shall meet with later. This school
not only outstripped its rival at Gaunt's Hospital,
but outgrew its accommodation, and in 176*6 the two
schools were transferred: Queen Elizabeth's boys going
to St. Bartholomew's, and the Grammar School boys
coming up to Gaunt's, where they remained till late
in the nineteenth century, when the present hand-
some school was built in Tyndall's Park. The
educational connection of Gaunt's Hospital did not
even then cease, for another great public school, the
165
Merchant Venturers'1 Technical College, now occupies
the old site. The chapel has undergone several
restorations, especially a thorough and generally
satisfactory one in 1888-89.
The only portion of the old hospital now remain-
ing is the very beautiful chapel, situated almost
within the shadow of the cathedral, on the north-east
side of the tree-shaded College Green, charmingly
placed among a group of pleasing early Georgian
houses, which it is to be hoped may long escape the
hand of the improver. Externally the only portion
visible is the lofty west front of the main chapel, and
that of its lower south aisle or south chapel (strictly
speaking, the building faces more nearly south than
west). There is a graceful doorway with arcading,
dating from the recent restoration ; the huge window
of nine lights above is an early nineteenth-century
reproduction of an earlier window whose tracery still
exists, adorning a sham ruin on the summit of
Brentry Hill, some three or four miles out of Bristol,
on its north side. The south aisle has a window
which in its tracery and its profusion of ball-flower
ornament recalls Abbot Thokey's work at Glou-
cester. The pretty red sandstone tower, finished
in 1487, is hidden from sight except in distant
views.
On entering by the west door a descent of several
steps leads to the floor of the chapel, and from their
summit a good view is obtained of the whole of its
body. It makes no pretence to be other than a chapel,
but it is a very fine one, long and lofty, measuring
1 66
The
Lesser
Monas-
tic and
Colle-
giate
Founda-
tions
THE LORD MAYOR S CHAPEL
120 feet in length along its north side (the south is
about 5 feet less), by 21 feet 6 inches in width.
Its length is broken on the north side by a shallow
transept, and on the south there is a series of
accretions extending for the whole length. The
chapel is not quite so early in date as the first
foundation, but cannot be much later. Its architec-
ture indicates that it belongs to the period of the
mastership of Henry Gaunt (1230 to 1268), but late
in the period, as it was built when the Early English
style of architecture began to give way to the
167
Decorated. It has on the north side of its nave four,
and on the south two large and lofty windows,
divided into three lights each by massive tracery of
the simplest type, and enriched toward the interior
by jamb shafts and well moulded rere-arches. Grace-
ful arches open into the transepts, that on the south
formed by the lower story of the tower : the
naturalistic character of the foliage adorning the
capitals of the responds indicates the commencing
change of style in the architecture. The sanctuary
beyond was remodelled by Bishop Miles Salley about
the year 1500, and is a fine example of the more
ornate work of the time. High up at the east end
there is a large window the full width of the chapel,
with narrower windows of similar character on the
north and south sides. Below, the reredos at the
east end, with the fourfold sedilia on the south side,
and the two elaborate monuments to be noticed later,
make a continuous band of the most delicate and
lace-like enrichment, dissimilar in its parts, but
forming a most harmonious whole. In the midst
of the panelling and tabernacle-work of the (attached)
reredos there is a not unpleasing altar-painting, the
work of a local artist, John King, 1829. The group
of chapels ranged along the south side next call for
attention. First, on the west, is the south aisle or
chapel, of the time of Edward u. ; this has a range
of traceried windows closed by a neighbouring house
on its south side, and is almost full of monuments;
it communicates with the nave by two plain arches.
Beyond, between the last-mentioned and the tower, is
168
a much lower monumental chapel, too dark in spite
of its three large windows. This chapel is very late
in date, built about the year 1510. It has fine niches
between the windows, and an enriched hagioscope, or
perforation through its wall to command a view of
the High Altar. Lastly, the Jesus Chapel, called also
the Poyntz Chapel from its founder, Sir Robert
Poyntz of Iron Acton, fills in the angle between the
tower and the sanctuary. This is the latest portion
of the building, finished about 1520, and is one of
the most beautiful examples of its period. It is
roofed with a fan-vault which contains the arms of
Henry vin. with those of Queen Catherine of Aragon,
and has a series of beautiful niches round the walls.
Its east window contains the only original, though not
the only old glazing in the chapel, and its floor is
unique in this country, being paved with Moorish
tiles (azuleias) from Spain.
The furniture is all modern and, unfortunately for
effect, not arranged in the collegiate manner, but the
glass and the monuments yet remain to be noticed.
The chapel is rich in old glass, chiefly foreign, and
though not of the highest merit, yet much of it
pleasing. The east window is of late Gothic-Flemish
work, with St. Barbara and St. Catherine. The first
window in the nave, on the north, is French glass,
dated 1543; it contains the monograms of Henry n.
of France and Diana of Poictiers. The next window
is also of French glass, a little earlier in date ; it con-
tains scenes from the Passion, of which the scourging
is particularly noticeable, and the whole colouring is
169
The
Lesser
Monas-
tic and
Colle-
giate
Founda-
tions
Bristol satisfactory. The other windows in the chapel
proper are modern, and most of them armorial.
The south aisle has some good German glass
in its west window, and at the other end is a
much admired and singularly inartistic chiaro-
oscuro representation of Archbishop Becket, brought
here from Fonthill, whence much of the old glass
came. The Dutch medallion glass in monochrome in
the windows of the memorial chapel is also worthy
of notice.
But the chief glory of St. Mark's lies in
its series of monuments, almost entirely of bene-
factors to the institution, or of men who had
otherwise deserved well of their city — a series ex-
tending from the thirteenth century to the present
time.
On entering, on the 1p''; is seen the carved and
canopied Elizabethan tomb of William Birde
(ob. 1590), mayor, sheriff, and benefactor to the
school ; and on the right the recumbent effigy of
Lord Richard Berkeley, who died in 1604, armed
but bare-headed. Above the elaborate epitaph there
is a curious admonition, thus translated by Pryce :
' Though all men may desire to know my name and
race, yet no man may desire to know my mind. If
any should take up the inquiry who I am, reply, I
know not ; but let me advise that man to know
himself/
At the east end, on the north side of the altar,
under an arched recess whose front is richly panelled
and crested, is the effigy of Miles Salley in full
170
eucharistic vestments, with miti'e and crozier ; and The
just to the west of the last, and forming part of the Lesser
same design, is the still richer arched recess which M°nas-
covers the tomb of Sir Thomas Berkeley of Ubley, pCifn
and his wife. The canopy of this tomb has a double ™afe
cusped or feathered ogee arch, whose finial pierces Founda-
the rich cresting. Sir Thomas died a.d. 1361, but tions
the recess is part of the restoration of Bishop Salley.
The female effigy is particularly graceful in its simple
lines.
In the south aisle is the interesting thirteenth-
century effigy which is attributed to the first
master, Henry Gaunt. It represents a man in
civilian costume, with cote-hardi, cloak and hood,
laced shoes, and his anlace or sheath-knife sus-
pended from his waist. Here, too, is the reputed
tomb of Carr, the founder of Queen Elizabeth's
Hospital, and a kneeling figure of Alderman Thomas
James, mayor and Member of Parliament, who
died a.d. 1619. In addition there is an interesting
seventeenth-century effigy of a boy, John Cookin,
and a white marble statue preserves the re-
fined features of a recent benefactor, Alderman
Bengough.
In the middle of the monumental chapel, on the
same low altar-tomb, are the two recumbent effigies
which have always been assigned to the founders.
Maurice Gaunt {ob. 1230) is represented in hauberk,
with sleeves covering arms and hands, and a coif
over the head, all in one piece. Separate chausses
protect the legs, the whole being of linked mail. The
171
Bristol figure wears a long flowing surcoat, open to the waist,
where it is secured by a broad belt, from which
depends by two straps a broad, heavy, cross-hilted
sword. He is represented as cross-legged, and is
holding the scabbard in the left hand, while the
right grasped the hilt, and he has no shield. The
figure of Gournay (1260) is similar, but the sword
and belt are much lighter. The coif is not continuous
with the hauberk, and on the left arm is a kite-
shaped shield. The hands in this effigy are folded
over the heart. On the north wall is the stiff and
ungainly Jacobean effigy of George Upton, in
plate armour. Another costly marble tomb
commemorates Margaret Throckmorton, who died
in 1635. She is represented in effigy with her
husband, Sir Baynham Throckmorton, and her
baby. There is a belated Gothic monument to
a member of the Aldworth family, a prominent
Bristol name, with two kneeling figures ; its date
is 1598: and lastly, the whole of the east wall of
the chapel is filled with the ponderous Baynton
tomb, said to be the work of Cibber, the sculptor,
father of the better-known actor and dramatist,
Colley Cibber.
His Hospital was not the only religious foundation
of Maurice Gaunt ; at the time of its erection the
Friars first appeared in England, and in a few years
spread over the whole country. The first invaders
were the Black or Dominican Friars, who established
themselves at Oxford in 1221, and in the course of a
172
very few years they appeared in Bristol. For them
Gaunt began, in 1228 or 1229, to build a house
which became one of the chief friaries of the order in
England, and of which considerable remains still
exist in careful keeping, forming an almost unique
example in this country of the domestic buildings
of a Dominican friary. As one Matthew Gurney
is also mentioned as the founder (Tanner), it is
probable that he assisted his relative in this foun-
dation.
The site of the friary rests on the river Frome, at
the opposite end of the semicircle, away from the
hospital. It lies low, but in a position once pleasant,
though now squalid. It stood immediately beneath
the shadow of the castle, separated from it only by
the river Frome ; around were its gardens and
orchard, with the open country beyond. Its pre-
cincts, known by the curious name of the Quakers'1
Friars — it having been the property of that denomi-
nation for two centuries — are so hemmed in by houses
and factories that, of the hundreds of people who
pass it daily, very few are aware of its existence ; but
it is to be found, adjoining the Coroner's Court, by
following a narrow lane which leads out of Merchant
Street nearly opposite to the Merchant Taylors'1 Alms-
houses. The church has perished, but the claustral
area remains open, and on its south side is still to be
seen a considerable part of its conventual building in
good preservation. As the indefatigable William
Worcester paced this, as well as every other im-
portant building in Bristol, we are able to form a
173
The
Lesser
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tic and
Colle-
giate
Founda-
tions
Bristol good idea of the shape and proportions of the friary
church. It stood on the north side of the existing
remains, separated by the cloister, and consisted of a
long narrow choir and a broad nave, with one wide
or two narrow aisles, with a lofty but slender tower
between nave and choir. The total length was about
170 feet, and the breadth of nave and aisles 62, so
that it was on no mean scale. The present remains
are arranged round a second court and comprise two
parallel halls, running east and west, joined at the
eastern -end by a cloister-like passage. Each hall is
raised on a basement story ; that to the north is the
finer and larger, and was probably the refectory,
though it has been assigned to the dormitory. The
lesser hall, on the south, may have been the infirmary
or a guest-house. Both in the main belong to the
original thirteenth-century building, but the larger
hall was remodelled a century later, when its present
roof was constructed with the charming window at
the west end. The graceful double-lancet windows of
the lower story, with their slender dividing shafts,
call for special notice and admiration. Externally
these buildings are homely, but, with their high red-
tiled roofs, very pleasing. They owe their preserva-
tion to the fact that they were granted to two of the
city companies, the Smiths and the Bakers, for their
common halls, and on the decay of the trade com-
panies they passed into the possession of the Society
of Friends, who use them as schools, and have built a
chapel on part of the site. The connection of the
Bakers with this site is, however, far earlier than the
174
Reformation, for their guild chapel was in the friary The
church. Lesser
Monas-
The Franciscans were not long in following their _, ..
black brethren to Bristol. According to Leland ^^e
a friary was already in existence in 1234 — that is, JPounchi-
within ten years of the introduction of the order tions
into England. It was situated in Lewin's Mead,
a little to the north of the Frome, and west of
the priory of St. James and its open space, while
the lower slope of St. Michael's Hill formed a pre-
cipitous barrier behind it. Church and conventual
buildings have almost disappeared, one small frag-
ment of the latter alone remaining. From William
Worcester we learn that the church consisted of
a nave or preaching-hall, of four bays, with wide
aisles; in all about 84 feet by 81, with a narrow
aisleless choir of equal length, almost completely
separated from the nave by the usual slender friary
tower, in this case only 12 feet square. The only
remaining portion of the friary is to be found by
penetrating the maze of narrow and unsavoury lanes
on the north side of Lewin's Mead. It is a small
hall or chapel, more probably the former as it
faces north and south, and possibly the hall of the
lodgings of the superior. It now forms two small
cottages, and sash windows have been inserted in
the place of its two tall Gothic windows, whose
traceried heads, however, still remain. Internally
it contains a ground floor and a lofty hall above.
The latter measures 30 feet by 10 feet 9 inches,
175
Bristol and has an arched cradle roof with moulded princi-
pals. It apparently belongs to the beginning of
the fourteenth century. This pretty room is now
divided by a floor into two stories. At the dis-
solution of the monasteries the site of the Grey-
friars was granted to the mayor and citizens for
public uses.
The Carmelites also had a house in Bristol, which
is said to have been established by Edward i. before
he came to the throne. It was considered by
Leland to be the fairest friary in Bristol, and its
grounds were very extensive. They joined those
of Gaunt's Hospital on the east, and stretched from
St. Augustine's Quay back to the street on the hill-
side above now known as Park Row. No trace of
this friary now remains, unless it be the niche at
the corner of Frogmore Street and Pipe Lane, which
marks the boundary between its lands and those of
the hospital. The name of Pipe Lane should serve
to remind modern Bristol citizens that to the
Carmelite friars a large proportion of their ancestors
owed the inestimable benefit of a supply of pure
water; the townsmen to the south of the Avon
were similarly indebted to the Augustinians. The
grounds of this friary were purchased by the cor-
poration at the dissolution, and afterwards sold in
parcels. The main portion was purchased by Sir
John Young, who built a very fine house which was
usually known as the Great House : here Queen
Elizabeth was entertained, and after her most
176
royal and distinguished visitors to Bristol for
more than a century. It afterwards became a
sugar refinery, and was then purchased by Colston
the philanthropist, and adapted for the purpose
of a school. It finally disappeared in a street
improvement, and its site is partly occupied by
the well-known assembly room, Colston Hall.
On the upper part of the estate of the friary
another house was built in the Elizabethan period,
which still remains. This is the Red Lodge, in
Park Row, which bears tablets commemorating the
fact that it was the residence of James Cowles
Pri chard, the ethnologist, and of Mary Carpenter,
the philanthropist. Its interior is an exceptionally
fine example of the art of the period.
Two minor religious foundations on the Gloucester-
shire side of the Avon still remain for notice. The
Hospital of St. Bartholomew at the bottom of the
steep ascent of Christmas Steps survives in a much
mutilated but still beautiful doorway and arcaded
porch of the purest Early English architecture, built
into a typical Bristol house of the seventeenth
century. By the side of the doorway still stands
the graceful torso of a life-sized figure. This little
hospital and priory, for it was both, is one of the
earliest of Bristol institutions, reaching back as
far as the year 1205 ; but it was one of the earliest
to perish, as its buildings were sold in 1583 to the
executors of Robert Thorne, a merchant tailor of
London, who with his brother Nicholas was sheriff
of Bristol in 1528. In the last-mentioned year
m 177
The
Lesser
Monas-
tic and
Colle-
giate
Founda-
tions
Bristol
ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S HOSPITAL
the two brothers had already founded a Grammar
School in the hospital premises, so that their original
use had then ceased. The other foundation was
also a hospital, but unlike the last it has endured
to the present time. It was the last of the pre-
Reformation endowments, having been founded in
1492 by John Foster, merchant, mayor in 1481.
This building also adjoins Christmas Steps, but at
the top of the ascent, and its little chapel, with
the rare dedication to the Three Kings of Cologne,
178
still remains. Owing to street improvements the The
rest of the building has been removed and replaced Lesser
by a pleasing open quadrangle of brick and timber. Monas-
Beneath the east window of the chapel outside pC,f
may be seen a curious row of niches or sedilcs, p.:a4.e
which local tradition says were erected for the Foun(Ja.
convenience of begging friars : unfortunately the tions
tradition is directly contradicted by the date 1669,
which appears above them.
The Somerset side was not devoid of monastic
foundations, but they were small and have totally
disappeared. There was a house of Augustinian
Friars in Temple Fee, just within the walls, to the
south-east of the Temple Church ; a small leper
hospital, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, in
Redcliffe ; and a hospital of St. Katherine at
Bedminster, built by the second Robert, Lord
Berkeley, about the year 1200, whose remains were
removed a few years ago to be replaced by a tobacco
factory.
Lastly, in the Alsatia outside the town to the
east of the castle, there was certainly one leper
hospital, and perhaps two. That of St. John
Baptist was built by John, Earl of Moreton, after-
wards King John. In the fifteenth century its use
seems to have gone with the disappearance of leprosy
in England, and its revenues were transferred by
Bishop Carpenter of Worcester to his college of
Westbury-on-Trym in 1450. Both William Wor-
cester and Leland mention other small religious houses
179
Bristol which have entirely disappeared, and there were
numerous hospitals and almshouses of a purely
secular character.
1 \
ST. JAMES S CHURCH
I 80
ST. MARY REDCLIFFE
CHAPTER IX
THE PARISH CHURCHES
THE churches described in
the preceding chapters
are by no means the only ones
which deserve to be visited in
Bristol, the city of churches.
From the top of Brandon Hill,
and from other points of van-
tage on the neighbouring
heights, a group of towers and
spires maybe seen, only rivalled,
if they are rivalled, by those
of Oxford : and almost every
street in the old town is
dominated by its own tower.
During the Middle Ages there
were eighteen or nineteen
churches, as well as numerous
chapels, and of these thirteen
still remain, nearly all of which are interesting on
account either of their architecture or their associa-
tions. The chief church-building period was during
183
THE LEANING TOWER
Bristol the time of the commercial supremacy of Bristol
in the fifteenth century ; but several were rebuilt
during the very prosperous eighteenth century, and
most contain examples of the woodwork of that
period, though not a little has been wantonly
destroyed during more recent restorations. Most
of the churches were crowded together within, or
upon, the original line of walls, though four are
suburban on the Gloucestershire side, while three
are beyond the river in what used to be the inde-
pendent township of Redcliffe.
It will be well to depart from the topographical
order to visit, first, the celebrated church of St.
Mary Redcliffe, the great glory of Bristol. This
church is situated on the left, or Somerset, bank
of the Avon, some distance below Bristol Bridge,
on a low cliff:' of red sandstone overlooking the river,
and is approached by the long, narrow Redcliffe
Street, once a picturesque old thoroughfare, now
a busy commercial street. It is an invariable rule
in describing this church to quote Queen Elizabeth,
that it is ' the fairest, the goodliest, the most famous
parish church in England.1 This dictum is probably
apocryphal, but Leland, who was no doubt a better
judge, considered it the finest church of all. Among
the churches below cathedral scale, St. Mary is
exceeded in size by those of Yarmouth, Coventry,
Hull, Boston, Newcastle, and Newark, but it excels
all these in the harmony and dignity of its propor-
tions and in the grace and richness of its detail, and
it is almost alone among the parish churches of
184
this country in being roofed throughout by a stone The
vault. Parish
It is not a little curious that so large a church Churches
was not even a parish church until the year 1853.
It was founded as a chapel of ease to the small
parish church of Bedminster by the Berkeleys, the
lords of that manor, for their tenantry, the Men of
Berkeley as they were frequently called ; but the
church as we now see it is entirely the creation of
the wealth and piety of the merchant princes of
Bristol in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth
centuries. It seems almost as if the rich merchants
were inspired by jealousy of the neighbouring
monastery, and that they determined that their
church should not only rival the abbey in size and
beauty, but that it should contrast with it in every
particular. Thus, while the abbey is broad and
low, at Redcliffe height is the feature most insisted
on. At the abbey there is no clerestory, here it is of
unusually bold proportions ; the monastic church has
transepts indeed, but they are short, low, and with-
out aisles, here they are boldly spreading, as lofty
as the body of the church, and possess the rare
feature of aisles on both sides ; there is a solid
central tower, here a tall and elegant spire at the
west end : and finally, while the abbey church is
studiously plain externally, St. Mary's is covered with
panelling from its base to its pierced and traceried
parapet.
The present church is the third which has occupied
the site. Of the first Norman church of the Berkeleys
185
Bristol nothing remains but a few sculptured stones, and it
was dilapidated in the thirteenth century, when it
was rebuilt on a grand scale, not by the overlord, but
by the munificence of the citizens. Of the second, or
Early English, church we shall find on entering that
enough remains to enable us to form a good idea of
its size and appearance. Like the present church,
it was vaulted throughout in stone, and it seems to
have covered almost the same area, but its height was
about 14 feet less. The third and present edifice
forms a complete and harmonious whole, but the
period of its erection extended over a hundred and
fifty years, with two long gaps, so that it exhibits
work of three distinct periods. During the reign of
Edward i. the upper portion of the tower was erected,
with its lofty spire, and the very charming outer
north porch was added, and then there was a long
pause till the year 1376, when William Canynges, the
elder, built the body of the church from ' the cross-
aisle downwards.' The east end of the choir, the
south transept, and the whole of the south side of
the nave, are transitional in character, showing the
change from the ' Decorated ' style of architecture to
the earliest ' Perpendicular,' and this portion may
undoubtedly be assigned to Canynges. It is probable
that the process of rebuilding continued almost un-
interruptedly, and that when the spire fell in 1446
the church was practically complete. If this be so,
the more famous William Canynges, the younger, has
received far more credit than he is justly entitled to,
as to him is generally attributed the whole of the
1 86
north side of the church, and all the upper portion ex- The
cept in the south transept, including the vaulted roofs. Parish
It is probable that what is really owing to him is the Churches
vaulting of the south nave aisle, which is later in date
and inferior in character to the rest of the vaulted
roofs, and such repairs as were necessitated by the fall
of the spire. The latter was not then rebuilt, and a
stunted fragment only remained till the year 1872,
when it was again completed according to the original
design.
The church is well isolated from surrounding build-
ings, so that excellent views may be obtained both
from the north and from the south. The west front,
high above the narrow street, is seen to less advan-
tage, but it is the least satisfactory portion of the
building, overshadowed and dwarfed as it is by the
immense mass of the tower. The full length of the
church is best seen from the higher ground to the
south, but it is uncomfortably cut into two on this
side by the absence of panelling in the transept ; and
undoubtedly the most striking view is that from the
north-east, where commanding height is gained by
the fall of the ground, and where tower and porch
group picturesquely with the later church. The
tower, at the north-west angle, is crowned by a spire
rising to the height of 292 feet, measured from
external base to vane — a height exceeded by four
steeples only in England ; while in mass and in dignity
it is second only to Salisbury. Its lower stage belongs
to the Early English period, the upper to the Deco-
rated, and both are excellent examples of the more
187
Bristol ornate work of their respective epochs. Passing
eastward from the tower on the north side of the
church, the north porch is reached, the most remark-
able and sumptuous portion of the building. This is
hexagonal in plan, with hexagonal buttresses at the
angles; it is three stages in height, with doors below,
a large window in each face above, and a low attic
story still higher. The peculiar arrangement of the
doors will be best seen internally, but the intricate
sculptures with which they as well as the superstruc-
ture are adorned should be noticed. This sculpture,
like most of that which adorns the exterior of the
church, is a modern reproduction of ancient work
which had perished beyond the possibility of preser-
vation. Passing further eastward, the flank is broken
by the projection of the transept, here raised upon
a crypt where, in 1653, a number of Dutch prisoners,
taken by Admiral Blake in his naval victory over
Van Tromp, were incarcerated, and yet again by the
three-storied house built by the younger Canynges as
a residence for chantry priests. At the north-east
corner of the churchyard will be observed a memorial
to Chatterton : a tall base or pillar carrying a small
statue of the poet in the garb of a blue-coat boy.
From this point the road used to pass actually under
the Lady-chapel by a vaulted passage now disused ;
it now passes behind the church. Taking this road,
the south side is gained, and here it is evident that
the transept on this side was built before the final
design was adopted, as its windows are smaller and of
an earlier type, and the walls are destitute of the
188
panelling which covers the rest of the church. The The
great beauty of the buttresses at the end of this tran- Parish
sept should be noticed. Passing along the south Churches
side of the nave, observing its lofty clerestory sup-
ported by graceful flying buttresses, the circuit of the
church is completed at the south porch, the usual
entrance. This porch, though without the elabora-
tion of that at the other side, has considerable
elegance : its detail shows that it is fairly early, and
it is probably part of the work of the elder Canynges.
Entering by this doorway, the grace, beauty, and
harmony of the interior burst at once upon the
visitor's gaze; the effect is one of lantern-like light-
ness, due to the flood of light admitted by the con-
tinuous series of great clerestory windows, combined
with that of great height. The actual elevation is
unusual for a church of the size of St. Mary's, but the
effect is vastly increased by the suppression of every
horizontal line and the accentuation of all the vertical;
the eye is carried from the floor to the rich vaulted
roof by tall, slender, unbroken vaulting shafts, and,
in the nave at least, the ramifications of the ribs lead
on to the very summit of the roof. In the choir and
transept the vaults are of a different, and not quite
so satisfying, pattern. The architectural detail is
unusually refined for the period ; the bosses of the
roof, said to be upwards of eleven hundred in number,
whose effect is heightened by gilding, deserve par-
ticular attention. The best general view is that from
the west end of the nave, looking east; but the view
in the transept is fine, and the multiplicity of columns
189
Bristol entailed by the double transept aisles gives rise to
some charming oblique vistas.
It is now time to examine a little more in detail ;
and first there may be noticed, high up on the inner
wall of the tower, a portion of the earlier church.
This is an Early English vaulting shaft with a sculp-
tured capital recalling contemporary work at Wells,
originally the diocesan church of Redcliff'e. Spring-
ing from this shaft there may still be seen traces of
the wall-ribs of two vaulted bays of roofing, showing
that the early church was, like the present one, a
stone-roofed building, and that its height was about
40 feet. On the wall below is the mural monument
of Sir William Penn, Cromwell's admiral, well-
known to readers of Pepys, and father of the more
celebrated founder of Pennsylvania ; it is surmounted
by his funeral achievement, consisting of his body
armour, with helmet, gauntlets, spurs, sword, and
targe, over which hang the remnants of a standard
and a banner. Beneath the arch opening to the
tower will be seen some excellent ironwork dating
from early in the eighteenth century, and more of it
screens off' the west end of the south aisle ; this iron-
work was originally in use as a choir-screen. Passing
up the nave, there will be noticed in the south aisle
two over-elaborate monumental arches of the Berkeley
type ; the effigies they cover are interesting as repre-
senting the younger William Canynges and Joan, his
wife, the former in civilian costume. On reaching
the crossing in the centre of the church it will be
seen that the transepts are much narrower than the
190
nave, and that to maintain a correct proportion The
their roofs are brought down about 6 feet. In the Parish
northern limb the windows, for the sake of external Churches
harmony, range with those of nave and choir, and
the clever way in which the vaulted roof is, as it
were, suspended between them without obscuring them
deserves attention. In the south transept, on the
other hand, which was erected before the general
design was finally fixed, the windows are lower — a
gain internally, but externally a great defect. These
windows are peculiar, if not unique, in that their
tracery is set in a glazed band of quatrefoils. The
treatment of the clerestory of the choir at Lichfield,
which was rising about the same time, may be com-
pared with this at Redcliffe; there a similar but un-
pierced band occupies the soffit of each window arch.
The south transept contains some monuments of
interest. The first is a second and more costly effigy
of Canynges, in priestly robes, said, but without
foundation, to have been brought from the collegiate
church at Westbury-upon-Trym, of which foundation
he was dean at the time of his death. Near it there
is an earlier effigy, rude and disproportionate, but of
much interest. It represents a member of one of the
minor ecclesiastical or clerkly orders, who carries
a pouch or purse, and it is popularly ascribed to
Cany nges's Almoner. On the floor near there is a slab to
the memory of Canynges'1 s cook, with a knife and skim-
mer incised. From this transept a doorway through a
stone screen leads to the choir aisles which form, with
the east bav of the choir, a processional path round
191
Bristol the latter. From the aisles good views are obtained
of the upper part of the choir, with its harmonious
modern glass. From the east end opens the Lady-
chapel, almost the latest portion of the building ;
this contains a good brass, and there are others in the
choir. The north aisle contains two altar-tombs to
Sir Thomas Mede and wife (1475) and his brother
William, with the effigies of the two former : these
tombs are covered by rich though coarse canopies.
Near at hand a small door leads to the little house of
the chantry priests, now used as a vestry, from which
a staircase descends to the large and airy crypt
beneath the transept. Continuing the circuit of the
church, an altar-tomb may be seen in the north tran-
sept, with the effigy of one of the Berkeleys, a knight
in mail. Retracing our steps down the nave, a door
is reached on the right by which access is gained to
the north porch, or rather porches, for there are two.
The inner one is the earliest existing part of the
church, and is Early English in character, and some-
what early in the period. It is too dark to be well
seen, but it has a bold vault and richly carved
capitals to the shafts of its arcading : the square
abacus seen in the capitals is a rare feature in English
Gothic art. Above this is a chamber with a fire-
place, probably the dwelling-place of a priest or care-
taker. The enriched outer arch of this porch was
cut away when the large * Decorated ' porch was
added beyond. A few steps descend into this unique
feature, the great glory of St. Mary Redcliffe. It is
a hexagonal building of great height, with a domed
192
vault, lighted by a noble range of windows and sur- The
rounded, except when pierced by doors, by a cano- Parish
pied arcade with a stone bench or seat. Besides the Churches
two great doorways there are smaller doors in the
north-west and south-east sides, while on the south-
west there is a relic-chamber, with openings protected
by gratings. The full meaning of this singular and
beautiful chamber is probably not understood. Poly-
gonal porches occur at Ludlow and Chipping Norton,
but they have neither the elaboration nor the peculiar
arrangement of this one. Its general effect is that of
a small chapter-house, but its numerous doors would
make it an uncomfortable place of meeting, and there
was no collegiate foundation here, and therefore
no chapter. William Worcester describes it as a
Lady-chapel, but there has evidently been no pro-
vision for an altar. The suggestion is no doubt
correct that the two oblique doors were for the
accommodation of processions of visitors to view the
relics displayed in the grated chamber. High up
above the porch is the muniment-room, where Thomas
Chatterton pretended to have discovered the poems
of Rowley and other forged manuscripts, with which
he practised on the credulity of the local antiquarians
and historians, and even deceived many who were not
blinded by local prejudice. Returning once more to
the church, the ground-story of the tower is entered
through a narrow lancet-shaped arch. The immense
mass of the tower is best appreciated from observa-
tion of the roomy apartment it contains. This por-
tion of the building is of Early English date, but
N 193
Bristol perceptibly later than the inner porch ; it contains
some interesting old glass and many fragments of
sculptured stone, which were too much worn to be
replaced at the restoration. It contains, too, an
effigy in low relief of John Lavyngton, a fourteenth-
century priest, and a coloured statue of Queen Eliza-
beth, which appears to be a good portrait. The
church has other interesting associations than those
with Canynges and Chatterton. Hogarth painted
three huge pictures for its altar, his sole incursion
into the realm of religious art ; they are not now in
the church, but are preserved, though in a terribly
ruined condition, at the Bristol Academy of Arts. It
was here that Coleridge married Sarah Fricker, in
October 1795 ; and here, in the following month,
Southey wedded her sister Edith, and parted from
her at the church door to leave for Portugal. Not
far from the church there is a thirteenth-century
hermitage excavated in the red sandstone cliff which
gives its name to the district.
The other churches must be dismissed more briefly.
Hard by the High Cross, at the very centre of the
town, there were three, two of which still remain.
All Saints' or All Hallows'' is marked externally by
the tall simple campanile with its crowning pillared
cupola, added to the old church in the eighteenth
century, which dominates Corn Street much as does
Bow Steeple Cheapside. The church itself is almost
hidden by houses, some of which stand actually upon
its aisle roofs. It contains within it the earliest piece
194
of building now remaining in Bristol, though it was
not probably the earliest in the date of its founda-
tion, and consists of a long narrow nave and chancel
with lofty side-aisles, of late Perpendicular date, but
at the west end there are on each side two plain
massive round arches supported by squat circular
columns with cushion capitals, whose features mark
them as belonging to the earliest years of the twelfth
century. Of its numerous monuments one only calls
for special notice — that of Colston, the philanthropist,
at the east end of the south aisle ; a tall tomb of
Renaissance character with a life-like effigy of Bristol's
great benefactor, and a list of his known charities and
endowments. This church was peculiarly associated
with the Guild of the Calendars, a religious founda-
tion of great but unknown antiquity. The house of
the guild was removed here from the neighbouring-
Trinity or Christ Church by Earl Robert of Glou-
cester, early in the twelfth century, and in 1216 it
received a charter from Henry in. ' in consideration
of the ancient and kindly duties it fulfilled.'' This
fraternity like other guilds included laity both male
and female in its numbers, but differed in being also
a collegiate institution of clergy under the governance
of a prior. Primarily its functions, like those of
other religious guilds, were the visitation of the sick
and the provision of prayers for the souls of the dead ;
but its duties also included the conversion of the
Jews and the provision of a library, which was open
to the public daily from seven to eleven, the prior
attending to explain the Scriptures to any that asked
195
Bristol him, and delivering once a week a public lecture.
The library was located in a room over the aisle of the
church, and in 1466, when it was destroyed by fire, it
contained eight hundred volumes. It has been sup-
posed that another of the guild duties was the care of
the town archives, but it is probable that this sugges-
tion was merely due to the fact that the town-clerk,
Ricart, to whose chronicle so much of our information
about the early history of Bristol is due, was a func-
tionary of the church and a member of the guild.
All Saints1 possesses a wealth of early records, some
dating from the thirteenth century. One of the
most curious is the bequest of a curse : the widow of
one Peter Worcester illegally gave land to the church,
and devised that if the heirs sought to reclaim it the
Dean (rural dean) of Bristol should publicly excom-
municate the said heirs till they desisted. It is
worthy of note that the piece of property in question
still belongs to the church. The most interesting of
these records belong to the service of the ' General
Mind."1 This service began here in 1407, when it was
ordained that the clergy should once a year ' urge the
hole paryshe to ye general mynde, and if any man
absent hymsel he be fined 4d., if a counselman
Is. 4d.'' It began with a simple feast, and then the
congregation adjourned to the church where the priest
read, first, ' these be the names of the good doers.1
Then followed the names with a record of benefac-
tions, and to each the people cried out ' God ha
mercy on his soule.' After the list of good doers
followed that of the doers of evil, with their mis-
196
deeds, and after each came the response ' God amende
him.1 Among the evil doers were occasionally eminent
citizens, including even the great William Canynges.
The record of subsequent years generally showed that
the desired amendment took place.
At the angle of the crossways, diametrically
opposite to the building just noticed, is Christ
Church, which superseded an earlier church of the
Holy Trinity. The present edifice was erected about
the year 1782; it is almost entirely concealed by
shops, only its fine and lofty steeple being visible from
the streets. Internally it is a good example of the
later English Renaissance architecture, the design
being an adaptation of Gibbs' great church of
St. Martin in the Fields. It differs from its model
in that the ranges of Corinthian pillars which support
the vaulted roof are attenuated beyond all precedent ;
they were designed to be partly masked by galleries
which have since been removed. Southey, the poet,
was christened in the old church, of which his father
was warden. He narrates {Life and Correspondence)
that he was present at the laying of the foundation
stone of the new building, and placed money under
the stone ; he calls to mind, too, the quaint old clock
with quarter-jacks, which is seen in old prints, but
which like so many other objects of interest dis-
appeared in process of restoration.
With the parish of Christ Church is incorporated
that of St. Ewen, whose church stood at the opposite
angle of the street, on the site of the present Council
House : before the latter was built it had been pro-
197
Bristol
HIGH STREET AND CHRIST CHURCH
posed to convert the church into a public library.
From the windows of St. EwerTs King Edward iv.
witnessed the execution of the Lancastrian leader
Sir Baldwin Fulford. Hard by, in the same street,
stood another church, now destroyed, that of St.
198
Werburgh, whose handsome tower remained till
within living memory, when it was removed to widen
Corn Street, and re-erected in a northern suburb.
Hidden away behind the lofty gabled half-timber
houses in Mary-le-Port Street is the small church of
St. Mary le Port, of no great beauty or interest, but
with a pleasing tower. It contains the fine eagle
lectern of brass, given to the cathedral by Sub-dean
Williamson in 1693, and sold in 1812 as old metal
by the then dean ; it was purchased by a citizen,
William Ady, and given to this church, on condition
that it should remain here for ever. The dean's more
enlightened successors have endeavoured in vain to
recover it.
St. Peter's is by common consent the mother church
of Bristol, and is believed to have been the parish
church of the old royal manor of Barton, but the
first definite mention of it occurs in 1130. It stands
almost under the shadow of the castle at the extreme
east end of the early town, and outside the wall which
the citizens built in 1313 to complete the circuit. It
is a large and airy but plain building, for the most
part of the fifteenth century, but the walls of its
massive tower are probably of Norman work, if not
even earlier. In the interior may be seen a local
peculiarity in the architecture, in that the windows
are not so much openings in the wall as the filling in
of a continuous range of moulded and shafted arches.
This treatment, which is very effective, occurs also at
the Temple and St. John's Churches and elsewhere,
but nowhere so fully developed as at St. Peter's, where
199
Bristol
TOMBS AT ST. PETEK S
it is best seen in the south aisle. The church was
once much larger, but most of the chancel has long
been destroyed, and the blank wall at the east end is
adorned and partly concealed by a lofty Corinthian
altar-piece of carved woodwork, erected in 1697 by
one Mitchell of London at a cost of £140. There
are several interesting monuments here : at the east
end of the south aisle a lofty canopied tomb of early
Jacobean date, rich with barbaric carving, com-
memorates a Lady Newton of Barr's Court ; and near
it, under the arches of an equally rich but chaster
example of Renaissance art, kneel the realistic effigies
of Robert Aldworth, one of the best-known of Bristol's
200
merchants, and his wife, 1634 ; they lived at the great The
house opposite, now known as St. Peter's Hospital. Parish]
On the floor between these two tombs is the cadaver, ^nurches
or corpse-like effigy of a man unknown, and there is
too a brass of rather unusual character, representing
Robert Loud (chaplain, 1461), in eucharistic vest-
ments, which still bears signs that it was once
jewelled. In a nameless grave in the churchyard lie
the remains of the unfortunate, if undeserving, poet
Richard Savage, who died in Newgate Gaol hard by,
and received burial from the charity of his gaoler,
aided by a contribution given by the well-known
Countess of Huntingdon. St. Peter's, like so many
Bristol churches, is rich in metal-work, and it possesses
some valuable records. One of these relates that
in 1613 Ellen, wife of Thomas Clements, objected to
receive the Sacrament otherwise than sitting; 'to
receive it kneeling was a sin to her, because she hath
no warrant out of Scripture to receive it so, and
therefore she makes a conscience of it."1 On the south
side of the churchyard stands the great house now
known as St. Peter's Hospital, one of the most strik-
ing examples of enriched timber building in the
country. From 1402, the date of the earliest portion
of the house, till 1580 it was the property and the
home of the once prominent family of Norton, and
in 1607 it was bought by Robert Aldworth, mayor
and benefactor, one of the subscribers to the company
of adventurers who colonised Newfoundland ; he
added the gabled front to the older building. The
house was afterwards used as a mint, and in 1698 it
20I
Bristol became the property of the Corporation of the Poor,
the oldest Board of Guardians in England. For a time
it was used as a workhouse, and it is still in the hands
of the corporation, or rather of their modern repre-
sentatives, and provides accommodation for the
parochial offices. The exterior is very picturesque,
and rich with an art which, if uncouth and barbaric,
is distinctly effective ; and the interior contains part
of the Gothic house of the Nortons, and a wealth of
plaster- work and panelling, with some really fine
chimney-pieces.
With the completion in the thirteenth century of
the second line of defence the inner wall lost its
raison d'etre, and was utilised in part as a site for
new churches, no fewer than five being built upon
it. Of these two remain — St. Nicholas, at the foot
of High Street, overlooking the bridge, and St. John
the Baptist, at the opposite side of the old town.
The chancel of St. Nicholas stood actually over
the gate at the lower end of High Street, and was
approached from the church by an imposing flight
of twelve steps of black and white marble. It was
removed in 1762, to effect a much-needed improve-
ment in the access to the city, and soon afterwards
it was decided to rebuild the body of the church,
and the work was completed in 1769. Gothic
architecture perhaps never wholly died in Bristol,
and the style was chosen for the new building; and
it is fair to say that though, as might be expected,
the result is glaringly incorrect, it is by no means
unsuccessful, the long ranges of great windows
202
placed high up being very effective both without The
and within. The church proper consists of a great "arish
hall, without pillars or structural chancel, and it ^nurcnes
contains valuable contemporary wood-carving and
metal-work, both in iron and brass, and some in-
teresting communion plate. In the base of its plain
but lofty and well-proportioned steeple is the
monument, with effigy, of John Whitson, founder of
the Red Maids1 School ; and another benefactor buried
here was one of the Thornes, founders of the
Grammar School. Beneath the church there is a
good fifteenth-century crypt, vaulted in two aisles.
It is on the side toward the town about twelve feet
below ground, but taking advantage of the difference
of level within and without, it is entered on the
south, or outer, side, directly from the street. This
crypt provided accommodation for several guilds,
one of which, that of the Assumption of the Blessed
Virgin Mary, was in effect a wealthy bridge trust.
St. Nicholas became the richest and most fashion-
able of the city churches, and was intimately con-
nected with the corporation and with civic life.
Here Latimer preached, and here too another martyr,
the Scotsman Wishart, made public recantation of
his heretical teaching.
The little church of St. John the Baptist should
not be left unvisited. It stands at the foot of
Broad Street with its tower, which was common to
it and the destroyed church of St. Lawrence, actually
upon the old north gate of the town which still
remains, adorned with statues of Brennus and
203
Bristol
ST. JOHN S CHURCH
Belinus, the tabled founders of the city. The
interior, which is very quaint and possesses an old-
world charm, is approached by steps from the street.
It is long and narrow, consisting of a single aisle
only, but variety is gained by the way in which
its continuous range of large Perpendicular windows
are recessed in richly moulded and shafted arches,
and by the device of raising the eastern bay of the
204
nave to form a low tower or lantern. The great The
glory of the church is its wealth of Jacobean wood- Parish
work, especially the panelled gallery at the west Churches
end, and the series of paintings which adorn it.
These are sombre in tone and dark with age, but
rarely effective as a decoration. Here is preserved
the now uncommon feature of an hour-glass, once
a usual adjunct to the pulpit. Under a window on
the north side may be seen the altar-tomb of the
founder with his statue clothed in his aldermanic
robes. As at St. Nicholas there is a vaulted crypt
below the church, which contains some interesting
monuments, including memorials to members of the
family of Rowley, to which is supposed to have
belonged the priest upon whom Chatterton fathered
his forgeries. The church was founded or rebuilt
by Walter Frampton, three times mayor in the
latter part of the fourteenth century, who was one
of a class of citizens fortunately never wanting in
Bristol. Not only did he build the church in his
lifetime, but by his will he provided dowries for
poor maidens, contributed to the relief of the blind
and lame, and of the religious of the mendicant
orders, and left money for the repair of the high-
ways and bridges. At this church too there was
a General Mind for all good-doers and benefactors ;
but unlike the service at All Saints1, it does not
seem to have provided for the remembrance of the
evil-doers. In later years Whitfield preached from
its pulpit. The church of St. Lawrence formerly
joined that of St. John to the west, but it was
205
Bristol destroyed in 1580, and its parish united with
St. John's. Two other churches once stood on the
wall — that of St. Giles, destroyed, according to
Worcester, as early as 1319, over the gate at the
bottom of Small Street; and St. Leonard's, in a
similar position at the foot of Corn Street. The
latter was not removed until 1766, when its parish
was joined to that of St. Nicholas. Its crypt still
remains beneath the neighbouring houses.
We have seen that in the twelfth century a
suburb had already grown up outside the old walls
to the west, and at an early date the church of
St. Stephen was built beyond the Frome for the
accommodation of its people. The church was
entirely rebuilt between 1450 and 1490 at the joint
cost of the abbey of Glastonbury and the par-
ishioners, and the lofty and ornate tower, which
forms so conspicuous a feature in general views
of the city, was added by John Shipward, who was
mayor in 1453. This tower with its lofty over-
sailing parapet and pinnacles of open work has
received perhaps more admiration than its merits
entitle it to. The present finish is a reproduction
of the original, destroyed in the great storm of
1703. The church itself is a large but externally
a coarse building of late Perpendicular architecture,
with a very charming and delicately treated porch ;
internally it is a particularly satisfactory example
of a late town church. There is no structural
distinction between nave and chancel, the arcades
of seven lofty and graceful arches on each side
206
running the whole length of the building, sur- The
mounted by a light and airy clerestory. The curious Parish
treatment of the capitals of the pillars calls for Churches
attention, and the panelled roof of oak also deserves
notice. There are some noteworthy monuments
here : under arches in the north wall are three
effigies in civilian garb, relics of the earlier church,
one of which is attributed to the famous Thomas
Blanket ; and at the east end of the south aisle is
the gorgeously coloured recumbent statue of Sir
George Sny gge, judge and recorder, who died in
1617. A mural tablet commemorates Martin Pring,
a sailor who attempted the discovery of the North-
west Passage, and was sometime General to the East
Indies. Among the treasures of this church is a
silver-gilt reliquary which once contained a portion
of the true Cross. Still connected with St. Stephen's
Church is a wealthy and important guild, that of
St. Stephen's Ringers, from which it has received
many benefits, and one lamentable and irreparable
act of destruction. Until recent years there was
a pulpit here, bearing the date 1620, which was
one of the most remarkable and striking pieces of
wood-carving of its period in England. This has
been cut down to form a chair for the use of the
guild, and has been replaced by a costly and pre-
tentious, but feeble, example of the bridecake form
of art.
Another early suburban church is that of St.
Philip and St. Jacob, at the opposite end of the
town beyond the site of the castle. This was in
207
Bristol existence as early as 1174, and is said by Worcester
to have been the church of a small Benedictine
priory. It stands low and its surroundings are
squalid, but its large churchyard has been prettily
laid out as a public garden, and is bordered by
large old houses which retain an air of faded dignity
and distinction. The church is broad and spacious,
and presents some peculiarities in planning, notably
iii the spreading segmental arches of its nave arcades.
The cradle roof of the nave is a good example
of fourteenth-century woodwork. The tower is at
the east end of the south aisle ; its lower stage,
neglected and used as a depository for rubbish,
contains in the capitals of its vaulting shafts some
exquisite examples of the carving of the best period
of Early English architecture, a period compara-
tively little represented in Bristol. There is here
a Norman font, a relic of an earlier church, and
some valuable monuments, one of which — a mutilated
fragment of a colossal effigy — is popularly, though
without authority, ascribed to Robert, Duke of
Normany, the eldest son of the Conqueror. St.
Philip's was the parish church of a wide district
extending far outside the old borough and county,
and including in its limits the great forest or chase
of Kingswood.
Two other suburban churches on the Gloucester-
shire side demand mention, though they scarcely
repay a visit ; one is that of St. Augustine the Less,
built as a parish church for the abbey precincts,
the last resting-place of Sir William Draper, the
208
opponent of 'Junius/ The Perpendicular tower of The
the other, St. Michael's, forms a prominent feature Parish
on the northern heights, and marks the growth of ^nurcnes
the town in the fifteenth century. The street in
which it stands, St. Michael's Hill, is unusually
picturesque, and commands a noble view of the
towers and spires of the older town.
Now recrossing the bridge into Somerset, the dis-
trict on the left is the Temple Fee, given by Earl
Robert, in 1147, to the Knights Templars. On the
destruction of that order it passed, like other of their
possessions, into the hands of the Knights Hospi-
tallers, who retained it until the suppression of the
religious orders, and for a long time had a separate
jurisdiction here, which was not given up without a
struggle which did not entirely cease till the Refor-
mation. There was neither preceptory nor com-
mandery here, as has been sometimes asserted, but
the knights early built a church for the parishioners.
The original church, on the site of the present build-
ing, is said to have been oval or elliptical in form,
but no trace of it remains. In 1299 the chapel of
St. Catherine, then newly built, was granted to the
Guild of Weavers, the wealthiest of the trade guilds,
whose members mostly dwelt in Tucker and Temple
Streets in this parish. The following account of an
incident which occurred in this church appears in
an MS. note by the Rev. A. S. Catcott, a former
vicar : — ' John Stone, Mayor, when he was at Mass
in Queen Mary's reign there came a weaver out of a
little door from the Weavers1 Chapel into the chancel,
o 209
Bristol and said " Fie upon this idolatrous worship," upon
which this John Stone caused his sergeants to appre-
hend him, and he was burnt for the same near the
gallows on St. Michael's Hill, as may be seen in Fox's
Booh of Martyrs? John Stone's name does not ap-
pear in the list of mayors until 1562, nor was he
sheriff in Mary's reign ; there seems no doubt, how-
ever, about the general truth of the story. Edward
Colston was baptized in this church in 1636 ; and in
1780 John Wesley preached here, and again in 1782
and 1787: he has placed on record his admiration of
the building.
The Temple or Holy Cross Church ranks next to
the Cathedral and St. Mary Redcliffe in size and
interest among the Bristol churches, but it is chiefly
known to fame on account of its leaning tower, which
in a height of 114 feet overhangs about 4. The
sinking which led to the inclination seems to have
occurred before the belfry stage was erected, for
there is evidence of an attempt to remedy the defect
in the upper story. The singularity has long been
a matter of interest to tourists, for upon Trinity
Sunday, 1568, Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, came from
Bath to Bristol, accompanied with the Earl of Wor-
cester, Lord Berkeley, and others. The duke went to
Redcliffe, May 24, to sermon, and after to Temple,
where he had the bells rung to try the truth of the
tower's shaking at such times (Evans, Outlines of
History). Braun, in his Theatrum Urbium (1576),
records the fact that the tower had become torn
asunder from the body of the church, leaving a great
2IO
THE TEMPLE CHURCH
The
Parish
Churches
chink from the roof to the foundation, and says that
Ortelius, the geographer, wrote him word that him-
self put a stone the size of a goose-egg into this chink
(when the bells were rung), which he saw himself give
downward as the place was narrow or wide, and at
length by the frequent collision was squeezed to
pieces. The tower is much decayed, and has neither
battlements nor pinnacles, but it is a noble and impos-
ing structure, more worthy admiration than the more
admired St. Stephen's. The lower stages, plain, were
built about 1397 ; the rich upper story added, accord-
ing to William Worcester, in 1460. The interior of
211
Bristol the church is stately and spacious ; the nave and
aisles are wide and lofty, and are divided by arcades
of tall arches the full height of the building, carried
by slender and graceful pillars. The chancel, which
is earlier, dating from about the year 1300, is long
and low. At least as early is the chapel of St. Cathe-
rine on the north ; the little door through which the
indiscreet weaver appeared may still be seen. The
Temple is singularly rich in objects of interest;
especially to be noticed is the chandelier of latten, of
the fourteenth century, which hangs near the entrance
to the chancel, with its statuettes, St. George and the
Dragon below, and the Blessed Virgin with the Infant
Jesus above — one of the most important examples
of English mediaeval metal-work now remaining. It
is not generally known that the similar chandelier
shown at St. Michael's Mount, Cornwall, is a replica
of that at the Temple, cast in 1788. The grilles
or screens of seventeenth-century ironwork on either
side of the chancel also deserve careful examination.
In the Weavers1 Chapel is the Corinthian reredos,
toward which Colston gave £60, beautifully carved,
if incongruous. The paintings which adorn it
were by one Boucher, the possessor of a name
well known in Bristol, and were restored by John
Milton, who, according to local tradition, was a
descendant of the poet. There are also some good
brasses, one in the Weavers1 Chapel with an inscrip-
tion in Leonine verse, and much valuable altar-
plate.
Near at hand in St. Thomas's Street, a few yards
212
from the bridge, is the church of St. Thomas the
Martyr, one of the few bearing that dedication, by
which is meant not the martyred apostle, but the
murdered archbishop. St. Thomas, like St. Mary
Redcliffe, was until recently a chapel to the parish
church of Bedminster. The original church was re-
built, with the exception of its fine tower, which still
stands, in 1790. The old building is said by Barrett,
who wrote before its destruction, to have ranked next
to Redcliffe] Church in size and elegance. The pre-
sent building is externally uninteresting, but within
it is a really fine example of the English Renaissance
art of the school of Wren, with harmonious furniture
and decorations. The woodwork is earlier than the
building it adorns, the altar-piece dating from 1710,
and the very fine organ-case and gallery from 1732 ;
the seats are a few years later. The strong-room
within the tower is perhaps the nearest approach in
this country to the continental treasury : it contains
not only the valuable Georgian altar -plate, but
numerous deeds of the thirteenth to the fifteenth
century, with seals, an illuminated folio manuscript
Vulgate, and, greatest treasure of all, two pairs of
Romanesque candlesticks, of champleve enamel on
copper, of twelfth or thirteenth century date, and
of German type and probable workmanship, though
their provenance is not known.
In addition to the churches there were many
chapels now all destroyed : of these the most im-
portant were the Bridge Chapel, already alluded to,
that of the Merchants'' Guild in Broad Street, and
213
Bristol that of St. Jordan, the companion of Augustine, in
the precincts of the abbey.
CANDELABRA AT THE TEMPLE
214
CORN STREET
CHAPTER X
MUNICIPAL INSTITUTIONS
A
LS is the case with
many other ancient
boroughs, the history of
the municipality of Bris-
tol comprises, firstly, an
account of a long struggle
on the part of the com-
monalty to obtain for
themselves freedom from
feudal restraints and bur-
dens,and localself-govern-
ment ; and then, almost
before the last was won,
of its surrender, not
without a strife and fluc-
tuations of success and
failure, into the hands of
a narrow, self-elected oli-
garchy chosen from the
members of a few wealthy and influential families.
Here, as elsewhere, the fellowship of merchants, or
Merchant Guild, seems to have been the institu-
217
Bristol tion which gradually developed into the corporate
body and superseded the Commonalty, or assembly
of the whole body of burgesses, in the govern-
ment of their town. The first definite mention of
this Guild occurs in the year 1286-87, when its
two seneschals witnessed a document still preserved
at All Saints1 Church, and it is noteworthy that
the mayor's two chief officers were long designated
seneschals, before they received the more usual appel-
lation of bailiffs or sheriffs. The Guild had then, pro-
bably, been in existence for many years, as the charter
granted by King John while Earl of Mortain, in
1188, expressly provided that 'they may have all
their reasonable guilds as well or better than they
had them in the time of Robert and his son William,
Earls of Gloucester/ The first mention of a mayor
is found in a copy of a deed, whose original is lost,
where Robert Fitz-Nichol signs as Mayor of Bristol
in the year 1201 ; but it was in the year 1216 that
the royal officer, the •propositus or provost, yielded
place to the communal mayor, Adam le Page, the
first of an uninterrupted succession. A town council
in the modern sense of the word, a definite and per-
manent body of men with fixed rights and duties, was
first provided for by the great charter of Edward in.,
in 1373, which empowered the mayor and sheriff and
their successors, by the assent of the Commonalty of
the said Town of Bristol, the Suburbs, and Precincts
thereof, to elect forty of the better and more honest
men of the Town, Suburbs, and Precincts thereof,
with power to make bye-laws and levy taxes. This,
218
tions
however, was only an official recognition, a defining Muni-
and legalising, of a practice which had already crept cipal
into use; for we read that in 1345 the mayor, Stephen Intitu-
le Spicer, had called to his assistance forty-eight of
the more powerful and principal citizens, who agreed
on many useful laws and ordinances, which were con-
firmed by charter, and we have seen that even further
back, in and previous to the year 1312, the whole
government of the town was in the hands of a self-
appointed council of fourteen. The clause safeguard-
ing the right of the commonalty in the selection of
the council was repeated in the charter of Henry vii.,
but it had become a dead letter, and it disappeared
from all future documents. Once formed, the council
underwent little alteration in its size or constitution.
Henry vn. ordered the creation of six aldermen, one the
recorder ex officio, the other five to be elected by the
mayor and Common Council, who were to have the
same authority and power as the aldermen of the City
of London, and to be Justices of the Peace as well by
land as by water. He also altered the method of election
of the Common Council, which was in future chosen
by the mayor and two aldermen nominated by him.
The number of aldermen was increased in the next reign
to twelve. The two charters of the Tudor Henrys
did not make it clear whether the aldermen were to
form part of the forty members of the Common
Council, or were to be in addition to them : the Bristol
corporation acted on the latter supposition, and this
formed the flimsy pretext for the demand of Charles n.
for the surrender of the charter. The number of
219
Bristol members remained at forty-three, including mayor,
sheriff, and recorder, and the body continued to be a
close corporation, filling up its own vacancies, till the
passing of the Municipal Corporations Reform Act of
1835, when for the first time in its history it became
fully representative of the whole body of citizens. It
is a matter of local interest that the useful reform
was an indirect consequence of the Bristol riots of
1831, in that it rose out of the report of the Commis-
sion appointed to inquire into the state of the muni-
cipal corporations in England — a Commission which
was appointed as a result of ' the scenes of violence
and outrage which have occurred in the city of Bristol
and some other places. ,
The mayor in the Middle Ages exercised a very
paternal government, and was invested with wide
powers, extending from the administration of justice
to fixing the price of bread. In Bristol he was in
right of his office the Master of the Merchants'
Guild and Mayor of the Staple, and as the King's
Escheator he enjoyed the rare privilege of having the
sword of state carried before him. To the functions
of a modern corporation little attention seems to have
been paid. The streets appear to have been first
paved in the year 1587, and in the same year the first
effort was made to cope with the frequently recurring
fires, when it was ordained that every member of the
Common Council should keep six leather buckets in
readiness in case of fire. It is true that there was a
plentiful supply of pure water, but this was owing to
the philanthropy and public spirit of the monastic
220
bodies. There were common taps at St. John's con- Muni-
duit beneath St. John's Church ; the Key pipe near cipal
the Frome ; All-Hallows' pipe, the gift of St. James's I^stltu-
Priory to the church of that name ; St. Nicholas's tlons
pipe, near St. Nicholas's Church ; three pipes in the
Redcliffe district, and the Temple conduit. Most of
these were adorned with elegant basins and canopies of
stone, known as Castalets, and the water was conveyed
to them from the surrounding hills by conduits made
from the hollowed trunks of trees ; sections of these
pipes are still occasionally uncovered in excavating.
The situation of the Temple conduit was afterwards
marked by the fine leaden statue of Neptune, which
may still be seen where the modern Victoria Street
crosses the line of the more ancient Temple Street.
A local tradition says that this statue was cast from
cannon taken from the Spanish Armada.
On the other hand, the Council took a prominent
part in the social life, the pageantry and amusements
of the community — a part which was rigidly pre-
scribed for them, even to the Christmas drinking
of the officials. They did something, too, for the
adornment of the town ; for to celebrate the acquiring
the charter of Edward in., they erected a very grace-
ful and beautiful cross at the four cross-roads at its
centre. This cross was afterwards not unjustifiably
removed from the narrow street, and re-erected in
College Green, where, however, it did not long
remain, for in 1768 it was given by the then dean to
Sir Henry Hoare, in whose grounds at Stourhead,
Wilts, it may still be seen. A replica of the original
221
Bristol was afterwards erected in College Green. (No. 1 on
plan.)
The corporation early found the advantage of
having a friend at court : Cromwell, Earl of Essex,
was made Recorder in 1533 ; and Seymour, afterwards
the Protector Somerset, became High Steward in
1540. He was succeeded in the office by a long line
of distinguished men, which included the Earls of
Pembroke, Leicester, Burleigh, and Essex, Lord
Hunsdon, and a greater Cromwell and greater Pro-
tector ; the office afterwards became hereditary in the
ducal family of Beaufort. They were fee'd by gifts of
wine, sugar-loaves, and fine rugs, and less frequently
by money gifts, and were occasionally of some service
to the town by obtaining for its representatives access
to the royal ear.
The meeting-place of the Town Council was the
hall of the Merchants'' Guild in Broad Street, on the
site of the present Guildhall, which, though rebuilt,
still contains some relics of the old building, but for
the better transaction of public business a Council-
house was erected in Corn Street in 1552; it has
since been twice rebuilt. The present building is a
cold-looking, if correct, classical edifice, designed by
Smirke ; it contains some interesting portraits,
notably Charles i. by Jansen, James n. by Kneller,
Lord Clare by Gainsborough, and especially the Earl
of Pembroke by Vandyke, and Edmund Burke by Sir
Joshua Reynolds : the two last are very fine examples.
It contains too a very interesting collection of cor-
poration plate and insignia, probably second only to
222
tions
those of London. The four swords of state are Muni-
especially notable ; the earliest, known as the ' mourn- cipal
ing sword,1 dates from the fourteenth century. One Anstitu-
of the earliest, as well as the most beautiful, pieces of
plate is a rose-water ewer with salver, bequeathed by
Alderman Robert Kitchin in 1573. The salver was
stolen during the Reform Riots, and cut up into 169
fragments, which were fortunately recovered and
cleverly repaired. The thief was sentenced to four-
teen years'1 transportation, and on his return he called
at the Council-house, introduced himself, and asked
to see the salver.
The real centre, however, of civic life was the
Tolzey. This was a low colonnade built below the
north windows of All Saints' Church, not far from
the High Cross, covering in the pavement of the
narrow street, and affording some protection from the
weather. Originally, as its name implies, intended
as a toll-house, it soon became also the seat of a
court of summary jurisdiction ; the court called the
Tolzey was certainly in existence before the year
1373. With its two pipes or conduits sheltered from
the wet it was probably the favourite morning meet-
ing-place of the goodwives of the town, and under
its protecting roof most of the mercantile business
was transacted, so that in later years it served the
purpose of an Exchange. With the growth of the
city the crowd of merchants stretched beyond its
narrow bounds, and the Town Council built a second
similar colonnade on the opposite side of the street
in front of the Council-house, and yet another
223
Bristol beneath Christ's Church. It was beneath one of
these that, for the convenience of business men, various
benefactors in the days of Elizabeth and James i.
placed those curious and handsome pillars or tables
of brass, which still adorn the pavement in front of
the Exchange hard by. It is generally believed that
their business purpose, together with a certain rude
resemblance these tables have to a row of nails
balanced on their points, first gave rise to the expres-
sion ' to pay on the nail.'' At length the nuisance
of a crowd of business men thronging streets which
were even narrower then than now, induced the
corporation to consider the question of providing an
Exchange, and in 1740-43 they erected, from the
designs of the celebrated John Wood, of Bath, the
stately, elegant, and harmonious building which is
still one of the chief architectural ornaments of the
city, and one of the best examples of Wood's refined
and thoughtful work. The architect, in his published
description of the building, has left on record a very
full account of the ceremony of its opening, which is
too long to quote here, but which shows that the love
of pageantry, and the power to organise it, were by no
means lost in Bristol in the eighteenth century. A
procession three-quarters of a mile in length, marched
to an accompaniment of bands of music, with ringing
of bells and continuous firing of cannon, from the
Guildhall to the Exchange, where the usual speeches
were made, and the day ended with the usual feasting,
and, needless to say, much drinking. There was
wine at the Council-house, and a great dinner at
224
tions
the Merchants' Hall, and the mayor provided wine Muni*
for the members of the various city companies at cipal
their respective halls. Thirty pounds were given to Institu-
the workmen engaged on the building to drink to its
prosperity ; and still more thoughtfully, all the debtors
in the city prison were released, and provided with a
sum of money to begin life afresh. In connection
with the erection of the Exchange a new market was
provided at its back, which further relieved the con-
gestion of the streets where the markets had been
previously held.
About the same time that the Exchange was built
the corporation provided a new home for their public
library, which had been in existence since the year
1613. It is said to be the earliest municipal free
library in England, preceding the very curious old
Town Library at Leicester by about a dozen years.
Its home in King Street, soon to be destroyed, is very
interesting, retaining as it does all its original
fittings. It contains a remarkable chimney-piece,
which is said to be from the chisel of Grinling
Gibbons : it was probably not executed till some years
after the death of that artist.
Intimately connected with the corporation were
the craft guilds, which, after the Reformation,
developed into the city trading companies. 'Set on
foot,-1 as Froude says, ' to realise that most necessary
if not difficult condition of commercial excellence,
under which man should deal faithfully with his
brothers ; and all wares offered for sale, of whatever
kind, should honestly be what they pretended to be,'
r 225
Bristol these guilds were none the less jealous and close
corporations, whose one, and generally successful, aim
was rigidly to restrict trade to their own members,
and to keep up prices by absolutely excluding the
competition of foreigners, by which term they broadly
meant all who were not free of the guild. Of these
bodies there were in 1449 twenty-six in Bristol with
halls of their own, in addition to smaller ones with-
out fixed habitation. A curious ordinance of the
mayor and Common Council in that year enumerates
the larger guilds, and incidentally fixes their relative
importance. It was ordered that on St. John's Night
the mayor, and on St. Peter's the sheriff, should give
wine to the craftsmen at their halls — namely, to the
weavers, tuckers, and taylors, ten gallons ; to the
cornesors, eight; to the butchers, six; to the dyers,
bakers, brewers, and shermen, each five gallons ; to
the skinners, smiths, farriers, cuttelers, lockyers,
barbers, waxmen, tanners, and whitawers, four ; to
the masons, tylers, carpenters, hoopers, wire-drawers,
cardmakers, and bowyers, three each ; and to the
fletchers, two. ' Tucker ' is the local term for
fuller, and the shermen were also engaged in the
finishing of cloth ; the cornesors were corn-chandlers,
and the fletchers arrow-makers. The number and
size of the guilds connected with the cloth trade
testifies to the importance of that industry in Bristol
in the fifteenth century. In the year 1719, in con-
sequence of constant disputes and bickering, the
corporation drew up an order of precedence for the
various companies; at that date just half of those
226
already enumerated had disappeared, but ten addi-
tional bodies had been formed, so that the lists num-
bered twenty-three. Noticeable among the new
companies were the chyrurgians, who took the third
place, and the tobacco-pipe makers.
The earliest as well as the most powerful of the
guilds was that of the Weavers, who possessed a
chapel in the Temple Church in the thirteenth
century ; their hall in Temple Street was in existence
as recently as 1869. Powerful as they were, the
weavers as a corporation as well as in their individual
capacity were under the jurisdiction of the Town
Council, who framed ordinances for them, one of
which prescribed that no machine was to be kept in
an upper room or in a cottage, but in a shop in the
street in sight of all. This rule was no doubt to pre-
vent the substitution of inferior material. Another
bye-law provided that no one should be admitted to
the craft unless he was a burgess. These ordinances
were entered into the 'Little Red Book 'in 1344.
Still more under the influence of the Town Council, as
its good management was more essential to the well-
being of the citizens, was the Bakers' Guild. This
generally included about thirty craftsmen, had four
masters, two elected annually, one of whose duties
was to confer with the mayor at the Guildhall or
Council-house soon after Michaelmas, when the
harvest was completed, to fix the size and price of the
loaf for the ensuing year. This custom, which was
known as fixing the assize of bread, was continued till
comparatively recent years. The mayor was further
227
Muni-
cipal
Institu-
tions
Bristol empowered, whether upon complaint or not, to test
the weight of the loaves, and to inflict severe
penalties for short measure. Later on the bakers
found these regulations irksome, and endeavoured to
neglect them. The mayor's firmness led to a general
strike in the trade, whereupon his worship sent
messengers to the neighbouring towns and villages to
say that the laws which excluded foreign bread were
relaxed. This brought into the town a plentiful
supply of bread at prices from twenty-five to thirtv
per cent, lower than that fixed by the mayor, thus
not only defeating the monopolists, but also giving
the citizens an object-lesson in the advantages and
disadvantages of having a rigidly protected trade in
their midst. The mayor undertook similar duties in
respect to the Brewers'' Guild, fixing annually the price
of malt, and visiting at intervals, with his ale-
conner, the houses of the common brewers — the mayor
to see that the poor had good measure, and his
officer to ascertain by taste that the quality was
satisfactory. On its religious side the guild was con-
nected with the Dominican Friars, in whose church,
before the altar of St. Clement, they kept tapers
burning ' to the honour and glory of God and Seynt
our Blessed Mary, and Seynt Clement."' Later, after
the dissolution of the monasteries, one of the halls of
the old friary was granted to the company as a meet-
ing-place, and though it was sold as long ago as 1697
it is still known as Bakers1 Hall. Some of the early
records of this guild still exist ; they contain mention
of frequent and heavy payments to minstrels. The
228
Muni-
cipal
Institu-
tions
KING STREET WITH COOPERS HALL
great festival of the society was on the feast of
Corpus Christi, when the members marched in pro-
cession to the High Cross, and then returned to their
hall to a modest meal of ale and bread. The sum
paid on taking the freedom of the craft appears to
have varied from 16d. to 40s., and provision was
made for admitting strangers as temporary members.
After the decay of the weaving industry the premier
company was that of the Merchant Taylors, an
229
Bristol early foundation which lingered on till the nine-
teenth century, when its remaining property was
assigned for the support of the picturesque alms-
houses in Merchant Street, which this company
had founded long before. The quaint Merchant
Taylors'1 Hall, with its great cavernous doorhead,
adorned in its semi-dome with the arms of the com-
pany and sundry masks and arabesques in plaster-
work, may still be seen in Taylors1 Court, Broad
Street. One other hall still survives ; this is the
handsome Corinthian edifice, rich with delicate carv-
ing, which the small Coopers1 Company built for
themselves in 1744 hard by the old theatre in King
Street.
One old corporation demands fuller notice ; not so
much because it still exists, as on account of the
unique position it has always occupied in Bristol
history. This is the ' Society of Merchant Venturers
of Bristol,1 which, though only constituted in its
present form in the reign of Edward vi., may be
considered the successor, though not directly, of
the early Merchants1 Guild. At some uncertain
time after the last-named body had become merged
in the governing body of the town, the merchants
engaged in foreign trade seem to have felt the need
of an organisation of their own, and at least as early
as 1467 there was in existence a Fellowship or
Fraternity of Merchants and Mariners of Bristol,
having its meeting-place at Spycers Hall, on the
Welsh Back. Its earliest purpose was simply to
maintain a priest and provide for twelve poor
230
Institu-
tions
mariners; but in the year named, Canynges being Muni
mayor, it came, like the craft guilds, under the cipal
control of the corporation, from whom it received
a set of ordinances for its government. It was in-
trusted with the regulation of foreign trade, with
power to fix prices and enforce them by penalties,
and it soon was further charged with the duty of
collecting the port dues and undertaking the care
of the harbour and quays. Rapidly growing wealthy
the fellowship purchased or built for themselves a
hall, with a chapel dedicated to St. Clement, on
or near the site of the present hall in King Street.
In 1552 the members of the fellowship obtained a
charter from Edward vi. incorporating them in a
company under the title of the Society of Merchant
Venturers of Bristol. The charter provided for the
government of the company, and further ordained
that no artificer or any other person should engage
in commerce beyond seas unless he was admitted to
the company or had served apprenticeship to one
of its members. This vexatious restriction naturally
aroused great ill-feeling among the smaller traders
of the town who were not members of the company,
and in 1571 the Town Council petitioned against
it and obtained its repeal. Originally intended to
be a trading company, or rather a ring or trust to
obtain a local monopoly of foreign commerce, the
society gradually developed into a public body, the
power behind the city corporation which it com-
pletely dominated, and for a long period of years
the real governing body of the city. It practically
231
Bristol took charge of the whole control of the port, farmed
the port dues and the charge for wharfage and
cranage, kept the quays and the river banks in
repair, and for a period of two hundred and fifty
years undertook the duty of registering and super-
vising the pilots. Modern changes in methods of
government have transferred these functions to the
hands of other bodies, but the Merchants' Company
has continued to carry on its useful work, as almoner
not only of its own charities, but of many others
which have been placed under its charge, and to
exercise a princely hospitality at its old hall in
King Street. That though a venerable and truly
conservative institution it has been able to appreciate
and assimilate modern ideas, may be judged from
two of its more recent achievements. It secured
the preservation to the public for ever of the five
hundred acres of breezy upland known as the Clifton
and Durdham Downs, and it fostered, and practically
founded, the first great technical school in England.
Here we may conveniently deal with the later
history of the port of Bristol. Its earlier career,
a period of growth, vigour, and, though with occa-
sional fluctuations, progress, has been already alluded
to in the chapter treating the general history of
the town. At the middle of the eighteenth century
Bristol was still the second port in the kingdom,
though its position was seriously threatened by
Liverpool, and other rivals were drawing nearer.
With a view of meeting this competition strenuous
efforts were made by people interested in the success
232
of the port to induce the authorities to improve the
navigation of the river, and to provide more and
better accommodation for shipping, so that the larger
vessels that were coming into use might ride safely
independent of the tides. In consequence of the
agitation Smeaton, the illustrious engineer who
designed the Eddystone Lighthouse, was consulted,
and he prepared a small scheme for widening and
deepening the Frome, and by erecting double gates
at its junction with the Avon, converting it into a
floating harbour, at an estimated cost of i?23,000.
A year or two later the energetic and ingenious
William Champion, whose name is well and honour-
ably known in Bristol, propounded a more ambitious
scheme. His plan, which was in the main finally
adopted, was to erect lock gates across the Avon
opposite to Clift House, some distance down the
river, and so to convert the two rivers into a floating
harbour. Neither plan, however, was adopted, and
though the agitation continued, and various other
suggestions were made, nothing was done for nearly
forty years, when in 1802 a plan by Mr. Jessop was
accepted after further inquiry. By this plan the
waters of the Avon were conveyed through a new
channel, the New Cut, from a point at Totterdown,
above the town, to Clift House, some distance below
it, and the whole of the existing rivers were held
up by a dam and gates to form a great harbour,
whose capacity was increased by the excavation of
two basins — the small Bathurst Basin below the
church of St. Mary Redcliffe, and the large basin
233
Muni-
cipal
Institu-
tions
Bristol called after the Duke of Cumberland, on the Avon
at Hotwells, just within the great gates. To meet
the cost of these works, which was estimated at
^300,000 but actually reached just double that
amount, a dock company was formed upon whose
directorate the corporation and the Merchants1
Company were represented, each nominating nine
members to a board of twenty-seven. In return
for this amount of public control a subsidy of ,£2400
was settled on the company, chargeable to the city
rates. This great work, the first port improvement
of any moment since the reign of Henry m., was
commenced in 1804 and brought to a successful
conclusion in 1809. It provided upwards of eighty
acres of deep dock accommodation with a very large
proportion of quay frontage, instead of the mud
bottom which had served so long, but its construc-
tion was not followed by the hoped-for improvement
of trade. This was partly owing to the fact that
the improvement came too late, but chiefly to the
enormous dues and charges imposed by the company,
which had the effect of crippling the port even more
thoroughly than the previous lack of accommodation
had done. Roughly speaking, the charges were
twice as high as those for similar goods at Liverpool ;
two and a half to one, and three to one respectively,
as compared with London and Hull. The result is
seen in the report of the Royal Commission on
Municipal Corporations of 1833, that ' far below
her former station as second port in the empire, she
has now to sustain a mortifying competition with
2 34
second-rate ports in her own channel. Foreign Muni-
produce now finds its way to Bristol in coasters from clPa'
neighbouring ports ; sometimes it is brought even n u"
from Liverpool and London. If it were not for the
Irish trade and the West Indian monopoly, of which
circumstances still enable Bristol to retain its share,
it is probable that the floating harbour would soon
open only for the reception of a few coasters and
fishing vessels."1 At last in 1848, when the export
trade had totally disappeared and imports seemed
likely to follow, the corporation took over the
docks estate by an Act of Parliament, abolished the
export dues, and reduced the local charges on ships
coming into the port sixty per cent., and on goods
thirty. At the same time they effected some im-
provement in the always difficult and dangerous
navigation of the Avon. The effect of these tardy
changes was immediate, and the growth of trade
has been steady and continuous. The gradual
increase in the size of ocean-going vessels pointed
out that the true port of Bristol was at the mouth
of the Avon, but the corporation unfortunately left
the task of providing accommodation there to two
private companies — the Bristol Port and Channel
Dock Company at Avonmouth, and the Portishead
Dock Company. The competitive trade and the
divided control proved unsatisfactory from the first,
and at the time of writing the Bristol corporation
have taken over the entire responsibility, and are
erecting at the mouth of the Avon fully equipped
docks capable of receiving and handling vessels of
235
Bristol the largest magnitude, with every prospect of recover-
ing at least a fair share of their lost commerce.
Even in the darkest days the spirit of adventure
had not deserted Bristol men, and in 1837 the first
ocean-going steamship, the Great Western, was suc-
cessfully built and launched in the Avon. This was
a wooden ship of 1340 tons, with engines of 440 horse-
power. In spite of gloomy prognostications, she was
successful from the first, and was accustomed to make
the American voyage in an average of fourteen days,
with a very low consumption of coal. Compared with
present-day liners she was an insignificant boat, but
as the pioneer in a great revolution she should not
go unrecorded. Inspired by the success of the Great
Western, her owners proceeded to build a larger
vessel, the Great Britain, memorable as the first iron-
built steamship. On account of the heavy charges at
Bristol, the Great Britain sailed from the first from
the Mersey, and for the same reason the earlier
steamer was soon afterwards removed to the port of
Liverpool.
Perhaps the Bristol monument which attracts the
greatest and most widespread attention is the graceful
suspension bridge which spans the gorge of the Avon
at St. Vincent's Rocks. As far back as the middle of
the eighteenth century the desirability of a bridge
over the gorge had occurred to a Bristol alderman
named Vick, and, dying in 1753, he left by will the
sum of i?1000 to the Merchant Venturers1 Society for
the purpose of building a toll-free bridge over the
Avon from Clifton Down. He had come to the con-
236
elusion that X'lOjOOO would accomplish his purpose,
and he left directions that his bequest should be put
out at interest until that sum had accumulated.
When, in 1830, the fund had reached iJ8000, it was
felt that the time had come to carry out the scheme,
and as the bequest was wholly inadequate, some
dP50,000 or X060,000 being found to be necessary, an
Act of Parliament was obtained, the clause which
forbade tolls was set aside, and a company formed
to carry out the work. Designs were submitted by
several eminent bridge engineers, including Telford
and Rendel, and the beautiful plan of Brunei, ulti-
mately carried out, was selected. In 1831 the work
was commenced, but the estimate proved utterly
inadequate, progress was slow, and in 1853 the idea
was practically abandoned, and the chains and other
ironwork were sold and employed in the construction
of the old Hungerford Bridge across the Thames at
London. At length, in 1861, the project was re-
sumed ; a new company was formed to take over the
work, and under the superintendence of Messrs.
Hawkshaw and Barlow the bridge was at last finished
in 1864, a hundred and eleven years after the alder-
man had made his bequest. The chains used, curi-
ously enough, were the original ones, repurchased
when, opportunely, the Hungerford Bridge was re-
moved. The total cost was just ten times as much
as its sanguine projector's original estimate. The
total span is 702 feet, and the space between the
abutments 627 feet, while the height at the centre is
Muni-
cipal
Institu-
tions
245 feet above high-water.
The chains are carried
237
Bristol through two towers, one on each side the river, 86 feet
in height, and are securely bolted into the solid rock.
Its weight is 1500 tons, and it is believed to be the
strongest, as well as the handsomest, suspension bridge
ever built.
THE CITY CREST
238
tK-Jsrev*-. ■ > ' ' < jM-^-
sr. peter's hospital
CHAPTER XI
CUSTOMS AND AMUSEMENTS STREETS, HOUSES,
AND CHARITIES
IF the mediaeval citizens of
Bristol led strenuous
lives, they none the less found
plenty of time for amusements
and feasting. It is estimated
that the festivals of the Church
meant at least one holiday a
week on an average, and these
were scrupulously observed, the
clergy, the civic authorities, the
guilds, and the townsfolk all
bearing their part. Perhaps
the great day of the year was
the feast of Corpus Christi,
when the season of the year
the assembly rooms macle an open-air festival pos-
sible. On that day all the guilds joined in the cele-
bration with their banners and pageants ; there was
an ecclesiastical procession through the streets to the
High Cross, followed by miracle-plays, and feasting
q 241
Bristol in the halls. The dark days before Christmas were
brightened by the feast of St. Nicholas, always a
popular holiday at a seaport town. In Bristol the
curious custom of the festival of the ' Boy Bishop '
was observed, and the Town Council took a prominent
part. Their part was prescribed by an ordinance
quoted in Ricart's Calendar, which is interesting as
showing how these old customs tended to crystallise.
Modernising the spelling, it reads : ' That on St.
Nicholas1 Day all join in the festival of the Boy
Bishop. . . . On St. Nicholas Eve the Mayor, Sheriff,
and their brethren to walk to St. Nicholas Church,
there to hear their Evensong ; and on the morrow to
hear their mass, and offer, and to hear the Bishop's
sermon and to have his blessing ; and after dinner the
said Mayor and Sheriff and their brethren to assemble
at the Mayor's counter, there waiting the Bishop's
coming, playing the meanwhile at dice, the town clerk
to find them dice and to have one penny of every
raffle (raphile) ; and when the Bishop is come thither,
his chapel there to sing, and the Bishop to give them
his blessing, and then he and all his chapel to be
served there with bread and wine. And so depart
the Mayor, Sheriff, and their brethren to hear the
Bishop's Evensong at St. Nicholas Church aforesaid.'
The Christmas celebrations extended from Christ-
mas Eve to Twelfth Night, and were no doubt
attended with much eating and drinking, occasionally
ending in quarrels and bloodshed. To secure better
order at this time, and quiet streets, it was decided,
in 1481, that for the better governance of the town
242
during the holidays the mayor and sheriff should
annually issue a proclamation on Christmas Eve that
no manner of person, of whatever degree or condition,
should at this Christmas go about mumming with
masked faces, or should go after the ringing of the
curfew at St. Nicholas unless he carried a torch,
lantern, candle, or sconce, and that no one should
carry a weapon whereby the king's peace might be
broken or hurt, on pain of fine and imprisonment. It
must be confessed that at almost all periods in the
past a too great devotion to the bottle has been a
failing of the Bristol men in their holiday mood ;
this was perhaps owing to the nature of its early
trade, and it is only fair to say that the city has also
been distinguished by its fine taste in wine. There
seems to have been some attempt to regulate, if not
to limit, the drinking habits in high quarters; for the
useful Ricart, who let few matters of interest con-
nected with the corporation escape him, records
under the year 1472 that the Common Council fixed
that the mayor's Christmas drinking should take
place on St. Stephen's Day, the sheriffs on St. John's
Day, that of the senior bailiff on Innocents' Day, and
the junior bailiffs on New Year's Day ; and that on
Twelfth Day they should go to the Christmas drink-
ing of the abbot of St. Augustine, as of old custom,
if it should be prayed by the abbot and convent.
There is reason to believe that the potations within
the cloister walls were not less deep than those at
the Guildhall. Two very important civic functions
occurred on the setting of the watch on St. John's
243
Customs
and
Amuse-
ments
Bristol and St. Peter's Nights. It was then that the mayor
and the sheriff respectively sent a hundred and twenty-
three gallons of wine to be consumed by the members
of the craft guilds in their halls.
In addition to the general holidays each guild had
its own high day. That of the Weavers was on St.
Catherine's Eve, when the mayor and corporation
were entertained at a banquet at the hall, followed
by a performance by the St. Catherine's players, who
were afterwards suitably rewarded. In conjunction
with the Cordwainers the Weavers used also to make
an annual procession to the chapel of St. Anne at
Brislington, where they offered candles. Another
excuse for leaving work was to attend obit services, of
which at least twenty were endowed : such was Halle-
ways, at All Saints' Church, when the mayor received
6s., each sheriff 3s. 4d., the town-clerk Is., the sword-
bearer 4d., the four sergeants each 3d., and six
hundred townsmen a silver penny apiece, for attend-
ing: the service.
Out-door sports were generally cruel and brutal in
Bristol, though not more so than in other parts of the
country. The most popular were cock-fighting and
bull-baiting, which took place in Broad Mead, a
pleasant public meadow on the north bank of the
Frome ; and the town records mention frequent pay-
ments to bear- wards. A local custom was that of
' squailing ' cocks on Shrove Tuesday. This was even
more cruel, as it was undoubtedly less interesting and
exciting, than cock-fighting. It was a sort of living
' Aunt Sally,' in which a cock, tethered by the leg, was
244
killed by throwing or shying sticks at it, as at cocoa-
nuts in more degenerate times. In 1606 the mayor,
whether from motives of humanity or from a Puritan
hatred of sport, forbade this cruel amusement ; and
the wild apprentices showed at once their respect for
the letter of the law and their contempt for their
chief magistrate, by squailing a goose on his worship's
door-step. More laudable was the military training
which was part of the necessary education of every
citizen in days when there was no standing army.
William Worcester mentions that the Riding Fields,
where jousts were held, were situated on the high
ground above Kingsdown, to the north of the town,
and the humbler townsmen who did not ride had
their archery butts and, later, musket practice. In
1613 there were shooting matches, out and home,
with Exeter. The Bristol men lost at Exeter, for a
reason which is said in more modern times to have
led to the downfall of English cricket teams in the
Antipodes, namely, that on their arrival the previous
night ' there was supper and many healths, and when
they brought our men home to their lodgings there
were many more healths, and burnt sack all night, so
that our men were sick with drinking and watching.''
The Bristol men profited by the experience, and in
the return match won all three rounds. The rifle
butts at that time were situated in the Marsh.
With the Reformation the religious pageantry
ceased, but the void left was soon filled by the sudden
rise of the English drama, which was nowhere more
speedily and heartily welcomed than at Bristol.
245
Customs
and
Amuse-
ments
Bristol Secular plays, such as they were, had long been acted
in booths at St. James's Fair, and we have already
seen that one guild at least, that of the Weavers,
possessed its own players, possibly such a company of
amateur actors as that not unkindly caricatured by
Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night's Dream — it will
be remembered that Bottom himself was a weaver ;
but under the later Tudor sovereigns the provincial
towns were perhaps better provided with good acting
than at any time before or since, and the idea of a
municipal theatre more nearly realised. It was the
custom of the various companies of players to leave
London during the off-season and go on tour, and
many municipal corporations were in the habit of
giving them a subsidy, which sometimes took the
form of a guarantee. The payments made by the
Bristol corporation to the actors were not so large
as those of some smaller towns, probably because
they obtained better support from the prosperous
Bristolians. The record of such a visit here
occurs in 1532, when the corporation paid to Lord
Lisle's players 10s., and to the Duke of Rich-
mond's 6s. 6d. After this there is a gap of several
years, until 1557, when the visits were resumed. In
that year the king's and queen's players received 15s.,
and Lord Oxford's 10s. From this time the entries
occur frequently till the end of the century, when
they cease. In October 1577 the records have an
entry, ' paid my Lord of Leicester's players, and for
links to give light in the evening — the play was called
Myngo — £1, 2s.' This is one of the few occasions
246
merits
on which the name of the play was mentioned. The Customs
next year, 1578, was a memorable one in the theatrical and
annals of Bristol, for it was visited by no fewer than Amuse-
six companies of actors — Lord Berkeley's, Mr. C.
Howard's, the Earl of Suffolk's, the Earl of Bath's,
the Earl of Derby's, and the Lord Chamberlain's.
The titles of two of the plays performed are given ;
they are, What Mischief Waiteth for the Hand of
Man, and The Court of Comfort. The names of
the actors are unfortunately not recorded. The Lord
Chamberlain's company visited Bristol more than
once during the time that Shakespeare was one of its
members, so that it is quite possible that the great
dramatist himself played here.
At first plays were acted at the Guildhall, but at
an early date a permanent building was erected for
the drama in Wine Street. This was soon succeeded
by the Tucker Street Theatre, which lasted to the
year 1704, when it was turned into a chapel. In
that year the Puritans who were in ascendency on the
city magistracy forbade the acting of stage- plays in
Bristol, and though it was occasionally contravened,
the enactment remained in force until 1764, when the
historic house in King Street was built. Fortunately
for the playgoing citizens the county magistrates did
not entertain such strong views about the immorality
of the stage, and about the year 1726 the well-known
actor Hippisley opened a theatre at Jacob's Wells,
just outside the city boundary. The play commenced
at 6.30 p.m., and during the winter months the
management provided men with lights along the
247
Bristol narrow and awkward approach to the city. The
prices of admission ranged from one shilling to three.
The difficulty of access to the Jacobs Wells Theatre
militated against its success, and at length a company
was formed in 1764 who secured a site in King
Street, near Queen Square, then the fashionable
quarter, and two years later was opened the well-
known Theatre Royal, which still exists, and is per-
haps the oldest house in England where plays are
performed. At the time of its erection it was con-
sidered one of the largest and most commodious
theatres in Europe. Powell, the manager of the
older house at Jacob's Wells, undertook the manage-
ment, and it was opened with the comedy of The
Conscious Lovers. Until it was superseded by a more
modern building in a more fashionable quarter, most
of the best actors in England at one time or another
appeared upon its boards ; and it is especially
associated with the names of Mrs. Siddons, Mr. and
Mrs. Charles Kemble, and Macready, the last of
whom was for several years its lessee, as his grandson
still is of the younger Prince's Theatre. The quaint
old front of the King Street building has only
recently been removed, but the interior is an un-
changed example of an eighteenth-century play-
house.
The eighteenth century was characterised by a
love of a stately social intercourse of which balls and
assemblies were the favourite form, and in towns of a
reasonable size, where every one knew every one, a
very satisfactory and enjoyable form. The Assembly
248
Room, which was erected in 1756, is in Prince Street,
but it has for many years ceased to be a place of
amusement, and is now a railway goods depot, and
doomed to early destruction. It is externally a fine
and stately Palladian building, which still forlornly
bears aloft the motto, ' Curas Cithara Tollit,1 and
within has a noble ballroom, richly adorned with
plaster- work, with drawing-room and coffee-room. The
subscribers used to meet for dancing once a fortnight
through the winter, and the balls began at half-past
six and ended soberly on the stroke of eleven.
Minuets were danced till eight o'clock, and after that
country dances, and the subscribers who did not
dance found sufficient amusement at cards in the
drawing-room. At the end of the season the surplus
funds provided a cotillion ball. The subscription
was two guineas, and every winter a series of concerts
was held at the same subscription. In the summer
season similar assemblies were held at the Hot- Wells,
then thronged with seekers after pleasure or health,
but these were confined to the visitors and not
patronised by the townsfolk. Among those visitors
Squire Bramble and his interesting household have
done more for the fame of the place than any of the
less real creatures of history.
As manners softened with the lapse of time the
brutal bull-baiting and cock-fighting gave place to
gentler forms of out-door amusement. Until Queen
Square was built the favourite pastime of the elder
citizens on summer evenings was to walk in the grove
of trees which had been planted on the Town Marsh,
249
Customs
and
Amuse-
ments
Bristol whose memory is preserved in the name, the Grove,
given to the adjacent portion of the floating harbour.
Of out-door games, bowls was the favourite. In
Roque's map of 1741, as it is engraved in Barretts
history about forty years later, two bowling-greens
are shown, one in the Pithay, and a larger one near
St. James's Church. When in process of time these
were built over, it became the custom to walk out to
the gardens and greens attached to the suburban
taverns. Of these the most famous was the ' Ostrich,''
on Durdham Downs, where Down House now stands,
which was for many years a popular and fashionable
resort.
The latter half of the eighteenth century witnessed
a marked literary awakening in Bristol. This was
largely due to Chatter ton and Sou they, both of whom
were born and spent their earlier life here ; but still
more, perhaps, to the two brothers, Joseph and Amos
Cottle, who were poor poets enough, but generous
and far-seeing publishers. From their shop, at the
corner of High Street and Corn Street, were issued in
rapid succession the Poems of Bion and Moschus, that
is to say, Southey and Lovel ; Southey 's Joan of Arc,
Coleridge's Poems on Various Subjects, and especially
the famous Lyrical Ballads by Coleridge and Words-
worth. In 1794 Coleridge was lodging with Southey
at No. 48 College Green, planning out their pantiso-
cratic Utopia ' on the principles of an abolition of
individual property.'' Coleridge lectured not unfre-
quently at the Literary Institution in later years.
Contemporary with these writers Hannah More, who
250
at that time assisted her sisters in the care of their
school in Park Street, was engaged in the production
of her numerous volumes, and Barrett and Sever were
at work upon their histories. In 1773 was founded
the Bristol Library Society, which accumulated a very
noteworthy library, which is now the property of the
town. Chatterton was dead before it opened, but all
the other writers who have been mentioned were sub-
scribers, with many others since known to fame. One
of its choicest treasures is a witty autograph letter
from Coleridge, chaffing the librarian about some
point of management.
The less cultured portion of the community took
their chief holiday at St. James's Fair. Founded in
the thirteenth century, if not earlier, this institution
was one of the greatest business gatherings in the
kingdom, and was attended by merchants from all
parts of the country and from the Continent. During
its continuance practically no business was done
within the walls, and all the citizens thronged to the
open place below St. James's Monastery, where the
fair was held ; in the day to buy and sell, in the
evening to witness the dramatic and other shows.
As late as the seventeenth century the fair was an
object of interest to Turkish pirates, who used to
await the foreign merchantmen at the entrance to
the Bristol Channel. With the decay of the local
cloth trade and the rise of more convenient modes
of business, the commercial importance of the fair
ceased, and it degenerated into an annual carnival of
dissipation, and was discontinued in 1837.
251
Customs
and
Amuse-
ments
Bristol In the Middle Ages it was a very narrow line
which divided amusements from punishments ; it was
as attractive to throw tilth at a poor wretch in the
pillory as sticks at a cock, and a political execution
at the High Cross was even more exciting than bull-
baiting. The most frequent crimes were offences
against the code of trade regulations. These included
the sale of goods by foreigners — that is to say, men
who were not free of the guilds — and the practice
known as ' colouring 1 commodities, by which was
meant the putting a privileged merchant's mark on
the goods of strangers in order to evade the bye-laws ;
this was punished by fine and confiscation. Forestall-
ing and regrating were severely punished, and bakers
who sold short weight, and brewers who provided
unwholesome beer, expiated their offence in the pillory.
In later years the prison of Newgate was crowded
with insolvent debtors, one of whom was the unfor-
tunate Richard Savage. Of more serious crimes,
robbery and violence were the chief; murder was by
no means unknown, and the Downs outside the town
were notorious for highway robbery.
The pillory or winch stood in, and gave its name
to, Wine Street, originally Wynch Street. The town
gaol was from the time of Edward in. in Newgate,
which had been used as a prison at a much earlier
date. It was several times visited by Howard, the
philanthropist, who found it clean but close and
offensive, and much overcrowded ; most of its rooms
were less than 8 feet in height, the female ward
only 6 feet 6 inches. The food provided for prisoners
252
was one threepenny loaf a day, but there was an
alms-box placed outside for the benefit of poor
prisoners, and compassionate townsmen used to pro-
vide food and clothing. The gallows on the top of
Cotham Hill, outside the town, were in frequent
requisition, and close by, where Highbury Chapel
now stands, was the place where heretics were burnt.
Another form of punishment which Bristol possessed,
like so many old towns, was the cucking-stool, or
ducking chair, which was reserved for female scolds
and other disturbers of the peace. This was a chair
fixed to a beam poised over the castle mill-pond on the
Frome ; its victim was generally dipped three times,
and it is said to have been in use as recently as 1718.
The Council attempted not only to punish crime
and regulate manners, but to restrain vice. Until the
year 1530 the number of taverns was strictly limited
to six. In that year, on account of the increase of
population, six additional were allowed ; while an
early regulation recorded in the Little Red Book pro-
vided that no common woman might stay within the
town, nor should ever appear in the streets or even
within the Barres (an extra-mural district where they
chiefly resorted), without the head covered. A later
regulation compelled such persons to wear striped
hoods and dresses turned inside out.
It is now time to glance at the houses in which
the citizens lived, especially those which still remain.
Until quite recently, Bristol possessed a singular
wealth of high-gabled half-timber houses and pictur-
esque streets, and resembled the quaint old-world
253
Customs
and
Amuse-
ments
Bristol
MARY-LE-PORT STREET
towns of northern Germany or Normandy rather
than a prosaic English commercial town. It consisted
of a central portion of houses of the earlier part of
the seventeenth century, with here and there among
254
them a house of earlier date, surrounded by a zone
of streets and squares built in the English vernacular
architecture of the eighteenth century, solid and
comfortable-looking houses of brick with a quiet
dignity and character of their own. During the last
few years the buildings of the former class have been
swept away by the score, whole streets of them at a
time, and now those of the later date are succumbing
to the march of modern improvement. Still a few
of the old facades adorn the streets, and in far more
instances an unpretending or commonplace modern
front conceals handsome panelled rooms, adorned with
rich old plaster ceilings and mantel-pieces of singular
beauty.
In addition to the ordinary houses several of the
wealthy families possessed large mansions, or ' great
houses' as they were called, of almost palatial mag-
nificence. Of at least three of those erected during
the Middle Ages some portion remains. They re-
sembled in planning and scale the great country
houses of the same dates. The most important and
interesting is the building in Small Street, now the
library of the Law Society, a unique example of a
large town house of the Norman period.1 Its chief
feature is a great hall of transitional Norman
character, divided like that of Oakham Castle into
a central nave with side-aisles by piers and arcades
of stone ; the arches here are pointed, but their
detail shows that they were erected soon after the
year 1150. One aisle has been destroyed to widen
1 Vignette, p. 27.
255
Streets,
Houses,
and
Charities
Bristol Small Street, but otherwise the old hall is practically
unaltered. The house was enlarged in the fifteenth
century by the addition of a fine range of Perpen-
dicular buildings looking on to an internal court;
they have particularly noble fireplaces and a mag-
nificent range of windows. This building is often
called Colston's House, from an erroneous idea that
it was once the residence of the great philanthropist.
The great house known as St. Peter's Hospital,
overlooking St. Peter's Churchyard, built in the
fifteenth century by the Norton family, and greatly
enlarged by Robert Aldworth in 1612, has already
been mentioned. It is said to have been the abode
of Thomas Norton, the Bristol alchymist, who flour-
ished about 1477, and who boasted that he had
discovered not only the philosopher's stone but also the
elixir of life. Of the house which William Canynges
the younger built for himself during the height of
his prosperity, between Redcliffe Street and the
Avon, the hall with its richly moulded, high-pitched,
open timber roof still remains at the back of No.
97 Redcliffe Street, though it was much injured by
a fire which occurred in 1881 ; the lofty towered
front toward the river has entirely disappeared.
After the reign of Henry vin. the hall disappeared
from the large town house, and its place, in Bristol,
was taken by the large and handsomely decorated
drawing-room or saloon on the first floor. The great
house which Sir John Young built for himself on
the site of the destroyed Carmelite Friary in St.
Augustine's Back, the resting-place of so many royal
256
and distinguished visitors, has been destroyed, but
the smaller house which he built in 1590 on the
upper part of the same estate still exists. It is the
house known as the Red Lodge, in Park Row, once
the abode of James Cowles Prichard, the ethnologist,
and now an Industrial School, and it may be viewed
once a week. It contains a good staircase; and the
drawing-room, which has often been engraved, is
a particularly fine interior, with handsome chimney-
piece and a curious internal porch.1 Even more
interesting than the Red Lodge is the house which
John Langton (mayor in 1628) built for himself on
the Welsh Back in 1614. In this house, which is
not generally shown, a plain and unattractive exterior
hides an interior which rivals the dwellings of the
merchant princes of the Netherlands. It has a pleas-
ing staircase and some minor rooms with panelling,
but most of the wealth of adornment is lavished
upon the drawing-room on the first floor, which
possesses not only the most beautiful of the many
chimney-pieces of early Renaissance date that are to
be found in the city, but a door and pillared doorway,
very richly carved and curiously inlaid with ivory
and mother-of-pearl. Another fine interior a little
later in date is that of the old town house of the
well-known Bristol family of Elton, about to be
destroyed at the time of writing to make way for
an extension of the Post Office, in Small Street.
The houses of the more moderately wealthy mer-
chants in mediaeval times were closely built in rows ;
1 See illustration, p. 62.
ft 257
Streets,
Houses,
and
Charities
Bristol they had each a very narrow street front but stretched
a long way back. They were generally raised on
crypts or vaulted cellars, and had a shop in front
and a hall or living room behind ; on the first floor
were parlour, sleeping chamber, and kitchen, and
above was a solar or attic. Strong party walls of
masonry separated neighbouring houses, but the
street fronts were of timber framing, the upper stories
overhanging till they nearly met over the narrow
streets, and the gables adorned with daintily carved
barge-boards. The numerous houses built during
the reign of James I. were generally similar, but they
often rose to four and even five stories in height.
Of early examples the least changed is to be seen
at the ' Swan ' Inn, at the east end of Mary-le-Port
Street, and there is another fifteenth or early six-
teenth century house at the corner of Peter Street
and Church Lane, noticeable for the moulded timbers
which carry its boldly overhanging superstructure;
several others have disappeared within living memory.
Of the Jacobean houses the most conspicuous is the
lofty and picturesque edifice at the corner of High
Street and Wine Street, generally known as the
Dutch House, from a tradition that its timber fram-
ing was constructed in Holland, and then brought
over and set up in its present position ; its detail,
however, exhibits the peculiarities of most of the
contemporary Bristol houses. Other excellent ex-
amples of the work of the period may be seen in the
narrow defile of Mary-le-Port Street, in High Street,
Temple Street, Frogmore Street, and especially in the
258
Streets,
Houses,
and
Charities
LLANDOGER TAVERN
picturesque King Street, which has several, the most
striking being the Llandoger Tavern, a favourite
resort of the sailors frequenting the port. There are
other picturesque old inns in Thomas Street and
West Street.
A feature of all mediaeval seaport towns was the
provision for storing goods beneatli the houses.
259
Bristol Examples of these vaulted crypts may still be seen at
London, Southampton, and Chester, but they seem
to have been more numerous in Bristol than else-
where, and a goodly number still remain, though for
obvious reasons they are not accessible to the visitor.
William Worcester attempted to make a list of those
existing in his time, and he enumerated no less than
169. Some of these were solidly roofed with timber,
and supported by massive oaken pillars on stone
bases, but most were vaulted in stone ; the earlier had
simple barrel vaults, but the later possessed more
elaborate intersecting vaults with groining ribs and
vaulting shafts. They projected under the streets,
and in consequence wheeled traffic was for long for-
bidden. When Pepys visited Bristol he noticed that
there were no carts, save such as were drawn by dogs,
for fear of shaking the vaults where the city's wealth
was stored ; and at a later date both Defoe and
Pope mention that heavy goods were drawn on
sledges.
In the year 1700 brick was first introduced as a
building material, and at the same time a period of
great building activity set in, so that in a very few
years a new and well-built city completely hemmed
in the older town. It seems as though the in-
habitants having at last burst the narrow confines of
the town walls could not soon enough build them-
selves houses outside, and rejoicing in their newly
found air and space they laid out the new town on
broad lines, with large straight streets and numerous
open squares. The houses, though not ornate, derive
260
a certain architectural character from their grouping
and their fair proportion, and individuality is given
by varied and often charming door-heads, carved
keystones, or other features. Internally they possess
roomy halls and stately staircases, and many of the
rooms possess good panelling or enriched cornices
and ceilings. The best of these houses are in the
squares, the largest and earliest of which, Queen
Square, was begun in 1700 and finished in 1717.
The whole of the north side and about half of the
east were rebuilt after the disastrous fires on the occa-
sion of the Reform Riots, but the rest of the square
remains much as it left the builders'1 hands just two
centuries ago. Next in date the small but pleasing
St. James's Square was built between 1707 and 1716,
and has been scarcely altered it is an early example
of the symmetrical treatment of blocks of houses.
The two finest of these houses now form the premises
of the Young Men's Christian Association. A little
later are King Square and Dowry Square and
Parade, the last finished in 1744. The latest and
most imposing of those squares is that called after
the Duke of Portland, the then Lord High Steward,
which was finished about 1790. Unlike the others
its houses are built of stone. For a time the most
fashionable quarter of Bristol, its glory has long-
departed, and it is now given over to offices and
business premises. The little Orchard Street, on the
site of the orchard of Gaunf s Hospital, is interesting
as an almost untouched example of a town street
of middle-class houses of the period of its erection,
261
Streets,
Houses,
and
Charities
Bristol 1716; and close by, in the not unlovely if squalid
Pipe Lane and Hanover Street, may be seen many of
the dwellings provided for the humbler classes of
citizens.
At about the time that the expansion of the town
took place it became the fashion among the rich
merchants to build themselves large detached mansions
in the suburbs. A group of these may be seen on
the summit of Clifton Hill, then for the first time
coming into repute as a residential suburb ; stately
and substantial houses of freestone. One of them,
Clifton Hill House, built in 1747, was long the
dwelling of Dr. J. Addington Symonds and his more
famous son. A finer example is the well-known
Redland Court, rebuilt in 1730, an excellent specimen
of an Italian villa adapted to English habits in the
eighteenth century, admirable for state and cere-
mony, but without home comfort or convenience.
It is now used as a High School for Girls. There is
one belated town mansion of this date, or rather
a front added to an earlier Jacobean house. This
is No. 40 Prince Street, now the office of the
sanitary authority, a gloomy but imposing stone-
built edifice, remarkable for a profusion of the
most delicately executed carving of flowers and
foliage, in the manner of Grinling Gibbons, with
which its fine drawing-rooms on the first floor are
adorned.
In a busy mercantile community there are always
some who fall by the way in the struggle, and the
care of the aged and deserving poor has always been
262
a self-charged duty with their more fortunate
brethren in Bristol. In the earliest days the ecclesi-
astical charities proved sufficient, the chief of them
being that administered by the Prior and College of
Gaunt's Hospital, which was primarily founded for
the relief of the poor. Then with the development
of the craft guilds each of these bodies looked after
its own poor, thus advancing to a point in the direc-
tion of mutual help which our modern friendly
societies and trades unions have scarcely reached.
After the Reformation many of the city companies
which superseded the guilds continued to maintain
their own almshouses, but the help from the Church
ceased. Its place was taken by private philanthropy,
which soon led to the building and endowment of
a large number of almshouses and other charities.
This form of charity was not unknown long before
this period, for as early as 1294 Simon Burton, who
was mayor six times, and is favourably known on
account of his work at the church of St. Mary
Redcliffe, founded in Long Row an almshouse for
sixteen poor women. This example was followed
in or about 1402 by John Barstable and his wife,
who built and endowed almshouses for twenty-
two aged men and twenty-four poor widows in
Old Market Street, outside the town. Another
pre-Reformation foundation was that of John
Foster, 1504, whose pretty little chapel, dedicated
to the Three Kings of Cologne, has already been
mentioned.
Most of these charities, however, were founded in
263
Streets,
Houses,
and
Charities
Bristol
MERCHANT TAYLORS ALMSHOUSES
the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth
centuries, at the end of which period not less than
twenty-seven such institutions were in existence.
Chief among these is Colston's Almshouse on St.
Michael's Hill, built about 1695, an unpretending
but wonderfully pleasing and satisfactory building,
forming three sides of a quadrangle with a chapel in
the centre. Others which deserve a visit are the
Merchants'1 and St. Nicholas1 Almhouses in King
Street, the Merchant Taylors'1 in Merchant Street,
the Presbyterian in Stokes-1 Croft, and the Friends'
Poorhouse in New Street near the Frome. All these
are homely and appropriate edifices with a certain
old-world charm, and the last-named is a curious
264
survival of Elizabethan architecture in the very last Streets,
year of the seventeenth century. Houses,
MERCHANT TAYLORS' HALL
265
CLIFTON SUSPENSION BRIDGE
CHAPTER XII
SOME DISTINGUISHED NATIVES, RESIDENTS, AND VISITORS
DURING its long history
Bristol has been the
birthplace or the dwelling-
place of at least its share of
men who have risen to emin-
ence in various walks of life.
Some of these, among whom
are the great Earl of Glouces-
ter, William Canynges,
William Worcester, and Se-
bastian Cabot, have received
')& r (IS IlK ^11- 111 due attention in the preced-
ing pages, but there are many
others who have been passed
over altogether, or to whom
the barest allusion has been
made, who deserve a fuller
notice. This it is proposed
to give them, as far as limita-
tion of space will allow, in the
present chapter.
First in point of date may be mentioned Richard
267
ST. STEPHEN S TOWER
Bristol Lavenham, who was born at the little Suffolk town
from which he took his name early in the fourteenth
century, and who died at Bristol in 1383. He was
the head of the Carmelite Friary here, and Confessor
to Archbishop Sudbury, a fellow East Anglian. He
enjoyed a high reputation for scholastic learning,
and was the author of some sixty-two or sixty-three
treatises. Most of these were on questions of pure
logic, but one dealt with the Physics of Aristotle,
and one — Contra Johannem Purveium — was written
in refutation of WycliftVs chief disciple, whom we
have already met with preaching in Bristol.
John Milverton, a native of Milverton in Somerset,
was also for a time an inmate of the Carmelite
Friary. He afterwards became the head of the
order in England, and was famous as a preacher.
Accused of heresy he was summoned to Rome, and
was three years a prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo.
He lost by his absence the bishopric of St. David's,
to which he had been nominated ; but on his release
he was offered by the Pope, Paul u., a Cardinal's Hat,
which he refused. Milverton died in 1487.
William Grocyn, the famous scholar, was a native
of Colerne in Wiltshire, where he was born in 1446 ;
but he appears to have received his early education
in Bristol, though it is not known who were his
instructors. After obtaining a fellowship at New
College, Oxford, he studied in Italy and became
perhaps the most famous Greek scholar of his age.
Erasmus styled him ' patron and preceptor of us
all.*' Among his friends were More, Colet, Linacre,
268
Wareham, and Erasmus. He held some Church
preferment, and remained a steady adherent of the
old faith, though his mental temperament is manifest
in a letter he wrote to Aldus the publisher, in which
he congratulated him on publishing Aristotle before
Plato, since the former was iroXvfiadijs, full of science,
and the latter 7ro\vfxvdo<;, full of mysticism. He died
in London in 1519.
Archbishop Tobias, or Toby, Matthew was the son
of a Bristol draper, and was born in one of the
houses on the old bridge in 1546. At Oxford, where
he was first at University College, and afterwards
at Christ Church, he was respected, according to
Wood, for his great learning, eloquence, sweet con-
versation, friendly disposition, and the sharpness of
his wit. While at the university he had the good
fortune to preach before Elizabeth and to win her
favour, and he soon obtained preferment as Dean of
Durham, and in 1606 became Archbishop of York.
He was equally famous as a preacher and a states-
man, and he showed his continued interest in his
birthplace by a gift of books for its newly established
library. Archbishop Matthew died in 1628, and was
buried in York Minster.
William Child (1606-1697), organist and com-
poser of sacred music, was born in Bristol, and was a
chorister at the cathedral. His mature life belongs
rather to the general history of music, and to
Windsor Castle, where he was for many years organist,
and where he is buried.
Admiral Sir William Penn, one of the great
269
Some
distin-
guished
Natives,
Resi-
dents,
and
Visitors
Bristol seamen of the Commonwealth, was born in the parish
of St. Thomas in 1621. His father was a merchant
and sea-captain, and under him he learned naviga-
tion. His name first appears in history in the year
1644, when he was appointed commander of the
Fellowship, a vessel of twenty-eight guns. From that
time his rise was rapid, and he was already an
admiral in 1648, when he was appointed to the
Irish fleet. He was sent on an expedition to the
Azores and the Mediterranean in search of Prince
Rupert, and for a whole year cruising about oft' the
Straits of Gibraltar he maintained an effective
blockade of the Mediterranean. He next took a
prominent part in the Dutch war, and to him most
of the credit belongs of its success, as his two
superior officers, Blake and Monk, were neither of
them seamen. In 1654 he was, like many other old
Parliamentarians, dissatisfied with Cromwell's rule,
and was in correspondence with Charles u., proposing
to bring the fleet over to him. He did not, how-
ever, lose the Protector's confidence, and was sent
in charge of the navy in the West Indian expedition
which resulted in the capture of Jamaica. The
army had first been landed in Hispaniola, but was
foiled in an attack on San Domingo, and on
approaching Jamaica Penn is said to have declared
that he would not trust the army if he could come
near with his ships. This he managed to do, and
the whole credit of the successful issue belongs to
him. On his return he was in the Tower for a short
time on account of the earlier failure, but was soon
270
released. He was with Montagu (Lord Sandwich)
on the Naseby when that vessel went to Scheveningen
to bring over Charles n., and was then knighted.
After the Restoration he was made a Commissioner
of the Navy, in which capacity he drew up 'The
Duke of York's Sailing and Fighting Directions."1
He was partly responsible for the ill-success of the
action off Lowestoft against the Dutch in 1670,
and dying soon after, was buried with great state
in the church of St. Mary Redcliffe. His name
appears with great frequency in the pages of Pepys,
who represents him as a pleasant companion, but a
mean, incompetent, and self-seeking man. The
diarist was a shrewd judge of character, but in this
case, at least, his judgment seems to have been
biased.
The better-known William Penn, son of the
last-named, the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania, was
connected with Bristol by his marriage with Hannah
Callowhill, through whom he acquired a valuable
property near the Dominican Friary. He lived for
some time here, and his connection with the place is
commemorated by the names of some of the streets on
the property in question, Penn Street and Philadelphia
Street.
Edward Colston (1636-1721) achieved for himself
and his memory a unique place in the affection of
Bristol, and no modern Englishman except John
Kyrle, the Man of Ross, has so fully attained the
honour of a popular canonisation. A High Church-
man of the old school, and a Tory with at least a
271
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guished
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dents,
and
Visitors
Bristol tendency to Jacobitism, he entertained an equally
bitter hatred for Catholics, Nonconformists, and
Whigs, yet his memory is held in equal honour to-
day by men of all denominations and all political
parties. A member of a family which had settled
at Bristol as early as 1345, Edward Colston was the
eldest son of William Colston, a rich merchant who
had commanded Colston's Fort for the king in
1645, and was afterwards removed from his office of
alderman by Skippon. He was born in Temple
Street, in a house now destroyed, and always took
a special interest in the parish of his birth until the
vicar, the Rev. Arthur Bedford, had the courage
to offend him in 1713 by voting for Whig candi-
dates for Parliament. He was educated at Christ's
Hospital, and settled in London as a Spanish
merchant, and for many years had little intercourse
with his native city, residing chiefly until his death
in a house at Mortlake. In 1683, however, he took
up his freedom of the city and became a member
of the Merchant Venturers1 Society, and about the
same time became the principal partner in the sugar
refinery carried on at St. Peter's Hospital. It was
about 1690 that he began to devote his time and
his great fortune to works of charity. He gave
liberally at Mortlake and in London, especially to
the place of his education, but most of his liberality
was devoted to his native city, to which he gave in
all, in addition to his private charities, the then
enormous sum of oP66,570, his known benefactions
elsewhere reaching i?13,125. His first great work
272
Some
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guished
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dents,
and
Visitors
EA"A'
COLSTON'S ALMSHOUSES
in Bristol was the building and endowing the noble
range of almshouses on St. Michael's Hill which
bears his name, which he placed under the govern-
ment of the Merchant Venturers' Society, and he
soon afterwards endowed the Merchants' almshouses
so as to provide for six additional inmates. Having
thus provided for the aged and infirm, he next turned
his attention to the education of the young. He
began by founding a free school in Temple Street
for clothing and teaching forty boys in the parish
of his birth, and next in 1702 rebuilt the corporation
school of Queen Elizabeth's Hospital, and increased
s 273
Bristol its foundation. Meantime a much larger scheme
was ripening in his mind, and in 1704 he offered to
provide funds for increasing the number of boys on
the foundation from forty-four to a hundred or a
hundred and twenty. After consideration, the cor-
poration refused this offer — from ignorance, it is
generally said, and a belief that such charities proved
only a nursery for beggary and sloth but Mr. Latimer
has suggested, with some show of reason, that it
may have been from a dread on the part of the
council of Colston's extreme views. Whig principles
were then in the ascendency on that body, and some
of its members were Dissenters, and it is certain that
it was provided in the school that he afterwards
founded, that no books should be used with ' any
tincture of Whiggism,' and that no boy should be
apprenticed to a Nonconformist ; so that their fears,
if indeed they existed, were not unjustified. The
provision about apprenticeship was scrupulously
carried out until quite recently. The negotiation
with the corporation having fallen through, Colston set
to work on his own account, and in 1708 he founded
the institution, afterwards known as Colston's School,
for a master, two ushers, and a catechist, and for
one hundred boys to be instructed, clothed, main-
tained, and apprenticed, at a cost of <£J40,000. As
a home for his school he purchased Sir Thomas
Young's great house on St. Augustine's Back, and
there, under the governance of the Merchant
Venturers' Company, the school did a most useful
work until, in the middle of the nineteenth century,
274
it was greatly enlarged and removed to the former Some
bishop's palace at Stapleton, where under more distin-
modern conditions it fills an extended sphere of guished
usefulness. In 1710 his fellow-citizens honoured Natives,
JaGSI-
themselves as well as Colston by electing him their j .
representative in Parliament. He continued till an(j
extreme old age to take an active interest in his Visitors
various foundations, and on his death in 1721 he
was interred with great pomp, which was against
his expressed wish, in the church of All Saints, where
a lofty monument with recumbent effigy by Rysbrach
marks his resting-place. Edward Colston never
married ; when his friends suggested marriage to
him he used to say pleasantly, according to Barrett,
' every helpless widow is my wife, and her distressed
orphans my children.1 In spite of his vast charities,
and the same authority says that those unacknow-
ledged were at least as great as his public benefactions,
he left a fortune of i?100,000 to his relatives and
dependants, and he had the rare satisfaction of seeing
all his establishments at work, and of perceiving
with his own eyes their good effects. Since his
death the 13th of November, ' Colston's Day,1 has
always been kept as a public festival. The town
flames with flags, and church-bells ring all day long :
there are religious services in the morning, and in
the evening the members of the four societies founded
in his honour — the Colston, the Grateful, the
Dolphin, and the Anchor — dine together, and vie
with each other in collecting money to cany out
works of practical benevolence in the spirit of their
275
Bristol hero. Two of these societies are political, and the
Anchor Society, representing every principle he held
in abhorrence, is not behind the Dolphin, whose
views are perhaps only a little nearer Colston's
own, in its practical commemoration of his name
and work. These dinners have long been treated
as favourable opportunities for ministers and ex-
ministers of State to address a wider audience
than that of Bristol.
Thomas Chatterton (1153-11*0) has always, on
account of his precocity, his misfortunes, and his
early and tragic death, taken up a larger share of the
pages of Bristol history than his merits strictly
deserve. He was the posthumous son of the master
of the Redcliffe Parish School, and was born in Pyle
Street, Redcliffe. He received his early education at
Colston's School, and was afterwards apprenticed to
a lawyer named Lambert, practising in Corn Street,
in a house now destroyed. From his earliest age he
had been interested in antiquities, and as the nephew
of the parish clerk of St. Mary Redcliffe he had unre-
strained access to the muniment-room of that church,
with its store of ancient documents. There he prac-
tised the imitation of ancient handwriting, and pre-
pared himself for the celebrated Rowley forgeries.
The monk Rowley, chaplain to William Canynges, he
had invented at least as early as 1765, when he was less
than fifteen years old ; and about the same time he
became acquainted with William Barrett, the surgeon,
who was then collecting material for his history of
Bristol. Chatterton seized the opportunity, and for
276
the next three years supplied him with documents. Some
Was the historian interested in Burton or Canynges, distin-
the prolific monk was ready with a biography or a gulsned
correspondence : was he writing on the castle, Rowley atnes'
supplied a ground plan and elevation : did the lean- 1 ,
ing tower of the Temple or the entrance porch of St. an(j
Bartholomew attract his curiosity, manuscripts flowed Visitors
in with a regularity which would have awakened the
suspicion of a less gullible man. In 1768 he appealed
to a wider audience, and in Felix Farley's Journal for
October 1 in that year there appeared an account of
the opening of the bridge by the mayor in 1248, also
attributed to the monk. Emboldened by his success,
he next flew at higher game, and as Horace Walpole
was preparing his Anecdotes of Painting in England,
Chatterton sent him, first, The Ryse of Peyncteynge
in Englande, by T. Rowleie ; and, a little later, The
Historie of Peyncters in Englande, by T. Rowley. At
the same time Chatterton left Bristol and went to
London, hoping to make his way by his pen. His
hope of assistance from AValpole was vain ; for the
latter, who had been at first deceived, discovered the
imposture, but contented himself with giving his
correspondent the unpalatable but not ill -meant
advice to return to his work and amuse himself with
literature when he had achieved a competence. Chat-
terton failed to obtain a hearing in London, and, too
proud to return to Bristol, he perished, half-starved,
by poison, in a garret in Brook Street, Holborn,
before he had reached his eighteenth birthday.
Sut William Draper, conqueror of Manilla ami
277
Bristol antagonist of 'Junius,1 was born in Bristol in 1721,
long resided at a house, Manilla Hall, which he built
for himself at Clifton, and dying in 1787, was buried
in the churchyard of St. Augustine the Less.
Hannah More (1745-1833) was born at Stapleton,
near Bristol, and spent most of her long life in or near
that city. In early life she assisted her sister in keep-
ing a boarding-school in Park Street ; but she very
soon developed a talent for literature, and a play,
The Search after Happiness, brought her under the
notice of Garrick. Under his encouragement she
wrote several other plays, which were produced with
a fair amount of success, and she obtained the friend-
ship of Johnson, Burke, and Reynolds. She soon,
however, gave up writing for the stage and devoted
herself, first at Barley wood, near Wrington,and after-
wards at Clifton, to the composition of religious and
moral books, and to works of practical philanthropy.
Mary Robixson, better known as ' Perdita,1 whose
maiden name was Darby, was born at the Minster
House in College Green, adjoining the Norman gate-
way, and was a not altogether creditable pupil of
Hannah More and her sisters. A beautiful and pre-
cocious child, she made an unfortunate marriage at
the age of fifteen, and soon afterwards went upon the
stage, where she had a great success in Shakspearian
characters. When playing Perdita in A Whiter s
Tale she had the misfortune to attract by her beauty
the admiration of the Prince of Wales, afterwards
George iv., and she left the stage to become his soon
discarded mistress. While still quite young she
278
became completely crippled by rheumatism, but made
a brave and not unsuccessful effort to maintain her-
self by her pen. She was a regular contributor to
the Morning- Post, and published several volumes of
novels and memoirs ; she also wrote a considerable
mass of verse, and was the Laura Maria of Delia
Cruscan fame, so savagely ridiculed by Gifford. Mrs.
Robinson died in 1800.
Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, administrator, traveller,
and writer of numerous volumes of memoirs, was born
in Bristol in 1751.
The Rev. Robert Hall (1764-1831), the greatest
preacher of his day, was a native of Arnesby in
Leicestershire, but he early became connected with
Bristol as a student at the Baptist Theological College.
After taking his degree he was for a short time a
teacher at the college, and assistant to the minister of
Broadmead Chapel. His great fame as a preacher
was gained at Cambridge and in his native county,
but late in life he returned to Bristol as President of
the Theological College and Pastor of Broadmead
Chapel, and dying here, he was interred in the
Baptist Burial Ground, but his remains were after-
wards transferred to Arno's Vale Cemetery, where
a monument with a medallion portrait marks his
resting-place.
Robert Southey Bristol's most famous son, was
born at No. 9 Wine Street, where his father kept a
linen-draper's shop. The house, which is marked by
a commemorative tablet, is beneath the shadow of
Christ Church, of which the elder Southey was warden.
279
Some
distin-
guished
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Resi-
dents,
and
Visitors
Bristol He received his early education in or near Bristol,
and at the age of fourteen was sent to Westminster,
where, however, he did not stay long, as an article
from his pen in the school journal, The Flagellant,
on the subject of Corporal Punishment, led to his
expulsion. He afterwards entered at Balliol College,
Oxford, with a view of studying for the Church, but
finding that he could not conscientiously take orders,
he left the university without a degree. Then, after
an aimless period spent partly in Bristol and partly
in Lisbon, during which, with Lovell and Coleridge,
he elaborated the scheme for communistic emigration
which they termed ' Pantisocracy,1 and published two
small volumes of verse, he married Miss Edith Fricker,
whose sisters wedded his two friends, and determined
to devote himself to literature as a calling. In this,
after much hardship, he was successful, and became
Poet Laureate, and succeeded to the position once
held by Dr. Johnson as the recognised representative
man of letters in England. His subsequent career,
however, belongs rather to the history of literature in
England than to that of Bristol. He died in 1843.
Sir Thomas Lawrence, President of the Royal
Academy, was born in Bristol in 1769. His father
was the landlord of the ' White Lion,1 in Broad
Street, where the Grand Hotel now stands, but the
great painter was born at No. 6 Redcross Street,
a substantial stone-built house in what was then
a respectable neighbourhood, though it has long
ceased to be so. He was not long a resident of
Bristol, for in 1772 his father removed to the ' Bear,1
280
at Devizes, where the young painter early became Some
celebrated. Even more precocious than Chatterton, distin-
he was painting portraits at the age of five, and at gulshed
twelve is said to have been the mainstay of his family. atJves>
In his subsequent career, which was phenomenally j .
successful and brilliant, Bristol had no part. At the an(j
early age of twenty-three he succeeded Sir Joshua Visitors
Reynolds as portrait-painter to the king, and in
1820 was elected President of the Royal Academv.
Lawrence died in 1830, and was buried in St. Paul's
Cathedral.
Sir Francis Freeling (1764-1836), the eminent
Secretary to the Post Office, an early Fellow of the
Society of Antiquaries, and one of the founders of
the Roxburgh Club, was born in Bristol and com-
menced his official career there.
Henry Hallam, the historian (1778-1859), was the
son of Dr. Hallam, Dean of Bristol. He received his
early education at the Bristol Grammar School ; and
from his relationship to the Elton family — he married
the daughter of the Rev. Sir Abraham Elton — was
always a familiar figure in the town.
Other names which should not be permitted to go
unrecorded are those of the writers — Robert Lovell,
the Quaker poet ; the clever but eccentric Thomas
Lovell Beddoes ; Joseph Cottle, ' that Alfred made
famous ' ; Ann Yearsley, the poetical milkmaid ; the
Rev. John Eagles, essayist, poet, and painter ; the
talented Porter family, which included Dr. W. O.
Porter, author of Sir Edward Seaward^s Narrative,
and his sister Jane, whose Scottish Chiefs was once
281
Bristol the most widely circulated of works of fiction ; and
Anna Maria, who wrote Thaddeus of Warsaxv and
numerous other once-popular works. Among artists,
John Strahan, the architect ; Edward H. Baily, the
sculptor, many of whose works adorn the city ; and
Bird, Branwhite, Muller, and Ripingille, the painters,
may be mentioned ; and among physicians and scien-
tific men, Gibbs ; Thomas Dover, explorer and phy-
sician ; James Cowles Prichard, the father of British
ethnology ; Thomas Beddoes, who married a daughter
of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, and whose son was the
better-known Thomas Lovell Beddoes ; Sir Humphry
Davy, who was for a time the assistant of Dr. Beddoes
at his ' Pneumatic ' institution at the Hotwells ; Dr.
J. Addington Symonds, and William B. Carpenter,
the physiologist. The philanthropists, Thomas and
Nicholas Thorne, John Whitson, Richard Reynolds,
and Mary Carpenter ; the publishers, Thomas Long-
man and Amos Cottle ; and the local historians,
William Barrett, Samuel Sever, John Evans, and
George Pryce, do not exhaust the list.
As Bristol was not only the second city in
the kingdom, but also one of the great gateways
toward Ireland, there were probably few eminent men
who did not at some period or other visit it, either
on business or from motives of curiosity, and during
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries their
numbers were vastly increased by the crowd of
pleasure-seekers who resorted to Bath, only twelve
miles away; so that for century after century its
streets were traversed by a long procession of royal,
282
noble, and eminent persons, including many foreigners.
Many of the royal visits have been alluded to in the
previous chapters ; of other visitors we are only now
concerned with those who have given us interesting
or valuable information about the appearance or the
life of the city in the past, and those who have
exercised an influence upon it. To the former belong
the diarists, Evelyn and Pepys, upon whose accounts
of Bristol we have already drawn.
Daniel Defoe spent some time in Bristol in hiding
from his creditors, probably in or about 1692. It is
said that he was known here as ' the Sunday gentle-
man,'' from his habit of only appearing in public on
that day, when he was secure from arrest. In his
Tour through the whole Island, Defoe gives a very
favourable description of the state of trade here in
his day, when it was probably at the height of its
prosperity ; his account of the city itself was not so
flattering.
Alexander Pope was in Bristol in 1735, and found
little to admire here ; his picture of the town being
that it was as if Wapping or Southwark were ten
times as big. He was struck with the appearance of
the quay: 'in the middle of the street hundreds of
ships, their masts as thick as they can stand by one
another, which is the oddest and most surprising sight
imaginable.1 The forest of masts is less dense now
than at the time of Pope's visit, but the sight of
shipping in the heart of an inland town is still the
most characteristic feature of Bristol. He admired
Queen Square, then just completed and adorned with
283
Some
distin-
guished
Natives,
Resi-
dents,
and
Visitors
Bristol RysbrachTs statue of William in., but he found the
town very unpleasant, and no civilised company
in it.
A visitor who regarded the town rather from the
point of view of Pope than that of Pepys or Defoe,
was Horace Walpole, who came over from Bath for
a day, in October, 1776, and found it the 'dirtiest
great shop I ever saw, with so foul a river, that, had
I seen the least appearance of cleanliness, I should
have concluded they washed all their linen in it as
they do at Paris.'
Dr. Johnson, accompanied by Boswell, visited
Bristol in 1776. The chief object of his journey was
to inquire on the spot into the authenticity of the
Rowley manuscripts, as he had recently done in Scot-
land, in the case of the Ossian poems, and Boswell
has left an amusing account of the visit. They
called on Barrett, who showed them some of the so-
called original manuscripts, but after a careful inspec-
tion of them they were quite satisfied of the impos-
ture. Chattel-ton's friend, Catcot, the pewterer,
acted as their guide, and ' seemed,1 says Boswell, ' to
pay no attention whatever to any objections, but
insisted, as an end of all controversy, that we should
go with him to the tower of the church of St. Mary
Redcliff, and view xvith our own eyes the ancient
chest in which the manuscripts were found. To
this, Dr. Johnson good-naturedly agreed, and though
troubled with a shortness of breathing, laboured up a
long flight of steps till we came to the place where
the wondrous chest stood. "There,*1 said Catcot,
284
with a bouncing, confident credulity, " there is the
very chest itself.11 After this ocular demonstration
there was no more to be said.1
John Wesley (1703-1791) has some claim to be
regarded rather as a resident than as a visitor, since
during the half-century of his marvellous missionary
journeyings Bristol was the nearest representative of
a home to him. When here he usually lived at a
house in Charles Street, St. James's, occupied by his
brother Charles, which still stands, but at one time
he had a lodging at Hotwells, and during the last
few years of his life he found a home when in Bristol
at the vicarage of the Temple Church. He was in
the habit of speaking of St. James's Church as his
parish church. It is not too much to say that Bristol
was the cradle of Methodism, for it was not only the
starting-point of his journeys, but the place where
each new departure in his system was made. His
first memorable visit was made on March 31, 1739,
when he came to meet Whitfield, to whom it had
been suggested ' if he will convert heathens, why does
not he go to the colliers at Kingswood.1 Wesley
entered a note in his Journal, ' I could scarce recon-
cile myself to the strange way of preaching in the
fields of which he set me an example ' ; but two days
later he began his career as an open-air preacher, or,
as he put it, ' I consented to be more vile, and pro-
claimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation.1
The usual place of meeting of his congregation was
in the picturesque Gothic hall of the Weavers' Com-
pany, now destroyed; but on May 9, 1739, he laid
285
Some
distin-
guished
Natives,
Resi-
dents,
and
Visitors
Bristol the foundation-stone of the first Wesleyan church.
This chapel still stands between Broadmead and the
Horse-fair, and has above it rooms for the preacher,
which Wesley himself sometimes occupied. Outof doors
his favourite places of preaching were in King Square
and Prince Street, and especially at Kingswood, and
all through his association with Bristol, he constantly
visited and preached at the prison in Newgate. He
also preached occasionally at the churches of St.
Ewen and St. Werburgh, and very frequently at the
Temple, for whose rector, Mr. Easterbrook, he enter-
tained a warm affection. It was in Bristol that the
system of ' class-meetings,1 which plays so large a
part in Wesleyan religious life, originated. Wesley's
Journal contains a few, but too few, entries of local
interest. At first the mob regarded his preaching
with distaste, and he ran much risk of bodily injury :
like the Quakers a century before, he was held to be
a Jesuit. In 1740 the mayor, ' the minister of God
for good,' said firmly, ' I will have no rioting in this
city,1 and he was afterwards always respectfully
received. In 1758 he attended a performance of
Handel's Messiah at the cathedral, and noted that
the congregation was never so serious at sermon as at
this performance. The next year, 1759, was memor-
able in Bristol for the presence of a very large number
of French prisoners of war ; eleven hundred of these
unfortunate men were confined at Knowle, on the
outskirts of the city. There Wesley visited them, and
found them with only straw to lie on, and nothing
but foul rags to cover them. He narrates that he was
286
much affected, and the same evening he preached a
sermon from the text, ' Thou shalt not oppress a
stranger ; for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing
that ye were strangers in the land of Egypt,1 by
which he obtained sufficient money from his own
flock for the immediate necessities of the prisoners,
and succeeded in interesting the authorities in their
condition. Wesley confirmed Howard's account of the
cleanliness of Newgate, and his testimony to the
character of the gaoler deserves recording — that the
keeper of Newgate deserves remembrance as the Man
of Ross. The vice and disorder of the inhabitants of
Lawford"s Gate district have already been noticed ; it
had not abated in Wesley's time, for he called them
* the rebel rout that neither fear God nor reverence
man.'1 He visited much among them, and was able to
see an improved condition of things in their district.
In 1776 he found no one there out of work, but he
reports that there were two hundred public-houses in
that one suburb. In that year he endeavoured to
make a more exact estimate of the population of
Bristol than had hitherto been accomplished, and he
came to the conclusion that the number of inhabitants
was not less than 80,000. He told the citizens
roundly that their besetting sins were the love of
money and the love of ease ; and, when a very old man,
he had the courage to preach, both in his chapel
and in the Temple Church, against the slave-trade.
Wesley left Bristol for the last time in September 27,
1790, and died in London on the eve of setting out
once more for the western city, March 2, 1791.
287
Some
distin-
guished
Natives,
Resi-
dents,
and
Visitors
Bristol Thomas Clakkson (1760-1846) began in Bristol his
crusade against the slave-trade. He spent a con-
siderable time in the city in 1787, and collected at
the docks and in the low riverside public-houses the
information which led in later years to the abolition
of the slave-trade, and, later still, of the institution of
slavery in the British Empire.
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859) was
connected with Bristol through his mother, a
Bristol woman, and was in early life a frequent
visitor ; his hostess when here was Hannah More,
under whom his early education was commenced.
His picturesque description of the city in the seven-
teenth century is familiar to all.
VIEW ON THE AVON
288
T ■ ""1
TTie Ci/txi
BRISTOL
SnoyUna sites of JiTicUnf /r>nilainas , )L> . ^
r \\Jk^iinnerygf'
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- sfJJ<-
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APPENDIX
ITINERARY
In the previous chapters the places and objects of
interest in Bristol have been described, not in their
topographical relation, but in connection with the
chapters of the city's history which they illustrate. It
has consequently been thought desirable for the con-
venience of visitors to append a short itinerary through
the city indicating in their order the places and things
worthy of notice, and the pages of the book on which
they are described or alluded to. If we start from
Temple Mead Station on the Somerset side of the Avon,
and follow the modern Victoria Street, we reach Bristol
Bridge (p. 32), leaving the Temple Church with its
leaning tower (p. 210), and the statue of Neptune
(p. 221) on the right. Crossing the bridge the old city
is entered at the site of the Bridge Gate at the foot of
High Street. Here on the left is St. Nicholas' Church,
and a few yards further on the right, St. Mary-le-Port
Street, with its picturesque houses (p. 258). The old
houses on both sides of High Street should be noticed.
At the top of this street the High Cross, the centre of
the old city, is reached, with All Saints' Church (p. 194),
and Christ Church (p. 197), at two of its angles, the
Council House (p. 222) at a third, and the old Dutch
House (p. 256) at the fourth. Now, crossing over,
292
Broad Street is reached, with the Guildhall on the left,
and Taylor's Court (p. 230) on the right ; at the bottom
of Broad Street will be seen St. John's Church and
Gate. Returning to the Cross, and turning down Corn
Street, past the site of the Tolzey, the Exchange (p. 224),
with the brazen tables (p. 224) in front, is seen on the
left, and the Commercial Rooms on the right, with
statuary by Baily. Here the visitor should pause to
look at the charming view of St. Michael's Hill and
Church, seen down Small Street (see Mr. New's drawing,
p. 70), and then descend past handsome banks and
insurance offices as far as St. Stephen's Church (p. 206).
Then retracing his steps he should descend Small Street
as far as the Law Library, with its Norman features
(p. 255). Once more returning to the Cross, Wine
Street, formerly Wynch Street, is reached. On the left
side of Wine Street a tablet marks Southey's birthplace,
but most of the picturesque houses which lined the
street have been rebuilt in recent years. From Wine
Street the short Dolphin Street leads to St. Peter's
Street, with the Church (p. 199) and Hospital (p. 256)
on the right, and an excellent example of a fifteenth-
century house on the left. Now Castle Street is
entered, which crosses the site of the castle from end
to end. (For the circuit of the castle and the town
walls see p. 103 and following pages.) At the lower end
of Castle Street the fine broad thoroughfare of Old
Market Street is reached, with quaint blocks of alms-
houses and other buildings. Here turning to the left
along Castle Ditch and Broad Weir we arrive at
Merchant Street, with the Merchant Taylors' Alms-
houses (p. 264), and the Dominican Friary, Quakers'
Friars, on the right. Then turning to the left along
293
Broadmead the historic Meeting-house of the same name
is passed, and a short distance to the north are the
pleasant gardens below St. James's Priory Church
(p. 158). From this point Lewin's Mead, which leads
westward, should be followed. Up the second narrow
lane on the left the scanty remains of the Franciscan
Friary (p. 175) will be found, and at the end of the
street, at the corner of Christmas Steps,1 the Early
English gateway of St. Bartholomew's Hospital
(p. 177) will be seen. Christmas Steps should next be
ascended : near the top on the left is the Chapel of
Foster's Almshouses (p. 178), with the curious seats
below (see illustration on p. 19), and a quaint inscrip-
tion. Christmas Steps end at Park Row, on the other
side of which is St. Michael's Hill ; this should be
followed a short distance, not only to inspect Colston's
Almshouses, but also for the fine view looking over the
towers and spires of the old city. The visitor should
next follow Park Row, passing the Red Lodge (p. 257),
as far as Queen's Road, where the Museum, Library, and
Art Gallery are situated, and then turn down Park
Street. A short distance down on the right is Charlotte
Street, which leads to the great open space of Brandon
Hill, crowned by the Cabot Memorial Tower, with fine
view and traces of the fortifications thrown up during
the Civil War. Once more returning to Park Street,
College Green is reached, with the Mayor's Chapel or
Gaunt's Hospital (p. 162) on the east, and the Cathedral
with the Abbey precincts (p. 135) on the south. From
College Green, St. Augustine's Parade leads past St.
Augustine's Church to the thirteenth-century harbour
(p. 112). The fine portico on the quay belongs to the
1 No. 2 on plan.
294
Roman Catholic Church of St. Mary-on-the-Quay. Next Itinerary
crossing at the site of the old drawbridge, where an
inscription celebrates the departure of Cabot on his
memorable voyage. Here the Broad Quay on. the right
leads to Prince Street, with the Assembly Rooms (p. 249)
and interesting houses. From Prince Street, King
Street should be followed. This street, still one of the
most picturesque in England (see Mr. New's drawing on
p. 229), contains several buildings of interest ; they are :
(i) the Hall of the Merchant Venturers' Company
(p. 231); (ii) the Merchants' Almshouses1 (p. 264); (hi)
the City Library 2 (p. 225); (iv) the old Theatre (p. 248) ;
(v) the Hall of the Coopers' Company 3 (p. 230) ; (vi) St.
Nicholas' Almshouses 4 ; and (vii) the finest group of
half-timber houses now remaining in Bristol, including
the Llandoger Tavern 5 (p. 259). From the end of King
Street the Welsh Back leads along the riverside to
Bristol Bridge. Recrossing this, Redclifle Street is
entered by turning sharply to the right ; here
at No. 97 the hall of Canynges' house may still be
seen, and the great spire of St. Mary Redclifle (p. 184)
dominates the view. Before the church is reached
a narrow lane on the right leads to the Friends'
Burial Ground, with the rock-cut Hermitage of St.
John. From the north side of St. Mary Redcliffe,
Pyle Street, in which is the school at which Chat-
terton received his early education, follows the
line of the town ditch back to the station at Temple
Mead.
1 No. 7 on plan. ! No. 4 on plan.
a No. 5 on plan. 4 No. 6 on plan.
5 No. 8 on plan.
295
INDEX
Abbey, St. Augustine's, 52, 119 ;
dissolved, 129.
Abbots :—
Bradeston, William, 112, 122.
Elliot, 129.
Knowles, Edmund, 124 ; re-
builds choir, 125.
Marina, John de, 123.
Newbery, Walter, 126.
Newland, or Nailheart, 127.
Snow, 126.
Abona, 9.
Aldworth, Robert, 200.
Almshouses : —
Barstable's, 263.
Burton's, 263.
Colston's, 264, 273.
Foster's, 178, 263.
Merchants', 264.
Merchant Taylors', 264.
America, discovery of, 57.
Anne of Denmark, Queen, visit of,
68.
Anne, Queen, visit of, 83.
Antonine's Itinerary, 9.
Assemblies, 248.
Assembly Rooms, 249.
Assize of Bread, 227.
Beaufort, Duke of, 83.
Berkeley Arch, 125.
Berkeley, Lord : —
Maurice, 122.
Robert II., 123.
Thomas I., 123.
Thomas II., 35.
Berkeley Monuments, 142, 147,
170, 192.
Bishop Geoffrey of Coutance, 14,
22, 96.
Godfrey Gifford, 123.
Wolfstan, 22.
Bishopric established, 129.
Bishop's Palace burnt, 91.
Bishops of Bristol : —
Browne, Forrest, 133.
Bush, Paul, 131.
Butler, Joseph, 132.
Fletcher, Richard, 131.
Holyman, John, 131.
Lake, John, 131.
Newton, Thomas, 132.
Trelawney, Jonathan, 131.
Black Death, 40, 46.
Blake, Admiral, 73.
Blanket, Thomas, 47, 207.
Boswell, James, 284.
Botoner, 55.
Boy Bishop, 242.
Brass Tables, the, 224.
Brennus and Belinus, 14, 16, 203.
Brereton, Colonel, 87.
Bridge, Bristol, 20.
rebuilt in stone, 32.
Bristol, derivation of name, 15;
made a borough and county, 41 ;
made a city, 60.
Brittany, Maid of, prisoner at,
97-
Bull-baiting, 244.
Burke, Edmund, 86.
Butler, Bishop, 132.
297
Bristol Cabot, John, 57.
Sebastian, 58.
Calendars' Guild, 195.
Camps : —
Burgh Walls, 7.
Clifton, 6.
Stokeleigh, 7.
Canning, George, 52.
Canynges, William, the elder, 52,
186.
■ the younger, 52, 186,
197 ; his burial, 55 ; his fleet, 53 ;
his house, 53 ; takes orders, 54.
Canynges Hall, 256.
Carpenter, Mary, 177.
Castle, Bristol, 22, 95 ; circuit of,
103; description of, 100; keep,
101 ; slighted, 99.
Cathedral, Bristol, 135 ; Lady-
chapel in, 148 ; misereres in,
141 ; stained glass in, 144 ;
unique design of, 139.
Champion, Richard, 86.
Chapter-house, 150.
Charles I., visit of, 74.
Charles II., visit of, 78.
Chatterton, Thomas, 16, 276.
— — Memorial of, 188.
Child, William, 269.
Christmas Drinkings, 243.
Festivities, 242.
Steps, 178.
Churches : —
All Hallows, 20, 194.
Christ Church, 197.
Holy Trinity, 20.
St. Augustine the Less, 208.
St. Ewen, 20, 197.
St. Giles, 206.
St. James, 156.
St. John Baptist, 109, 203.
St. Leonard, 109, 206.
St. Mary-le-Port, 20, 199.
St. Mary Redcliffe, 52, 54, 184.
St. Michael, 209.
St. Nicholas, 108, 202.
St. Peter, 20, 199.
St. Philip and St. Jacob, 207.
St. Stephen, 206.
St. Thomas, 213.
St. Werburgh, 12, 20, 197.
Temple, 209.
298
Civic Plate, 222.
Clarkson, Thomas, 288.
Cock and Bottle Tavern, 85.
Cock 'squailing,' 244.
Coleridge, S. T., 193.
Colford, William de, Recorder, 38.
Colston's Day, 275.
Colston, Edward, 271 ; almshouses,
273 ; charities, 272 ; monument
in All Hallows' Church, 195 ;
school, 274.
Commines, Philip de, 52.
Companies, Trades, 226.
Corporation of the Poor, 202.
Corpus Christi Festivities, 229, 241.
Cottle, J. and A., 250.
Council House, 222 ; portraits at,
222.
Cromlech at Druid Stoke, 5.
Cromwell, Earl of Essex, Recorder,
222.
Oliver, 76, 99, 222.
Cross removed, 221.
Cucking-stool, 253.
Custom House burnt, 90.
Dampier, 85.
Defences, 71.
Defoe, Daniel, 85, 283.
Deorham, battle of, 12.
De Spenser, execution of, 37.
the younger, beheaded, 50.
Dominican Friary, 172.
Doomsday Book, 13.
Dover, Dr. Thomas, 85.
Drama in Bristol, 245.
Draper, Sir William, 277.
' Dutch' House, 66, 258.
Edward i., visit of, 33.
Edward 11., burial of, 38; murder
of, 38, 125 ; visit of, 37, 98.
Edward iv., visit of, 61.
Elizabeth, visit of, 61.
Ethelred 11., coin of, 12.
Evelyn, John, 79.
Exchange, 224.
Fairfax, 76.
Fairs, St. James's, 246, 251.
Famine, 58, 63.
Fiennes, Nathaniel, 73.
Fires, provision against, 64, 220.
Fitzharding, Robert, 26, 120.
Fourteen, the, 34.
Frampton, Walter, 205.
Franciscan Friary, 175.
Friary : —
Dominican, 172.
Carmelite, 176.
Franciscan, 175.
Fulford, Sir Baldwin, beheaded,
Gate :—
Frome, m.
Postern, 109.
Redcliffe, 115.
St. Leonard's, 109.
St. John's, 109.
Temple, 115 ; removal of,
116.
Gaunt, Henry, 162.
Maurice, 162.
Gaunt's Hospital, 163.
General Mind, 196.
Genoese seize Bristol ships, 49.
Gloucester, Robert, Earl of, 23,
97-
Grocyn, William, 268.
Guild :—
Assumption of B. V. M., 203.
Calendars', 195.
Merchants', 217.
Weavers', 227.
Guildhall, 222.
Guilds, Craft, 226.
Hakluyt, 133.
Hall, Rev. Robert, 279.
Hall :—
Bakers', 174, 228.
Coopers', 230.
Smiths', 174.
Taylors', 230.
Harbour works, 31, 112.
Harding, Robert, 21.
Henry 11., 25.
in., 29.
vi., visit of, 51.
vii., visit of, 57.
Hermitage, rock-cut, Redcliffe,
194.
Hogarth, William, 194.
Hospital : —
Leper, 179.
Queen Elizabeth's, 164.
St. Bartholomew's, 177.
St. Peter's, 201, 256.
Hotwells, the, 249.
Howard, John, 252.
Hubberdin, 59.
Insurrection, the Great, 34.
Ireton, 75.
Iron-work : —
St. Mary Redcliffe, 190.
St. Nicholas, 203.
Temple Church, 212.
Itinerary: —
Antonine's, 9.
William Worcester's, 56.
James, Captain Thomas, 68.
Jeffreys, Judge, 80, 83.
John, King, cruelty to Bristol Jew,
29.
grants charter, 28.
Johnson, Dr., 284.
Kemble, Charles, 248.
Kcyne, Saint, 143.
Lady-chapel, in Cathedral, 148.
Latimer, 58.
Lavenham, Richard, 268.
Lawford's Gate, 77, 98.
Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 280.
Lectern, St. Mary-le-Port, 199.
Leland, John, 98.
Leper Hospital, 179.
Library : —
Calendars', 195.
Law, 255.
Municipal, 225.
Llandoger Tavern, 259.
Macaulay, Lord, 288.
Macready, William, 248.
Mansion House burnt, 91.
Manufactures, 45.
Matthew, Archbishop Tobias, 269.
Mayors of Bristol : —
Adam le Page, 30.
Ayhvood, Richard, 112.
Derby, Walter, 39.
299
Index
Bristol Mayors of Bristol :—
Frampton, Walter, 205.
John Taverner, 35.
Knight, Sir John, 81.
Pinney, Charles, 89.
Shipward, John, 206.
William Randolph, 36.
Mayor's Chapel, 165 ; glass in,
169 ; monuments in, 170.
Mayor first elected, 30.
Merchant Venturers' Society, 230.
Millerd, 80.
Milverton, John, 268.
Monmouth, rebellion of, 82.
More, Hannah, 250, 278.
Neptune, statue of, 220.
Newgate, 104, 252.
Nonconformists, persecution of, 81.
Norman gateway at Cathedral,
Norman house in Small Street,
255 ; illustrated, 27.
Nunnery, Benedictine, 161.
Obits, 244.
Octroi abolished, 60.
Ortelius, 211.
Penn, Sir William, 190, 269.
Penn, William, 271.
Pepys, Samuel, 78.
Pestilence, 58, 63, 78.
Pillory, 252.
Pope, Alexander, 283.
Population, 81.
Porter, Jane, 281.
Porter, Dr. W. O., 281.
Port of Bristol, 232.
Prehistoric remains, 5, 6.
Prichard, J. Cowles, 177.
Prior's Hill Fort, 71, 73, 76.
Priory becomes Abbey, 122 ;
founded, 120.
Priory of St. James, 156.
Privateering, 84.
Purvey, John, 50.
Quakers' Friars, 173.
Queen's Chamber, the, 38.
Redcliffe, 20.
300
Red Lodge, 177, 256; illustrated,
62.
Reformation, the, 58.
Richard 11., 50.
Riots, 86 ; destruction of property,
91 ; loss of life, 91 ; Reform, 87.
Robert, Earl of Gloucester, 23, 97;
founds Priory, 24 ; rebuilds
Castle, 24.
Robinson, Mary (Perdita), 298.
Roman villa at Brislington, 10.
Royalist plot, 72.
Rupert, Prince, 72, 74, 77.
St. Bartholomew's Hospital,
177.
St. Mary Redcliffe, 184.
St. Peter's Church, 199.
St. Peter's Hospital, 201, 256.
St. Stephen, 206.
St. Thomas, 213 ; treasury at, 213.
Salley, Miles, Bishop, 164.
Savage, Richard, 201, 252.
See of Bristol, 130.
Selkirk, Alexander, 85.
Setting the watch, 243.
Ships for French wars, 39, 51, 60.
Ship-money, 68.
Shrove-Tuesday sports, 244.
Shooting competitions, 245.
Siddons, Mrs., 248.
Sieges, 25, 69, 73, 76.
Simon de Montfort, 30.
Skippon, 78.
Slave-trade, 21, 79; Bishop Wolf-
stan preaches against, 22.
Smith, Sydney, 133.
Soap-making, 48.
Southey, Robert, 194, 197, 250,
279.
Spicer, Richard, 39.
Staple, 40.
Steamship Great Western, 236.
Stephen, 26 ; besieges Bristol, 25 ;
prisoner at, 25.
Stratford de Redcliffe, 52.
Sugar-refining, 79.
Suspension bridge, 236.
Tanning, 48.
Taverner, Mayor, 35.
Temple Church, 209 ; candelabra
in, 212 ; leaning tower at, 210 ;
Reformation incident at, 209 ;
Weavers' Chapel in, 209.
Temple Gate, 115.
Theatres, 247.
Tobacco, 68.
Tolzey, the, 41, 61, 223.
Town Marsh, 249.
Towton, battle of, 51.
Trades, 46, 67.
Trial of Brereton and Pinney, 91.
Three Kings of Cologne, 179.
Vaulted cellars, 49, 259.
Walls, 22, 107.
Walls, second line of, no; third
line of, 114.
Water-supply, mediaeval, 176, 220.
Wesley, John, 284.
Wetherell, Sir Charles, 87.
Whitfield, 205.
William in., 83.
Winch, 252.
Wishart, George, 59.
Wood, John, 224.
Woollen manufacture, 39, 45.
Worcester, William, 32, 49, 55, 98.
Yeomans, Robert, 72.
Young, Thomas, 51, 53.
Index
301
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