X-Nico

71 unusual facts about Bristol


1575 in poetry

August 14 – Robert Hayman (died 1629) poet, colonist and Proprietary Governor of Bristol's Hope colony in Newfoundland; his book, 'Qvodlibets ("What you will"), published in 1628, was the first book of English poetry written in what would become Canada.

1628 in poetry

Robert Hayman, Qvodlibets ("What you will"), the first book of English poetry written in what would become Canada, written by the Proprietary Governor of Bristol's Hope colony in Newfoundland

17 King Street, Bristol

17 King Street is a historic building situated on King Street in Bristol, England.

Aggi Crew

The Aggi Crew were a criminal drug gang based in the St Pauls district of Bristol.

Aikaterini Gegisian

Kalfayan Galleries, Athens; Pentalogy, Omikron Gallery, Nicosia, Cyprus; Diego Garcia, Centre of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki and Picture This Atelier Space, Bristol; Falling in Place, Elefsina Cultural Center, Greece.

Alexander Catcott

These were housed in the Old Library on King Street and were one of the first public displays of fossils in the country.

Arthur Bingham Walkley

Walkley was born at Bedminster, Bristol, the only child of Arthur Hickman Walkley, a bookseller, and his wife, Caroline Charlotte, née Bingham.

Arthur Richards, 1st Baron Milverton

In 1947 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Milverton, of Lagos and of Clifton in the City of Bristol.

Auction rate security

Some of the higher-profile firms taking writedowns include Bristol-Myers Squibb, 3M and US Airways.

Avon House, Bristol

The former Avon House is an 18-storey building, one of the tallest structures in central Bristol, England.

Betsy Mix Cowles

She was born in Bristol, Connecticut, the eighth child of Giles Hooker Cowles and Sally White Cowles.

Big World Small World

Big World Small World is an album by the Bristol-based group Smith & Mighty, released on !K7 Records in 2000.

Billy Corkhill

Billy later regretted his involvement in the robbery and when his wife Doreen found out, she finally left him and moved to Bristol, ending more than 20 years of marriage.

Blackberry Hill Hospital

Opened as a prison in 1779, many of its buildings and the co-located Glenside campus of the University of the West of England (UWE) are Grade II listed.

Bristol Arena

Once elected mayor, architect George Ferguson launched a competition to find the best design for a 12,000 seat arena that would be "the most environmentally-friendly venue of its kind" and pledged that the project would be up and running within four years.

As of late 2013, Bristol's two largest music venues were Colston Hall and the O2 Academy, which hold 2,000 people each.

Bristol city centre

Old City is the peninsular area to the north east of St Augustine's Reach, It contains St Nicolas Market, Queen Square, King Street and many bars and restaurants, it is a key part of Bristol's night life.

Bristol Storm

The City Academy Bristol Storm are a British basketball team based in Bristol.

Bristol-Burney seaplanes

The Bristol-Burney seaplanes were a pair of experimental seaplanes produced by a collaboration between Lt. Dennistoun Burney and the Bristol and Colonial Aeroplane Company during 1912-14.

Bristol, Ohio

It lies along State Route 93 at its intersection with Marietta Road and Township Road 223.

Bullock's Park

Bullock's Park was an estate in Bristol, England between College Green and Brandon Hill.

Castlemead

The building is a short walk from Castle Park and the River Avon, Broadmead Shopping Centre and the pubs and bars of Baldwin and Corn Streets, and is not far from the Centre.

Charles of the Ritz

In 1972, Richard B. Salomon retired, and the company was acquired by pharmaceutical company E.R. Squibb, with a market value of $100 million.

Chris Santos

At age 13, Santos's first job in the kitchen was washing pots at a small local restaurant in his hometown of Bristol, Rhode Island.

Christopher Gattelli

He grew up in Bristol, Pennsylvania, started dancing at the age of 11 and is a "Star Search" Grand champion.

Christopher Parsons

From 1995 to 2000 he was a Director of Wildscreen, overseeing the building of Wildwalk-at-Bristol, a new visitor attraction in the city.

Connecticut Route 229

Just south of the Bristol town line, Route 229 shifts to Middle Street and the road becomes four lanes wide.

The original plan was to reconstruct Route 229 from I-84 to the Bristol town line and widen it to four lanes.

Curry goat

In Britain, the carnivals in St Pauls, Bristol and Notting Hill, London and other Caribbean cultural events will usually have curry goat available as well as other regional foods.

Eamon McAnaney

He started working as a producer for ESPN in Bristol before becoming a reporter, anchor, or play-by-play announcer.

Easton Cowboys and Cowgirls

The origins of the club go back to the late 1980s, in St Pauls and Baptist Mills School in Easton.

Fabian Ware

Born at Clifton, Bristol, he attended the Universities of London and Paris, obtaining a Bachelier-es-Sciences at the latter in 1894.

Florenceville-Bristol

The town is the site of the Florenceville Bridge, a covered bridge built in 1907 that is unique in New Brunswick in combining a wooden covered bridge with steel trusses for the central spans over the Saint John River.

Former Bristol and West Building

The former Bristol and West Building on Marsh Street/St Augustine's Parade, Bristol was built in 1967 by Alec French and partners.

Frederick Bernard Lacey

In 2006 he was appointed to be a federal monitor in an investigation of Bristol-Myers Squibb, centering on the distribution of the drug Plavix.

George Vassila

Vassila played a single first-class match for Middlesex in 1880 against Gloucestershire at the Clifton College Close Ground in Clifton, Bristol.

Hannah More

Born in 1745 at Fishponds in the parish of Stapleton, near Bristol, Hannah More was the fourth of five daughters of Jacob More, a schoolmaster originally from Harleston, Norfolk.

Hartcliffe

Part of the site is now the Imperial Park shopping centre while the listed headquarters building is being converted into the Lakeshore flats.

Howard Ryshpan

As of 2012, he was reported living in the city of Bristol, Quebec.

HP Memory spot chip

The research to design and build the chip was done in Hewlett-Packard's laboratory in Bristol.

James Paty the Elder

He is thought to have been the architect of Bristol's Old Library on King Street.

John Cruger

He had sent his older sons overseas to run parts of the business; Tileman to the West Indies, and Henry to Bristol in England, while he kept John at home to take charge in New York.

John le Sage

Born in Clifton, Bristol, Le Sage was the son of John Sage and his wife Elizabeth, née Godfrey; Le Sage would adopt the "Le" for his last name during middle age.

John Yeamans

Baptised on 28 February 1611 in Bristol, England, Sir John Yeamans was a younger son of John Yeamans, a brewer of Redcliffe, Bristol who died about 1645, and his wife Blanche Germain.

Joseph Feilden

Feilden was born at Clifton, Bristol, the second son of Joseph Feilden of Witton Park, Lancashire.

Luke Foxe

In the interval Briggs died; half the adventurers having dropped out, the voyage might have been abandoned, but for news that Bristol merchants had projected a similar voyage from their port (under Thomas James, leaving left Bristol 3 May 1631).

Lynne Cooke

In addition to her work at the Dia Center for the Arts, she has curated exhibitions at the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol; Whitechapel Art Gallery and Hayward Gallery, London; Third Eye Center, Glasgow; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Tamayo Museum,

National Health Service Reorganisation Act 1973

This was encapsulated by scandals about the care provided to the elderly and mentally ill at Ely Hospital in Cardiff, Farleigh Hospital in Bristol and Whittingham Hospital near Preston.

Old Market

Old Market, Bristol, a Conservation Area around Old Market Street in Bristol

Pero's Bridge

The bridge is named after Pero, also known as Pero Jones, who lived from around 1753 to 1798, arriving in Bristol probably from the Caribbean Island of Nevis in 1783, as the slave of the merchant John Pinney (1740–1818) at 5 Great George Street.

Portbury

She founded the 'Whiteladies' convent of St. Mary Magdalene - 'Maudlin' - hence giving Bristol two of its street names.

Portway Bristol

Portway, Bristol a road in the City of Bristol that follows the River Avon

Richard Lints

He has also taught at Trinity College in Bristol, England, and from 1999-2000 he was Visiting Professor at Yale University.

Sack Friary, Bristol

Sack Friary, Bristol was a friary in Bristol, England.

Sir John Stradling, 1st Baronet

John Stradling was born the son of Francis and Elizabeth Stradling of St George, Bristol, but adopted by his great-uncle, Sir Edward Stradling.

Skins Pure

While in its first six series Skins was a teen drama focusing on the life of Bristolian teenagers, Pure like previous episode Fire is a filmically and tonally distinct drama revisiting one of the show's characters as they adjust to adulthood.

South Bristol

It is also a name by which southerly parts of the English city of Bristol is known.

Spike Island

Spike Island, Bristol, an area of the English port city of Bristol, adjoining the city centre

Sport in Bristol

Bristol Handball Club are the sole club and are based at The City Academy Bristol, though they play their "home" games at the Princess Royal Sports Complex in Wellington, Somerset due to lack of facilities in Bristol.

The 10th IAAF World Half Marathon Championships were hosted by the city in 2001 on a course through the city centre and alongside the Floating Harbour and the Portway, Bristol.

Bristol has a number of notable professional sports teams and a large number of active amateur sports clubs.

St Paul's Church, Bristol

St Paul's Church gives its name to the surrounding St Paul's area of Bristol.

St. Augustine's Church, Whitchurch, Bristol

The church was built in 1972 to cater for the expansion of Whitchurch Parish in the suburb of south Bristol, England, UK.

Tobacco Factory Theatre

The Tobacco Factory Theatre is located on the first floor of the Tobacco Factory building on the corner of North Street and Raleigh Road, Southville in Bristol, England.

Trinity Theological College

Trinity College, Bristol, a theological college affiliated to the Church of England, located in Stoke Bishop, Bristol.

Trongate

The London based retailer Selfridges acquired the former Goldbergs site on the corner of Trongate and Candleriggs on which to build a new department store which promised to revamp the area significantly, although progress on this stalled indefinitely after the sale of Selfridges to Canada's Galen Weston in 2003, who intended to revamp Selfridge's flagship Oxford Street store rather than open in Glasgow and other cities such as Newcastle Upon Tyne, Leeds and Bristol.

Wild In Your Garden

Presenters Bill Oddie, Kate Humble (both in a suburban garden in Bristol, England) and Simon King (mostly on location nearby) presented live action from a number of hidden cameras in or near nest boxes, badger setts and the like.

William Denys

The couple's eldest son was Sir Richard Berkeley (died 1604), MP for Gloucestershire, whose effigy can be seen in The Gaunts Chapel, Bristol.

William Husband

At the invitation of T. E. Blackwell, C.E., he went to Clifton to assist in some works in the Bristol docks, when he planned a bridge for the Cumberland basin.

William Ramsay

He was appointed as Professor of Chemistry at the University College of Bristol in 1879 and married Margaret Buchanan in 1881.

WXCT

The 990 frequency signed on in 1969 as WNTY, a daytime-only station that targeted Southington and nearby Bristol.


2007 Football League Two play-off Final

Shrewsbury opened the scoring through Stewart Drummond, but two goals from Richard Walker and one from Sammy Igoe gave Bristol Rovers a 3–1 victory.

Adrian Mourby

A graduate of the University of Wales, Lampeter and Bristol University Film School, he was a producer at the BBC for twelve years, where, amongst other series, he produced a television adaptation of Sir Kingsley Amis' The Old Devils.

Air Ministry Experimental Station

AMES Type 86, 10 GHz mobile CW target illuminator radar for Bristol Bloodhound 2 - a.k.a. Blue Anchor, Firelight - Ferranti

Andy Gresh

While in college, Gresh interned for various sports radio stations including WFAN in New York City and ESPN Radio in Bristol.

Banksia paludosa

The species was grown at Kew, Cambridge Botanic Gardens, Woburn Abbey, Loddiges nursery in Hackney, John Miller's nursery in Bristol and George Hibbert's garden at Clapham Common.

Barry Rogerson

In the course of his episcopal ministry in Bristol, Rogerson ordained the first 32 female priests in the Church of England on 12 March 1994 at his cathedral.

Beddoe Rees

He was unable to support Asquith’s position of allowing Labour to take office, although he told his electors in Bristol that there was no Liberal principle involved it was merely a matter of being true to the position on which he had fought the last election.

Bill Mather

For two years he shared a studio in Bristol with Peter Lord and David Sproxton of Aardman Animations and later directed the "Archie the skeleton" commercials for Scotch Videotape and Tina Turner's "Limo-Land - Never in Your Wildest Dreams"; both multi-award winning films for Aardman.

Blaise Castle

John Harford, a wealthy Bristol merchant and banker had Blaise Castle House built in 1796–1798, designed by William Paty.

Brian Earnshaw

After retiring, he moved to Bristol, where he still lives, and worked with Timothy Mowl on a range of books on British architectural and garden history.

Bristol F.2 Fighter

A total of 5,329 aircraft were eventually built, mostly by Bristol but also by Standard Motors, Armstrong Whitworth and even the Cunard Steamship Company.

Bristol Old Vic Theatre School

Former students from around the world gathered in Bristol for his funeral at which the eulogy was delivered by former student Stephanie Cole.

Bristol Type 603

The third series of 603, introduced in 1982 and continuing until 1994, saw Bristol adopt for the first time the names of the famous Bristol Aeroplane Company models for its cars.

Bristol, Maine

In 1631, the area was granted as the Pemaquid Patent by the Plymouth Council to Robert Aldsworth and Gyles Elbridge, merchants from Bristol, England.

Bristol, Washington

Bristol is located on State Route 10 between Cle Elum and Thorp in Kittitas County, Washington, United States.

British Rail Class 52

The Western Region faced particularly stiff competition for its prime inter-city services in the mid to late 1970s from the M4 motorway and it was generally felt within BR that a significant speed and comfort increase on the prime Paddington-Bristol route were necessary.

Catherine B. Gulley

The first to be shown at the Academy in 1908 was titled, "Finishing touches" and the final in 1962 was painted when she was living at Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol.

Charles Heathcote

He was articled to the church architects Charles Hansom, of Clifton, Bristol.

Chester Business Park

One of the first major businesses to occupy a new building was Shell Chemicals U.K., and other businesses included Marks & Spencer Financial Services, MBNA International Bank, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Trinity International.

Crescent Porter Hale

1909 also saw publication of the first novel written about Bristol Bay, The Silver Horde by Rex Beach, and Cress Hale was assumed to be its inspiration.

Dudley Tredger

His other notable fencing achievements include: British Champion, 2013, final 8 at Luxembourg A Grade, 1st Bristol Open 2001, 1st Sussex Open 2001, 3rd Welsh Open 2002 and best young fencer on two occasions during his schooling at Hazelwick School.

Ernest Mangnall

The following year saw United drop below mid-table but the club won its first FA Cup with a 1–0 victory in the final against Bristol City, the winner scored by Sandy Turnbull.

Flounders' Folly

There are also no known records of his having ships or interests in Liverpool or Bristol, as he was a man hailing from the north-east of England, near Stockton-on-Tees.

Frederick Corfield

He subsequently held the positions of Minister for Aviation Supply and Aerospace Minister (1970-2) where he was responsible for the cancellation of the Black Arrow rocketry programme but provided financial assistance to Rolls-Royce (whose Filton, Bristol factory was within his constituency) when it ran into difficulties that hampered its defence commitments.

Geraldine Creedon

Geraldine Creedon is a former representative in the Massachusetts House of Representatives for the 11th Plymouth district, consisting of precincts 1, 2, 4 and 5, of the town of Easton, in the county of Bristol; and precincts A and C of ward 1, precinct A of ward 2, and all precincts of ward 7, of the city of Brockton, in the county of Plymouth.

Heartbeat Productions

Simon Edwards was looking to release records by local punk band Vice Squad, however Cherry Red were not enthusiastic, so with Dave Bateman and Shane Baldwin from the band he set up Riot City Records (they had chosen the name, as Bristol had recently been in the news due to the 1980 St. Pauls riot).

History of the University of Bristol

Several protests occurred in Bristol in 2010 in response to government spending cuts in education, including the increasing of tuition fees, and the scrapping of Education Maintenance Allowance in England.

John Bickersteth

Educated at Rugby School and Christ Church, Oxford, he was ordained in 1951 and began his career with a Curacy at St Matthew Moorfield's Bristol.

Lakeville, Massachusetts

On the state level, Lakeville is represented in the Massachusetts House of Representatives as a part of two districts, the Ninth and Twelfth Bristol Districts.

Llywelyn ap Dafydd

A force of cavalry and infantry were deployed to escort Llywelyn and Owain out of Gwynedd via Acton Burnell in Shropshire to Bristol before the end of July 1283.

Luke Eves

Eves signed for Newcastle from Bristol towards the end of the 2009/10 season, with the signing being announced the day after Bristol lost to Exeter in the Championship final.

Mangotsfield United F.C.

Darren Carr Mangotsfield United, Bristol Rovers, Newport County, Sheffield United, Crewe Alexandra, Chesterfield, Gillingham, Brighton & Hove Albion.

Norman Hargreaves-Mawdsley

Hargreaves-Mawdsley was born in Bristol in 1921, where he attended Clifton College prior to matriculating at Oriel College, Oxford in 1940, where he read Classics and Modern History.

Patricia Maynard

She returned to Bristol in 1982, playing Lady India in Anouilh’s Ring Round the Moon.

Quantock Lodge

In the 1960s was purchased by David Peaster, the headmaster of Cotham School in Bristol, and made into a school.

Rebecca Pantaney

She was chosen to be one of the torchbearers for the 2012 Summer Olympics torch relay, carrying the torch across the Clifton Suspension Bridge into Bristol.

Reservation Road

Parts of the movie were also filmed at Lake Compounce Amusement Park in Bristol, Connecticut, and the Olde Blue Bird Inn & Gas Station and adjacent Baseball Field in Easton, CT.

St. Mary's Church, Walthamstow

In the same year, money from Robert Thorne (a wealthy London merchant who, like Monoux, originated from Bristol and became Lord Mayor of the City of London) was used to completely rebuild the south aisle and to add a chapel on its eastern end.

Stroudwater Navigation

There was a dip in the carriage of merchandise in 1810, when the Kennet and Avon Canal opened and provided a more convenient route from Bristol to London, but it picked up again after 1819, when the North Wilts Canal opened, providing a link from Latton to Abingdon via Swindon and the Wilts and Berks Canal, which was easier than using the Thames.

The Exchange, Bristol

A regular Tuesday night club called The Bristol Chinese R'n'B and Jazz Club was also established which attracted American Blues singers including John Lee Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson and Little Walter.

Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Holy Family of London

In the Midlands, there was a Ukrainian Catholic priest celebrating Ukrainian-rite services for the Ukrainian faithful in Coventry, as well as in Rugby, Gloucester, Bristol, Birmingham and Cheltenham.

WCYB

WCYB-TV, NBC affiliate television station licensed to Bristol, Virginia, United States

William Denys

She died in 1593 and received the honour of burial at the Gaunt's Chapel, Bristol.