Bristol

It covers an area of ​​112 km², is washed in the north-west by the Bristol Bay , in the north it borders on the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire , in the south - on the ceremonial county of Somerset . Old Town is located on the right bank of the Avon River , and the suburbs of Redcliffe and Clifton are located on the steep heights of the left bank ^[7] .

At the site of Bristol during the Roman Empire, there was a military camp Abona ( Latin Abona ), from which the paved road led to Batu . After the settlement of Britain by the Angles, the place was renamed Brycgstow ( Rus. “The Place at the Bridge” ). In the XI century, the crossing of Avon was strengthened by the Norman feudal lords, who erected here one of the most magnificent castles in western England.

In the XII century, Bristol began to turn into a large port city, through which most of England’s trade with Ireland passed. In 1247, the Bristol harbor was equipped by assigning the riverbed of Throm several to the west. A stone bridge was transferred across the Avon (now the existing one was completed in 1768 ). In 1373, Bristol became an independent administrative unit - a county.

Under Edward III, Bristol was the third largest and most prosperous city in England after London and York . Bristol sailors exported English wool to Spain and Portugal , returning back with a load of sherry and port wine . From here, the father and son of Cabota set sail to the shores of America.

Under Charles I , during the civil war of the parliament with the king, in August-September, Bristol was besieged by parliamentary forces under the command of Lord Fairfax , who captured the city with the help of the fleet after prolonged resistance ^[8] .

The new flourishing of the port of Bristol is connected with the rise of the African slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries . Local businessmen exported "live goods" from Africa to the North American and Caribbean colonies . Bristol became famous in those days and as the capital of the chocolate industry, it was precisely here that the greatest amount of cocoa , molasses and sugar was supplied from Jamaica and from Africa. It is not surprising that during the English Revolution , the locals until the last supported King Karl Stewart .

Bristol continued to grow rich and develop throughout the XVIII century, retaining the importance of the leading port of the British Empire . The situation began to change in the XIX century . Although the ambitious work to deepen and modernize the harbor was completed in 1809 , by this time the city had already ceded its advanced trading positions to Liverpool and Glasgow . The reason for this was not only the rapid development of the cotton industry in the north of the country, but also the loss of Thirteen colonies in North America , as well as the prohibition of the slave trade in 1807 .

The development of the Bristol railway in 1841 and the famous suspension bridge over the deep gorge of Avon in 1864 (architect - Isambard Kingdom Brunel ) spurred a few. It was from Bristol that the Great Western ship designed by Brunel set off for the second transatlantic steamboat in history. In 1815, Scottish engineer John McAdam built the first modern highway here . In the 20th century, Bristol became famous as the center of aircraft manufacturing , in particular, as the birthplace of the famous supersonic Concorde aircraft .

In 1974, the county city of Bristol was transformed into the region of the former non-metropolitan county of Avon , and in 1996 it was transformed into a separate county .

380,615 people live in the city, with an average population density of 3,477 persons / km² (for 2001 ) ^[9] . In 1969, 427.2 thousand people lived in the city. ^[ten]

Bristol is governed by a city council consisting of 70 deputies who are elected in 35 districts. As a result of the last election, the Liberal Democrats occupy 33 seats in the council ^[11] .

The headquarters of the international tobacco company Imperial Tobacco , the fourth largest in the world, is located in Bristol. The company's shares are listed on the London Stock Exchange , part of the FTSE 100 index .

Shares of large companies: Hargreaves Lansdown , which deals with financial services , MITIE Group , which deals with asset management and outsourcing activities, Unite Group , which hosts students, are included in the calculation base of the FTSE 250 index .

To minimize the effects of the economic crisis in Europe and protect the local industry in the city, a regional currency has been introduced - the Bristol pound ^[12] .

In 2001, he passed the semi-marathon world championship .

Football

Professional football clubs Bristol City and Bristol Rovers are based in Bristol .

" Bristol City " in the season 2018/2019 will perform in the Championship , taking on opponents at the Ashton Gate stadium (27 thousand spectators).

“ Bristol Rovers ” in the season 2018/2019 will play in Ligue 1 , taking on opponents at Memorial Stadium (12 thousand spectators).

Snooker

Bristol is the headquarters of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association - the general management organization of professional snooker and English billiards . The current leader is Jason Ferguson (since 2010 ).

Bristol is an important cultural center in the UK. Here are located the famous theaters, museums, including the Bristol Industrial Museum and a number of art galleries.

Since the 1990s, the city has been known as the birthplace of trip-hop electronic music, the most important representatives of which are Tricky , Portishead , Massive Attack , Kosheen - originally from Bristol ^[13] . The music of these founders of the genre is called: Bristol sound .

In 2010 , according to a study by PRS For Music, Bristol was declared the most "musical" English city ^[14] .

Bristol is the birthplace of another prominent figure in the world of contemporary art - Banksy - a famous underground artist who paints in the style of graffiti ^[15] .

The heroes of the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson " Treasure Island " set sail from Bristol.

In 1979, the first three-day Bristol International Balloon Festival was organized. The founders of the event were several friends who were very passionate about this idea, but at the head was an experienced aeronaut and designer of balloons, Don Cameron.

For more than 30 years, the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta is held annually in August, which is the largest festival in all of Europe . The number of viewers who want to enjoy the beautiful and exciting action, such as the launch of traditional balloons , the launch of unusual shape balloons, the Nightglow night show, has more than half a million. ^[sixteen]

The main attraction of Bristol is Bristol Cathedral , in the past Abbey Church of St.. Augustine, built from XII to XVI century in the Gothic style , and during the Reformation turned into the cathedral , which is the center of the Anglican diocese of Bristol .

The highest building in the city for centuries remained the parish church of St. Mary Redcliffe, built mainly in the XV century and recognized by Queen Elizabeth I as the best parish church in her kingdom; for her altar, William Hogarth wrote the famous triptych . Gothic church of sv. Mark (XIII century) istari is at the disposal of the city administration. In place of the Dominican Priory, in which William Penn was married, now stands the historic Quaker meeting house . There, in Broadmead, you can see the first Methodist church in history, built by the care of John Wesley in 1739.

From the civil architecture of Bristol, most of them died during the German air raids: one night only on November 2, 1940, 15,000 bombs were dropped on the city. The ancient Templar church was left in ruins as a reminder of those destruction. Among the surviving buildings are the royal theater (1766) and the Cabot Tower, built in 1897 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the American expedition of the famous sailor. The University of Bristol was established in 1909 on the basis of a university college (1876). The Kohlston School has been operating since 1708, and the Bristol Primary School, the Cathedral School and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Hospital have been counting their history from the Tudor era.

• Richard Chancellor is an English navigator who laid the foundation for trade relations with Russia in the 16th century.
• John Simmons - British artist, representative of the Victorian fairy-tale painting .

• Pneumatic Institute

• Bristol and its adjoining countries, Bristol, 1955.
• Bristol, city // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : 86 tons (82 tons and 4 extras). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Pavlovskaya "England and the British", 1999.

• bristol.gov.uk (eng.) - the official site of the municipality of Bristol