Trip to Bristol

10-13 January 2011

DAY 1

Temple Meads StationBristol Temple Meads railway station is the oldest and largest railway station in Bristol, England. It opened on 31 August 1840 as the western terminus of the Great Western Railway from London Paddington station.

St Mary Redcliffe Church
St Mary Redcliffe is an Anglican parish church located in the Redcliffe district of the English port city of Bristol, close to the city centre. Constructed from the 12th to the 15th centuries, the church is a Grade 1 listed building, St Mary Redcliffe is renowned for the beauty of its Gothic architecture, having been described by Queen Elizabeth I as "the fairest, goodliest, and most famous parish church in England.” The 292 ft (89 m) spire is the third tallest of England's parish churches,[citation needed] after the Roman Catholic Church of St. Walburge, Preston and the Anglican Church of St. James, Louth. It is the tallest building in Bristol.

Queen Square
Queen Square is a garden square in the centre of Bristol, England. It was originally a fashionable residential address, but now most of the buildings are in office use. The site on which the square was built lay outside Bristol's city walls and was known as the Town Marsh. The square was planned in 1699 and building finished in 1727. It was named in honour of Queen Anne. The north side and much of the west were destroyed in the Bristol Riots of 1831 and rebuilt. Many of the buildings now have listed building status.

Bristol Cathedral
The Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity is the Church of England cathedral in the city of Bristol, England, and is commonly known as Bristol Cathedral. Founded in 1140, it became the seat of the bishop and cathedral of the new Diocese of Bristol in 1542.




Millennium Square










Amphitheatre

















Bristol Bridge
Bristol Bridge is an old bridge over the floating harbour in Bristol, England. The original bridge was a medieval wooden structure that had both its sides lined with houses. A seventeenth century illustration shows that these were five stories high, including the attic rooms, and that they overhung the river much as Tudor houses would overhang the street. The bridge is now a grade II listed building.

Castle Park











The University of the West of England (UWE)
The University of the West of England (abbrev. UWE, often pronounced "you-we") is a university based in the English city of Bristol. Its main campus is at Frenchay, about five miles (8 km) north of the city centre. UWE also has a smaller campus at St Matthias, a School of Health and Social Care at Glenside in north-east Bristol and the School of Creative Arts, located at Bower Ashton, near Ashton Court in south-west Bristol.

DAY 2

Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery
The Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery is a large museum and art gallery in Bristol, England. It is run by the city council with no entrance fee. It holds designated museum status, granted by the national government to protect outstanding museums. It is situated in Clifton, about 0.5 miles (0.8 km) from the city centre. The museum includes sections on natural history, local, national and international archaeology, and local industry. The art gallery contains works from all periods, including many by internationally famous artists, as well a collection of modern paintings of Bristol. The building is of Edwardian Baroque architecture and has been designated by English Heritage as a grade II* listed building.

University of Bristol Wills Memorial Building
The Wills Memorial Building (also known as the Wills Memorial Tower or simply the Wills Tower) is a Neo Gothic building designed by Sir George Oatley and built as a memorial to Henry Overton Wills III. Begun in 1915, it is considered one of the last great Gothic buildings to be built in England. Situated near the top of Park Street on Queens Road in Bristol, United Kingdom, it is a landmark building of the University of Bristol which currently houses the School of Law and the Department of Earth Sciences, as well as the Law and Earth Sciences libraries. It is the third highest structure in Bristol, standing at 68 m (215 ft). It has been designated by English Heritage as a grade II* listed building and serves as a regional European Documentation Centre.

Brandon Hill & Cabot Tower Brandon Hill, also known as St Brandon's Hill, is a hill close to Bristol city centre, between the districts of Clifton and Hotwells, in south west England. At the summit is the Cabot Tower, opened in 1897 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the voyage by John Cabot from Bristol to Newfoundland in 1497. In 1832, the hill was the location of the Great Reform Dinner, which was famously gatecrashed.

Observatory & Camera Obscura
The Observatory (grid reference ST564733) is a former mill, now used as an observatory, located on Clifton Down, close to the Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol, England. At 337 feet (92 metres) above the gorge, the cliff top is likely to have been used as a lookout post since at least the Iron Age.

Clifton Suspension Bridge
The Clifton Suspension Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Avon Gorge, and linking Clifton in Bristol to Leigh Woods in North Somerset, England. Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, it is a landmark that is used as a symbol of Bristol. It is a grade I listed building. The idea of building a bridge across the Avon Gorge originated in 1753 originally for a stone bridge with later plans for a cast iron structure. An attempt to build Brunel's design in 1831 was stopped by the Bristol Riots, and the revised version of his designs was built after his death being completed in 1864. Although similar in size, the bridge towers are not identical in design, the Clifton tower having side cut-outs, the Leigh tower more pointed arches atop a 110 ft (33 m) red sandstone clad abutment. Roller mounted "saddles" at the top of each tower allow movement of the three independent wrought iron chains on each side when loads pass over the bridge. The bridge deck is suspended by eighty-one matching vertical wrought-iron rods.

Royal York CrescentRoyal York Crescent is a major residential street in Clifton, Bristol. It overlooks much of the docks, and much of the city can be seen from it. It also joins Clifton Village at one end. It is one of the most expensive streets in the city. A Grade II* listed terrace of 46 houses (most of which are divided into flats) is on the northeast side of the street for most of its length. Construction of the terrace, which was reputed to be the longest terrace in Europe, started in 1791 but it was not completed until 1820.

Corn Exchange and St Nicholas Market
The Exchange is a Grade I listed building built in 1741–43 by John Wood the Elder, on Corn Street, near the junction with Broad Street in Bristol, England. It was previously used as a corn and general trade exchange but is now used as offices and St Nicholas Market. The Exchange underwent major building work in 1872, including roofing over the courtyard, and again in the early 1900s when the City Valuer's Department moved to the building. Since World War II the external clock tower has been removed and the roof lowered. Outside the building are four brass tables dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, known as "nails", at which merchants carried out their business. At the front of the building is a clock showing both Greenwich Mean Time and "local time".

DAY 3

New Room - John Wesley’s Chapel
The New Room (grid reference ST592733) is a historic building in Broadmead, Bristol, England. It was built in 1739 by John Wesley and is the oldest Methodist chapel in the world. Above the chapel are the rooms in which Wesley and other preachers stayed. The chapel includes a double decker pulpit, which was common at the time, and an octagonal lantern window to reduce the amount paid in Window tax. In addition to meetings and worship the New Room was used a dispensary and schoolroom for the poor people of the area. The pews and benches were made from old ship timber.

Valentine Bridge


Souce: Wikipedia