St Augustine's Reach and Pero's Bridge, during the 2004 Harbour Festival. Bristol Harbour is the harbour in the city of Bristol, England. The 70 acre (280,000 m²) harbour was created by installing lock gates on a tidal stretch of the River Avon in the centre of the city, giving it the name Floating Harbour as it is not affected by the tides. At a distance never more than 1 km south of the harbour is the "new cut", which branches from the navigable River Avon at St Philips Marsh in east Bristol, reducing the flow of water through the harbour and preventing flooding of the city centre. The harbour then winds through Temple Meads, Bristol City Centre, Cannon's Marsh and Hotwells, where it rejoins the new cut and flows into the Avon Gorge.
With ships, and their cargo, increasing in size, Bristol Harbour has now been largely replaced by Avonmouth and Portbury docks, 5 km downstream at the mouth of the River Avon. The harbour is now a major tourist attraction, flanked by museums, exhibitions, bars and nightclubs. Old city centre workshops and warehouses have now largely been converted or replaced by cultural uses, such as the Arnolfini art gallery, Watershed media and arts centre Bristol Industrial Museum and @Bristol science exhibition center as well as a number of fashionable apartment buildings. A number of museum boats are permanently berthed in the harbour, including Isambard Kingdom Brunel's SS Great Britain, the first iron hulled ship, a replica of the Matthew, in which John Cabot discovered what is now known as Canada, and a steam tug, the Mayflower, used for sight-seeing trips.
In August each year the Bristol Harbour Festival is held, with an influx of interesting boats, for example, tall ships, Royal Navy vessels and lifeboats.
History
A tallship in the Cumberland lock, Hotwells, during the 2004 Harbour Festival. Bristol grew up on the banks of the Rivers Avon and Frome, and since the 16th century the rivers have been modified for use as docks, including the diversion of the River Frome into Saint Augustine's Reach.
The River Avon, like the River Severn, has heavy tides of about 30 ft (10 m) between high and low, being easily navigable at high-tide, but reduced to a muddy channel at low-tide. Boats would often run-aground in the Avon Gorge, creating massive problems, and often dammage to the boats. Many ships were deliberately stranded in the harbour for unloading, giving rise to the phrase "shipshape and Bristol fashion" to describe boats capable of taking the strain of repeatedly being stranded.
In the 18th Century Liverpool grew, developing docks in competition with Bristol for tobacco trade. The poor quality of Bristol's docks were putting businesses off the city, and in 1802 William Jessop proposed installing a damm and lock at Hotwells to create the harbour. The UK£530,000 scheme was approved by parliament and construction began in 1803. The scheme included the construction of the Cumberland Basin, an large wide stretch of the harbour in Hotwells. The tidal new cut was constructed from Temple Meads to Hotwells, with another dam installed at this end of the harbour, though a canal was later added between Temple Meads and the tidal limit at Saint Philip's Marsh, so that boats could continue upstream to Bath.
The harbour cost more than anticipated and high rates were levied to repay loans, countering any effect the new harbour had at drawing companies back from Liverpool. In 1848 the city council bought the docks company to force down the rates and employed Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who had already built the Bristol Harbour Railway (a branch of his Great Western Railway) to make improvements, including new lock gates, a dredger and a sluice gates designed to reduce siltation.
In 1867 ships were getting larger, and the meanders in the estuary prevented boats over 300 ft (91 m) reaching the harbour. A scheme to install a much larger lock at Avonmouth to float the entire estuary and to straighten the sharper bends was dropped after work began on the much cheaper docks at Avonmouth and Portishead. In 1908 the Royal Edward Dock, Avonmouth, was built and in 1972 the large deepwater Royal Portbury dock, across the river mouth from the Royal Edward Dock was constructed, making Bristol Harbour redundant as a freight dock. A sand company was the last to abandon the docks in 1981.
Since the 1980s millions of pounds have been spent regenerating the harbourside, including the construction of Pero's footbridge, linking the brand new @Bristol exhibition with other Bristol tourist attractions, and private investors constructing studio apartment buildings.
External links - About Bristol: History of the Harbour (http://www.about-bristol.co.uk/mar-04.asp)
- A history of the docks (http://members.lycos.co.uk/brisray/bristol/bdocks1.htm)
Photographs - More of the Floating Harbour from the photographer of the first two photos on this page (http://www.steinsky.me.uk/Floating_Harbour)
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