The changing face of Bristol's Centre

historybuff, on July 30, 2007, said:

Over 3000 free to view historic Bristol photographs visit my website www.bristolhistory.com

historybuff, on August 2, 2007, said:

Today Bristol's Centre hides one of the most impressive medieval engineering works in the world. A drawbridge was built across the Trench in 1712 and lit with a lantern. It probably wasn't built too well - by 1722 laden carts were forbidden from using it.

In 1788, it was proposed to replace the drawbridge with a fixed stone bridge. The idea was rejected and it was nearly a century before it was raised again.

The Trench wasn't just picturesque - it was smelly as Queen Charlotte discovered in 1817. She was due to be driven across the drawbridge when a ship's rigging became entangled in the lifting mechanism. The stench from the water -then the main city sewage outlet - was so bad the Queen was forced to 'snuff her nose'.

The drawbridge was replaced by a swivelling design in 1817 and a new drawbridge, which could be opened by two men in less than a minute, in 1868. But by 1891, the pres sure of traffic was too great and it was decided to cover in the Trench from the end of the modern Centre to opposite Baldwin Street, and St Mary-on-the-Quay became off the quay..

The harbour was still open from Baldwin Street and it remained that way until 1938. It was then that the river from Baldwin Street to where Neptune's statue is today vanished beneath tons of concrete, 1,600 tons of reinforcing steel and 30,00 tons of rubble, leaving just the short length of the ancient Trench seen today - A lot of people hoped this stretch at least could be opened up again, but the council insisted that more people preferred the option of water gardens.

So that remarkable 700 year old engineering triumph remained buried and unseen and its possible that ships will never again be seen in the centre of the city It seems a very curious way to treat such an important part of Bristol's history...

Dmitriy Tkachenko, on March 22, 2008, said:

Excellent! Beginning of 1960's?