ब्रिस्टल इंग्लैंड, यूनाइटेड किंगडम

ब्रिस्टल, शहर और एकात्मक प्राधिकरण, दक्षिण-पश्चिमी इंग्लैंड। ब्रिस्टल का ऐतिहासिक केंद्र और एवन नदी (लोअर, या ब्रिस्टल, एवन) के उत्तर में स्थित शहर ग्लूस्टरशायर के ऐतिहासिक काउंटी का हिस्सा थे, जबकि एवन के दक्षिण का क्षेत्र सोमेनेट के ऐतिहासिक काउंटी के भीतर निर्माण तक था। ब्रिस्टल काउंटी (1373-1974) और फिर एवन काउंटी (1974-96)। जब एवन काउंटी को समाप्त कर दिया गया, तो ब्रिस्टल एक एकात्मक प्राधिकरण बन गया।

प्रश्नोत्तरी

यूरोप का दौरा

स्वीडन की राजधानी है:

ब्रिस्टल, लंदन के पश्चिम में लगभग 120 मील (190 किमी) की दूरी पर स्थित है। शहर के पश्चिम में, एवन नदी सेवर्न के मुहाना में बहती है, जो खुद अटलांटिक महासागर के ब्रिस्टल चैनल में उत्तर पश्चिम में लगभग 8 मील की दूरी पर खाली हो जाती है। ब्रिस्टल एक ऐतिहासिक बंदरगाह और वाणिज्यिक केंद्र है। क्षेत्रफल 42 वर्ग मील (110 वर्ग किमी)। पॉप। (2001) 380,615; (2011) 428,234।

इतिहास

The medieval town of Bristol was incorporated in 1155. The harbour was improved in 1247 by diverting the Frome to the west and building a stone bridge at the point of its former confluence with the Avon. During the reign of Edward III (1327–77) Bristol imported raw wool from Ireland and manufactured woolen cloth, which it sold to Spain and Portugal in return for sherry and port wine. By the 16th century Bristol had become a major port, a manufacturing town, and a distribution centre for both overseas and inland trade. The city also played a notable part in maritime history: from its port John Cabot sailed in 1497 on his voyage to North America. In 1552 the Society of Merchant Venturers was incorporated in the city; its hall, along with a number of other historic buildings, was destroyed by German bombing during World War II. Bristol was a Royalist stronghold during the English Civil Wars until it was captured by the Parliamentarians in 1645.

During the later 17th and the 18th centuries Bristol prospered as a processing centre for sugar and tobacco imported from Britain’s colonies in the Americas, to whom it supplied textiles, pottery, glass, and other manufactured goods. The import of Jamaican sugar and cacao from West Africa led to the creation of the “sugar houses” of Bristol and to chocolate manufacture. By the 19th century, however, the rise of the Lancashire cotton industry, together with the limitation on shipping imposed by the Avon Gorge below Clifton, led to the loss of much of Bristol’s trade to Liverpool.

In 1809 tidal waters of the Avon and the Frome were diverted to create a floating, or tideless, harbour with a constant water depth. The engineer John Loudon McAdam improved Bristol’s roads (c. 1815) with his technique of laying raised-stone surfaces (macadamizing), and the Bristol roads became a model for road improvements throughout Great Britain. Bristol served as the launching point in 1838 for Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Great Western, the second steamship to cross the Atlantic. The coming of the railway in 1841, followed by dock extensions at Avonmouth and Portishead, led to a revival of Bristol’s trade, and a suspension bridge across the Avon Gorge, designed by Brunel and completed in 1864, further encouraged traffic.

The contemporary city

The destruction of a large part of the city centre during World War II provided an opportunity for replanning. Postwar reconstruction included the Council House (1956), other modern public structures, and a new shopping centre in Broadmead. The Royal Portbury Dock has been added to the port complex, whose imports now include refined petroleum products, animal foodstuffs, and forest products. Bristol’s exports consist mainly of manufactured goods from the West Midlands, notably automobiles, tractors, and machinery. Local industries include the refining of sugar, cocoa and chocolate making, wine bottling, and the making of fine glass (Bristol “blue”), porcelain, and pottery. The locality’s most notable industry today is aircraft design and construction at Filton. The construction of the Severn Bridge on the city’s northern outskirts and the completion of the M4 motorway to southern Wales greatly enhanced Bristol’s position as the principal distribution centre of southwestern England.

Bristol is also an education centre, its schools including Bristol Grammar School, the Cathedral School, and Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital, all founded in the 1500s; Colston’s School (1708); and Clifton College, founded in the residential suburb of Clifton in 1862. The University of Bristol, founded as University College in 1876, was established in 1909.

The most striking ecclesiastical building in Bristol to survive the war is the church of St. Mary Redcliffe, a 14th-century structure whose grandeur of proportion and majestic Perpendicular Gothic design have made it one of the most celebrated parish churches in England. Bristol’s cathedral church, which originated as the abbey church of St. Augustine of Canterbury (founded 1142), is famous for its Norman chapter house and gateway. Other notable buildings to escape destruction are St. Mark’s, or the Lord Mayor’s Chapel; a Dominican priory associated with William Penn and the early history of the Society of Friends (Quakers); the New Room in Broadmead, the first Methodist chapel in the world and headquarters of that faith’s founder, John Wesley, after 1739; Broadmead Baptist Chapel, also associated with the early Nonconformist movement in Bristol; and the Theatre Royal, built in 1766.