Bristol's Harbourside

BRISTOL'S HARBOURSIDE

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Archaeological excavations by Cotswold Archaeology for Crest Nicholson Residential (SW) Ltd are currently underway on Bristol’s Harbourside, to the south-west of the centre of Bristol in the area known as Canon’s Marsh. The overall development area lies immediately to the south-west of the Cathedral, south of Anchor Road.

The site lies close to the 12th-century Abbey of St Augustine’s, which is now Bristol Cathedral, with part of the former Outer Court of the Abbey, later known as Lower College Green below the north-east corner of the development. The Abbey’s Outer Court was used as a domestic and agricultural area, housing buildings such as the brew house, bake house, laundry, stables and tannery.

By the 1600s at least two substantial buildings, the Prebendal House and what later became the Black Horse public house, had been constructed on the southern side of Lower College Green, both depicted on John Rocque’s 1742 map of the city.

Whilst the construction of Anchor Road in the early 1900s obliterated much of the southern half of Lower College Green, it is possible that below ground remains of medieval and later buildings, on the south side of the Green, survive.

Previous archaeological investigations on the site have revealed evidence of former watercourses and drains as well as the remains of an 18th-century rope manufactory and its associated rope walk. Here, raw fibres were spun into yarns, fixed at both ends to a long twisting machine which ran the length of rope walk and twisted into thick rope for use in shipbuilding. The 1900s brought further industrialisation, with railway goods yards, saw mills, timber yards and a box manufactory covering the site.

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