X-Nico

54 unusual facts about Bristol


1628 in poetry

Robert Hayman, Qvodlibets ("What you will"), the first book of English poetry written in what would become Canada, written by the Proprietary Governor of Bristol's Hope colony in Newfoundland

Agnes Miegel

Between 1902 and 1904 she worked as an assistant teacher in a girls' boarding school in Bristol, England.

Alexander Catcott

These were housed in the Old Library on King Street and were one of the first public displays of fossils in the country.

Alo Creevey

Alo lives on a farm in the outskirts of Bristol with his domineering mother, Catherine, hen-pecked father, Owen, and their incoherent farmhand, Dewi, who disapprove of his lifestyle.

Andy Gresh

While in college, Gresh interned for various sports radio stations including WFAN in New York City and ESPN Radio in Bristol.

Avon House, Bristol

The former Avon House is an 18-storey building, one of the tallest structures in central Bristol, England.

Bristol Arena

Once elected mayor, architect George Ferguson launched a competition to find the best design for a 12,000 seat arena that would be "the most environmentally-friendly venue of its kind" and pledged that the project would be up and running within four years.

Bristol city centre

Old City is the peninsular area to the north east of St Augustine's Reach, It contains St Nicolas Market, Queen Square, King Street and many bars and restaurants, it is a key part of Bristol's night life.

Bristol Storm

The City Academy Bristol Storm are a British basketball team based in Bristol.

Bristol-Burney seaplanes

The aircraft, neither of which was successfully flown, featured a novel hydroplane undercarriage.

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The Bristol-Burney seaplanes were a pair of experimental seaplanes produced by a collaboration between Lt. Dennistoun Burney and the Bristol and Colonial Aeroplane Company during 1912-14.

Bristol, Pennsylvania

John F. Cordisco, former State Representative and Bucks County Democratic Committee Chairman.

Bristol, Wisconsin

Bristol Renaissance Faire, a permanent Renaissance theme-park village in Kenosha County

Bristol's Hope, Newfoundland and Labrador

Robert Hayman was the colony's only Proprietary Governor as this colony only existed until about 1631 before being abandoned.

Charles Heathcote

He was articled to the church architects Charles Hansom, of Clifton, Bristol.

Charles Page Eden

Born in or near Bristol, he was third son of Thomas Eden, curate of St. George's, Bristol, who died when Charles was an infant, leaving a widow and young family in poverty.

Charles Underwood

Charles Underwood (1791 – 5 March 1883, Clifton, Bristol) was a builder in Cheltenham who moved to Bristol, where he became a neo-classical architect.

Christopher Gattelli

He grew up in Bristol, Pennsylvania, started dancing at the age of 11 and is a "Star Search" Grand champion.

Christopher Parsons

From 1995 to 2000 he was a Director of Wildscreen, overseeing the building of Wildwalk-at-Bristol, a new visitor attraction in the city.

Connecticut Route 229

Just south of the Bristol town line, Route 229 shifts to Middle Street and the road becomes four lanes wide.

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The original plan was to reconstruct Route 229 from I-84 to the Bristol town line and widen it to four lanes.

Cyril Rootham

Rootham was born in Redland, Bristol to Daniel Wilberforce Rootham and Mary Rootham (née Gimblett Evans).

Fabian Ware

Born at Clifton, Bristol, he attended the Universities of London and Paris, obtaining a Bachelier-es-Sciences at the latter in 1894.

Former Bristol and West Building

The former Bristol and West Building on Marsh Street/St Augustine's Parade, Bristol was built in 1967 by Alec French and partners.

Frederick Bernard Lacey

In 2006 he was appointed to be a federal monitor in an investigation of Bristol-Myers Squibb, centering on the distribution of the drug Plavix.

Glaxo Babies

The initial band line-up was completed by Rob Chapman (singer) joining in November 1977, and their first gig was held just 3 weeks later in The Dockland Settlement, St Pauls, Bristol.

Holly Springs, North Carolina

Bristol-Myers Squibb expressed interest in county-owned land along N.C. 55 Bypass at the future interchange of Interstate 540.

HP Memory spot chip

The research to design and build the chip was done in Hewlett-Packard's laboratory in Bristol.

James Paty the Elder

He is thought to have been the architect of Bristol's Old Library on King Street.

Joanna Fox Waddill

Joanna Fox was born in Bristol, Pennsylvania, to James C. Fox and his wife Catherine Bessonett.

John Yeamans

Baptised on 28 February 1611 in Bristol, England, Sir John Yeamans was a younger son of John Yeamans, a brewer of Redcliffe, Bristol who died about 1645, and his wife Blanche Germain.

Luke Foxe

In the interval Briggs died; half the adventurers having dropped out, the voyage might have been abandoned, but for news that Bristol merchants had projected a similar voyage from their port (under Thomas James, leaving left Bristol 3 May 1631).

Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales

In England the fathers have three missions in the Diocese of Clifton.

New Room

New Room, Bristol, the first Methodist chapel, built by John Wesley

Old Market

Old Market, Bristol, a Conservation Area around Old Market Street in Bristol

One Redcliffe Street, Bristol

1 Redcliffe Street, Bristol, England, formerly known as the Robinson Building, was built in 1964 as the headquarters of paper and packaging manufacturer E. S. & A. Robinson.

Pero's Bridge

The bridge is named after Pero, also known as Pero Jones, who lived from around 1753 to 1798, arriving in Bristol probably from the Caribbean Island of Nevis in 1783, as the slave of the merchant John Pinney (1740–1818) at 5 Great George Street.

Photo Hunt

Megatouch games are developed by Merit Entertainment in Bristol, Pennsylvania.

Redland RDF Application Framework

Redland is a set of free software libraries written in C that provide support for the Resource Description Framework (RDF), created by Dave Beckett (a former resident of Redland, Bristol).

Richard Lints

He has also taught at Trinity College in Bristol, England, and from 1999-2000 he was Visiting Professor at Yale University.

Ronald Bassett

After devoting himself solely to writing for three years, in 1969 he returned to the pharmaceutical corporate world going to work as a public relations officer for E. R. Squibb & Sons, a post he held until 1975 when he and his wife retired to Surrey.

Selwyn Hughes

He worked for some time as a miner in the Welsh coal mining industry, but left his job to study Theology in Bristol when he became convinced that he was being called by God to work as a Christian minister.

Sport in Bristol

St. Paul's Community Sports Academy is a Sports Centre in St Pauls.

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South Bristol Sports Centre, a sports centre in Knowle in the south of the city.

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The 10th IAAF World Half Marathon Championships were hosted by the city in 2001 on a course through the city centre and alongside the Floating Harbour and the Portway, Bristol.

St. Augustine's Church, Whitchurch, Bristol

The church was built in 1972 to cater for the expansion of Whitchurch Parish in the suburb of south Bristol, England, UK.

Stag and Hounds Public House

The Stag and Hounds Public House is on Old Market Street, Old Market, Bristol.

Stephanie McKay

McKay went on to play the WOMAD, Bristol and the Jazz Cafe in England and her music received international acclaim and rotation on MTV.

Trinity Theological College

Trinity College, Bristol, a theological college affiliated to the Church of England, located in Stoke Bishop, Bristol.

Trongate

The London based retailer Selfridges acquired the former Goldbergs site on the corner of Trongate and Candleriggs on which to build a new department store which promised to revamp the area significantly, although progress on this stalled indefinitely after the sale of Selfridges to Canada's Galen Weston in 2003, who intended to revamp Selfridge's flagship Oxford Street store rather than open in Glasgow and other cities such as Newcastle Upon Tyne, Leeds and Bristol.

William Denys

She died in 1593 and received the honour of burial at the Gaunt's Chapel, Bristol.

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The couple's eldest son was Sir Richard Berkeley (died 1604), MP for Gloucestershire, whose effigy can be seen in The Gaunts Chapel, Bristol.

William II Canynges

Both followed in the footsteps of Walter Frampton(d.1357), thrice Mayor of Bristol, who funded the building of the Church of St John the Baptist, Bristol.

William Ramsay

He was appointed as Professor of Chemistry at the University College of Bristol in 1879 and married Margaret Buchanan in 1881.


Adrian Beaumont

He continues to live in Bristol and is married to the soprano Janet Price, for whom many of his works were written and dedicated.

Aggi Crew

The Aggi Crew were a criminal drug gang based in the St Pauls district of Bristol.

Air Ministry Experimental Station

AMES Type 86, 10 GHz mobile CW target illuminator radar for Bristol Bloodhound 2 - a.k.a. Blue Anchor, Firelight - Ferranti

Barry Rogerson

In the course of his episcopal ministry in Bristol, Rogerson ordained the first 32 female priests in the Church of England on 12 March 1994 at his cathedral.

Bill Mather

For two years he shared a studio in Bristol with Peter Lord and David Sproxton of Aardman Animations and later directed the "Archie the skeleton" commercials for Scotch Videotape and Tina Turner's "Limo-Land - Never in Your Wildest Dreams"; both multi-award winning films for Aardman.

Black Castle Public House

Black Castle Public House is a historic building in Junction Rd, Brislington, Bristol, England.

Bristol Old Vic Theatre School

Former students from around the world gathered in Bristol for his funeral at which the eulogy was delivered by former student Stephanie Cole.

Bristol Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania

The springs at Bath, in Bristol Township, were popular among wealthy Philadelphians for a while, but lost popularity to the ones in Saratoga, New York.

Bristol Type 603

The third series of 603, introduced in 1982 and continuing until 1994, saw Bristol adopt for the first time the names of the famous Bristol Aeroplane Company models for its cars.

Bristol, Maine

In 1631, the area was granted as the Pemaquid Patent by the Plymouth Council to Robert Aldsworth and Gyles Elbridge, merchants from Bristol, England.

Church of St John the Baptist, Bristol

The Church of St John the Baptist, Bristol is a former Church of England parish church at the lower end of Broad Street Bristol, England.

Crescent Porter Hale

1909 also saw publication of the first novel written about Bristol Bay, The Silver Horde by Rex Beach, and Cress Hale was assumed to be its inspiration.

David Stancliffe

Three years later he returned to the West Country as Chaplain to Clifton College, Bristol.

Dudley Tredger

His other notable fencing achievements include: British Champion, 2013, final 8 at Luxembourg A Grade, 1st Bristol Open 2001, 1st Sussex Open 2001, 3rd Welsh Open 2002 and best young fencer on two occasions during his schooling at Hazelwick School.

Ernest Mangnall

The following year saw United drop below mid-table but the club won its first FA Cup with a 1–0 victory in the final against Bristol City, the winner scored by Sandy Turnbull.

Fir Hill Manor

In 1994, it was the subject of a BBC Bristol documentary, which tells the story of former Newquay policeman Derek Fowkes as he searches for absentee landlord, John Paget Figg-Hoblyn.

Flights

Joe Newcombe, Adam Cann and Joel Pearce come from Thornbury, a market town in South Gloucestershire approximately 12 miles (19 km) north of Bristol.

Florence Barrett

Lady Barrett was born in Henbury in Gloucestershire now part of Bristol, and she was the fourth child of merchant Benjamin Perry.

Frederick Wills

Sir Frederick Wills, 1st Baronet (1838–1909), director of W.D. & H.O. Wills, which later merged into the Imperial Tobacco Company, Liberal Unionist MP for Bristol North 1900–1906

General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136

The GE/RR Fighter Engine Team was a co-operation between GE Aviation in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States (60% share) and Rolls-Royce in Bristol, United Kingdom and Indianapolis, Indiana, USA (40% share).

Geography of Somerset

Much of the "bowls`" low lying land has been sculptured by wave action, a result of the unusually large tidal flow of the north coastal water (the Bristol Channel), and its neighbouring county of Gloucestershire's tidal river, the Severn.

Geraldine Creedon

Geraldine Creedon is a former representative in the Massachusetts House of Representatives for the 11th Plymouth district, consisting of precincts 1, 2, 4 and 5, of the town of Easton, in the county of Bristol; and precincts A and C of ward 1, precinct A of ward 2, and all precincts of ward 7, of the city of Brockton, in the county of Plymouth.

Hannah More

Born in 1745 at Fishponds in the parish of Stapleton, near Bristol, Hannah More was the fourth of five daughters of Jacob More, a schoolmaster originally from Harleston, Norfolk.

Harry Nicholas

Born in Bristol, Nicholas worked for the Port of Bristol Authority until 1936, when he took a full-time post in the Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU).

Hôtel Le Bristol Paris

On April 4, 1975, Josephine Baker celebrated 50 years in show business with a lavish party thrown at Le Bristol; guests included Sophia Loren, Mick Jagger and even Princess Grace of Monaco.

Isaac Wilkinson

Isaac became a foundryman in Bristol with involvement in the south Wales Dowlais Ironworks and Cyfarthfa Ironworks, and starting the Plymouth Ironworks with John Guest.

Ivan Aničin

Ivan Aničin, (born 25 March 1944 in Bor, Serbia, Yugoslavia) is Yugoslav and Serbian nuclear physicist, particle physicist, astrophysicist, and cosmologist, university Full Professor and Distinguished (teaching/research) Professor of scientific institutes in Belgrade (Serbia), Bristol (United Kingdom), Grenoble (France), and Munich (Germany).

Jimmy Benefield

James Patrick Benefield (born 6 May 1983 in Bristol) is an English footballer who plays for Montegnée in Belgium.

Kevin Figes

Quartet gigs in Abergavenny, Cardiff, London (606), Sherbourne, Stratford-upon-Avon, Swindon, Bristol (Be-Bop and The Old Duke) and Glastonbury Festival including a live radio 3 broadcast.

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Other highlights were playing with John Critchinson, the big bands of Dave Stapleton and Andy Hague and performing a great new piece by Keith Tippett in the Colston Hall, Bristol.

Lee Abbey

Small communities based in households in Aston in Birmingham and Knowle West in Bristol aim to share their faith through getting alongside people in deprived areas of British cities.

Llywelyn ap Dafydd

A force of cavalry and infantry were deployed to escort Llywelyn and Owain out of Gwynedd via Acton Burnell in Shropshire to Bristol before the end of July 1283.

Luke Eves

Eves signed for Newcastle from Bristol towards the end of the 2009/10 season, with the signing being announced the day after Bristol lost to Exeter in the Championship final.

Patricia Maynard

She returned to Bristol in 1982, playing Lady India in Anouilh’s Ring Round the Moon.

Quantock Lodge

In the 1960s was purchased by David Peaster, the headmaster of Cotham School in Bristol, and made into a school.

Rachel Burden

After graduating from Trinity College, Dublin, Burden began her radio career as a reporter at BBC Radio Suffolk later she joined Radio Bristol, where she co-hosted the early morning breakfast show, working alongside Nigel Dando, the brother of the murdered presenter Jill Dando.

Rebecca Pantaney

She was chosen to be one of the torchbearers for the 2012 Summer Olympics torch relay, carrying the torch across the Clifton Suspension Bridge into Bristol.

Sack Friary, Bristol

Sack Friary, Bristol was a friary in Bristol, England.

Sport in Bristol

Bristol Handball Club are the sole club and are based at The City Academy Bristol, though they play their "home" games at the Princess Royal Sports Complex in Wellington, Somerset due to lack of facilities in Bristol.

St. Mary's Church, Walthamstow

In the same year, money from Robert Thorne (a wealthy London merchant who, like Monoux, originated from Bristol and became Lord Mayor of the City of London) was used to completely rebuild the south aisle and to add a chapel on its eastern end.

Stella Matutina

During the next few years, Felkin established Hermes Lodge in Bristol, the Secret College in London, and Merlin Lodge, also in London.

The Marriage of William Ashe

A 1921 American silent film adaptation was directed by Edward Sloman and featured Wyndham Standing as Ashe and May Allison as Bristol.

Walter Bartley Wilson

He was born in St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, the son of Thomas Wilson, a brushmaker, and Sarah Hathaway, a teacher.

WCYB

WCYB (AM), call sign used from 1946 to 1969 by WZAP AM radio station licensed to Bristol, Virginia, United States

William C. Wampler

Wampler was again an unsuccessful candidate for election in 1956 to the 85th Congress, and served as vice president and general manager of Wampler Brothers Furniture Company in Bristol, Virginia from 1957 to 1960 and the vice president and general manager of Wampler Carpet Company from 1961 to 1966.

William Husband

At the invitation of T. E. Blackwell, C.E., he went to Clifton to assist in some works in the Bristol docks, when he planned a bridge for the Cumberland basin.

WXCT

The 990 frequency signed on in 1969 as WNTY, a daytime-only station that targeted Southington and nearby Bristol.