Although the old town center suffered heavily from bomb damage during the Second World War, Bristol (only 6mi/10km from the Bristol Channel) retains its charm as a historic port. It also has some fine residential suburbs, balanced, it should be said, by some poorer ones. Bristol is noted for music and
film industries, the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, and the Watershed Media Centre. Having for many years been the home of two of Britain's biggest aeronautical companies, Rolls Royce and British Aerospace, both with large engineering plants in the north of the city (and involved in Concorde and the Airbus project), Bristol has turned increasingly for its prosperity to the insurance and service sector (Sun Alliance, Sun Life, Lloyds) and the electronics industry (marked by the arrival in the 1980s of firms such as Hewlett Packard and IBM). Food manufacture, tobacco processing, printing and chemicals are also important to the economy. When, because of deeper draught, ships could no longer navigate the narrow River Avon up to Bristol, a new port with modern docks, oil refineries and industrial estates sprang up in the Avonmouth/Royal Portbury area.
The many emigrants for whom the port of Bristol was the gateway to the New World were following in the wake of John Cabot who, in 1497, set sail from Bristol on the expedition which discovered North America. The Cabot Tower was erected on the 400th anniversary of the voyage to honor his achievement. Bristol's three most famous landmarks, however, are the Cathedral, St Mary Redcliffe, and the Clifton Suspension Bridge which spans the tidal Avon.
Access to the airport (8mi/13km southwest) is by bus or car via the A38. There are good train connections from Bristol to all parts of the country.
A settlement is known to have existed here as early as the 10th century. From the 12th century onwards Bristol was a trading center of considerable importance, being granted county borough status by Edward III in 1373 (a status it retained until incorporated into the new county of Avon in 1974). During the English Civil War the city was the main Royalist base in the West Country. Bristol's later prosperity as a port was based on a triangular pattern of trade: its ships would sail to West Africa laden with English metalware, glass and beads, carry slaves from there to the West Indies (70,000 a year by the end of the 18th century) and then load up with sugar, rum, coffee, cocoa and tobacco for the return voyage. Following the abolition of slavery, first shipbuilding and then aircraft assembly became the pillars of the economy. Designed by Sambaed Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859), the SS Great Britain, built in Bristol in 1838, was the first steamship to make regular crossings of the Atlantic. Brunel, in addition to designing the famous suspension bridge spanning the Avon gorge, was also the engineer in charge of completing the Great Western Railway between London and Bristol.
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