After last month’s rural rambles around the archaeology of central and south Somerset, I will now head north and east to consider urban concerns in and around Bristol, Bath, and their environs, then journey on to Frome in the south-east of the county.
Bristol
Above & below: The entire history of Bristol has been covered by the magazine at some point. The city’s medieval origins were first explored in CA 290 and then again in CA 348, while the story of an enslaved teenager’s grave from the 18th century was highlighted in CA 366.
At one point or another, virtually the entire history of Bristol has been explored in the pages of Current Archaeology, from its medieval origins to its later history as a port city with major links to the transatlantic slave industry, through to its 20th-century trials and tribulations. These complex histories have helped create the modern-day melting pot that makes Bristol such a vibrant community. The one surprise in all this is how long it took the magazine to pay a visit to the city. The first in-depth examination only came in CA 290 (May 2014), exploring the medieval settlement that flourished around the Dominican Friary on the site of what is now the Broadmead shopping area on the banks of the (hidden) River Frome to the north-east of the city centre, opposite the site of the castle. This area was, even by Bristol’s long history of counter-cultural connections, an unusual place from the start. Its archaeology shows repeated transformations as a neighbourhood: from one led by the Dominicans (one of the more socially radical of the monastic orders, both by the standards of the time and still to this day) in the medieval period, to the Quakers in the early modern era, and on into a diverse industrial community evolving across the 19th and 20th centuries until its post-war redevelopment and more recent 21st-century commercial reinterpretation.
CA 348 (March 2019) delved back into Bristol’s early medieval origins, thanks to a book published at this time entitled Bristol: an archaeological assessment. This demonstrated that large-scale planning in the 12th-13th centuries modified the local topography to such an extent that, in large part, it influenced all subsequent development of the city. For later periods, CA 305 (August 2015) then explored the wealth of late medieval hall houses that survive there, in which the deliberate use of archaic features from earlier centuries was a mark of pride and social status among the elites of the era. A quite different story of Bristol’s distinctive cultural history from more recent times then comes from CA 207 (January 2007). Here, the magazine explores the 18th-century industrial archaeology around Portwall Lane in Redcliffe in the south-east of the city centre. The works covered two-thirds of a 3,000 square metre area destined for redevelopment, representing an important piece in the history of Bristol’s industrial revolution. Such was their importance that the eventual design of the new building on this site was revised to enable the bulk of the archaeology to be preserved beneath carefully repositioned piles, a geo-textile membrane, and a layer of sand to warn future excavators of its significance.
