Many thanks to Dylan for this picture of Bristol Bridge at night
'Death and the Bridge : The Georgian Rebuilding of Bristol Bridge'. The medieval bridge over the Avon was built to unite the main city of Bristol to the southern parishes, but by mid 18th century pedestrians were being killed and injured by vehicles. What should have been an important civic project was never properly funded, and subject to endless arguments and delays. At times the story veers towards farce, with wall builder John Wallis opposing James Bridges the bridge builder, showman and one of England's earliest and finest modern engineers. Arguments delayed the rebuilding for years, before the original surveyor left in disgust, probably to an early grave in the colonies. This foreshadows the problems Brunel later had with his bridge, Tolls continued for 30 years, only to be ended by a riot, the first involving Bristolians within their own city so a forerunner of the more famous riots of 1831.
New Edition available September 2007.
Price: £5 Free postage in UK. Elsewhere add £1
Sample Text: "...we are dealing not with the repair or rebuilding of an ancient bridge with a huge tidal range and force, the engineering of which would have been difficult enough in those days. It was also more than the construction of a major public edifice, only the first since Wood's Exchange and which had caused so much dispute twenty years earlier. The bridge became a starting point, the focus for rebuilding and cleaning up the mouldering medieval heart of the city. By widening the bridge, routes to it became bottlenecks; when each of them were cleared, the obstructions moved on, causing a domino effect across the city. And once new stone buildings went up, the old wooden buildings, many of them repaired and shored up over decades or centuries, began to look increasingly shabby and threatening in case of fire. So this became a major exercise in town planning and rebuilding. But as with any exercise, mistakes were bound to happen."
"A detailed and lively account of the mid-18th century rebuilding of the city's main bridge, a project which soon became a drawn out farce." - Newsletter of the Ancient Monuments' Society
Described by Radio Bristol as 'a fantastic read'. ALHA Newsletter praised it.
Review in RHA Newsletter Summer 2006:
Follow up article, 'Looking for James' in the same journal - see copy on this website
On sale Bristol Record Office, The Book Cupboard Horfield, Sandy Park Rd Post Office, Circle Books on North St Bedminster, Read & Rite Books in Portishead, Stationery World Park St, David Simon Gallery, Lower Park Row; Bloom & Curl, Colston St; Grant Bradley Gallery, Bedminster Pde
or mail order £5 to PO Box 2460 Bristol BS3 9WP inc P&P Britain. Elsewhere, add £1
ISBN No. 978-0-9551010-5-2
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