Bristol

A city in South West England and a Unitary Authority. It lies 115 miles west of London and has a population of 400,000. It is England's sixth, and the United Kingdom's ninth, most populous city. It was chartered as a city in 1155 and county in 1373. For 500 years it was the second or third largest English city, until the rapid rise of Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham in the Industrial Revolution.

Geography

It borders on Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, and has a coastline on the Bristol Channel.

History

There are traces of settlement from the Paleolithic era, with some 60,000-year-old archaeological finds at Shirehampton and St Annes,. There are iron age hill forts near the city, at Leigh Woods and Clifton Down and on Kingsweston Hill, near Henbury. There was a Roman settlement, Abona, at what is now Sea Mills, connected to Bath by a Roman road, and another settlement at what is now Inns Court. There were isolated villas and small settlements throughout the area.