Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Clifton

CLIFTON, a watering-place and fashionable resort of England, in the county of Gloucestershire, forming practically a part of the city of Bristol. It is situated on the eastern heights above the gorge of the lower Avon, which divides it from the county of Somerset,—partly occupying a spacious table-land about 250 feet above the sea, and partly an abrupt declivity which sinks down to the once fashionable district of the Hotwells, on the same level as Bristol. Three ancient British earthworks bear witness to an early settlement on the spot, and a church was in existence as far back as the time of Henry II., when it was bestowed by William de Clyfton on the abbot of the Austin canons in Bristol; but, with the exception, perhaps, of Mardyke House, in Hotwells, there are no longer any architectural vestiges of an earlier date than the 18th century. Of the churches the most important are St Andrew's parish church, an ungainly structure rebuilt in 1819; All Saints, erected in 1863 at a cost of 32,000, after the designs of G. E. Street, and remarkable for the width of its nave and the narrowness of its aisles; and the Roman Catholic pro-cathedral church of the Holy Apostles, with a convent and schools attached. Among the other buildings of note may be mentioned the Victoria Rooms, which are used for concerts and other public assemblies, the Fine Arts Academy, dating from 1857, and Clifton College, a well-designed cluster of buildings in the Gothic style, founded in 1862 by a limited liability company, and giving education to 550 boys. The famous suspension bridge across the Avon, designed by Brunel and commenced in 1832, was completed in 1864. It has a span of 702 feet, and the roadway is 245 feet above high water; the total weight of the structure is 1500 tons, and it is calculated to stand a burden of 9 tons per square inch. Since it was opened a village called New Clifton has grown up on the opposite bank. The once famous hot springs of Clifton, to which, in fact, the town was indebted for its rise, are no longer frequented. They issue from an aperture at the foot of St Vincent's Rock, and the water has a temperature of about 76° Fahr. The population of Clifton in 1712, the date of the second edition of Sir Thomas Alleyne's work on Gloucester, was only 450; in 1841 it amounted to 14,177; in 1857 to 17,634; in 1861 to 21,375; and in 1871 to 26,364. In the last-mentioned year there were 10,319 males and 16,045 females. The average annual mortality is about 14 per 1000.