the Dict. Nat. Biog., and who highly eulogizes his character and diplomacy. For lives, see Biographia Britannica (Kippis), v. 199; Wood’s Ath. Oxon. (Bliss), iii. 338; D. Lloyd’s Memoires (1668), 579; Collins’s Peerage (Brydges, 1812), v. 362; Fuller’s Worthies (Nichols, 1811), ii. 412; H. Walpole’s Royal and Noble Authors (Park, 1806), iii. 49; also Clarendon’s Hist of the Rebellion, esp. vi. 388; Clarendon State Papers and Cal. of Cl. State Papers; Old Parliamentary History; Cabala (1691; letters); Camden Soc., Miscellany, vol. vi. (1871); Defence of his Spanish Negotiations, ed. by S. R. Gardiner; Somers Tracts (1809), ii. 501; Thomason Tracts in Brit. Museum; Hardwicke State Papers, i. 494. The MSS. at Sherborne Castle, of which a selection was transcribed and deposited in the Public Record Office, were calendared by the Hist. MSS. Commission in Rep. viii. app. i. p. 213 and 10th Rep. app. i. p. 520; there are numerous references to Bristol in various collections calendared in the same publication and in the Cal. of State Papers, Dom. Series; see also Harleian MSS., Brit. Mus. 1580, art. 31-48, and Add. MSS. indexes and calendars. (P. C. Y.)
BRISTOL, a township of Hartford county, Connecticut, U.S.A., in the central part of the state, about 16 m. S.W. of Hartford. It has an area of 27 sq. m., and contains the village of Forestville and the borough of Bristol (incorporated in 1893). Both are situated on the Pequabuck river, and are served by the western branch of the midland division of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway, and by electric railway to Hartford, New Britain and Terryville. Pop. (1890) 7382; (1900) 9643, including that of the borough, 6268 (1910) 13,502 (borough, 9527). Among the manufactures of the borough of Bristol are clocks, woollen goods, iron castings, hardware, brass ware, silverplate and bells. Bristol clocks, first manufactured soon after the War of Independence, have long been widely known. Bristol, originally a part of the township of Farmington, was first settled about 1727, but did not become an independent corporation until the formation, in 1742, of the first church, known after 1744 as the New Cambridge Society. In 1748 a Protestant Episcopal Church was organized, and before and during the War of Independence its members belonged to the Loyalist party; their rector, Rev. James Nichols, was tarred and feathered by the Whigs, and Moses Dunbar, a member of the church, was hanged for treason by the Connecticut authorities. Chippen’s Hill (about 3 m. from the centre of the township) was a favourite rendezvous of the local Loyalists; and a cave there, known as “The Tories’ Den,” is a well-known landmark. In 1785 New Cambridge and West Britain, another ecclesiastical society of Farmington, were incorporated as the township of Bristol, but in 1806 they were divided into the present townships of Bristol and Burlington.
BRISTOL, a city, county of a city, municipal, county and parliamentary borough, and seaport of England, chiefly in Gloucestershire but partly in Somersetshire, 11812 m. W. of London. Pop. (1901) 328,945. The Avon, here forming the boundary between Gloucestershire and Somerset, though entering the estuary of the Severn (Bristol Channel) only 8 m. below the city, is here confined between considerable hills, with a narrow valley-floor on which the nucleus of the city rests. Between Bristol and the Channel the valley becomes a gorge, crossed at a single stride by the famous Clifton Suspension Bridge. Above Bristol the hills again close in at Keynsham, so that the city lies in a basin-like hollow some 4 m. in diameter, and extends up the heights to the north. The Great Western railway, striking into the Avon valley near Bath, serves Bristol from London, connects it with South Wales by the Severn tunnel, and with the southern and south-western counties of England. Local lines of this company encircle the city on the north and the south, serving the outports of Avonmouth and Portishead on the Bristol Channel. A trunk line of the Midland railway connects Bristol with the north of England by way of Gloucester, Worcester, Birmingham and Derby. Both companies use the central station, Temple Meads.
The nucleus of Bristol lies to the north of the river. The business centre is in the district traversed by Broad Street, High Street, Wine Street and Corn Street, which radiate from a centre close to the Floating Harbour. To the south of this centre, connected with it by Bristol Bridge, an island is formed between the Floating Harbour and the New Course of the Avon, and here are Temple Meads station, above Victoria Street, two of the finest churches (the Temple and St Mary Redcliffe) the general hospital and other public buildings. Immediately above the bridge the little river Frome joins the Avon. Owing to the nature of the site the streets are irregular; in the inner part of the city they are generally narrow, and sometimes, with their ancient gabled houses, extremely picturesque. The principal suburbs surround the city to the west, north and east.
Churches, &c.—In the centre of Bristol a remarkable collection of architectural antiquities is found, principally ecclesiastical. This the city owes mainly to a few great baronial families, such as the earls of Gloucester and the Berkeleys, in its early history, and to a few great merchants, the Canyngs, Shipwards and Framptons, in its later career. The see of Bristol, founded by Henry VIII. in 1542, was united to that of Gloucester in 1836; but again separated in 1896. The diocese includes parts of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, and a small but populous Cathedral. portion of Somerset. The cathedral, standing above the so-called Canons’ Marsh which borders the Floating Harbour, is pleasantly situated on the south side of College Green. It has two western towers and a central tower, nave, short transepts, choir with aisles, an eastern Lady chapel and other chapels; and on the south, a chapter-house and cloister court. The nave is modern (by Street, 1877), imitating the choir of the 14th century, with its curious skeleton-vaulting in the aisles. Besides the canopied tombs of the Berkeleys with their effigies in chain mail, and similarly fine tombs of the crosiered abbots, there are memorials to Bishop Butler, to Sterne’s Eliza (Elizabeth Draper), and to Lady Hesketh (the friend of Cowper), who are all interred here. There is also here William Mason’s fine epitaph to his wife (d. 1767), beginning “Take, holy earth, all that my soul holds dear.” Of Fitz-Harding’s abbey of St Augustine, founded in 1142 (of which the present cathedral was the church), the stately entrance gateway, with its sculptured mouldings, remains hardly injured. The abbot’s gateway, the vestibule to the chapter-house, and the chapter-house itself, which is carved with Byzantine exuberance of decoration, and acknowledged to be one of the finest Norman chambers in Europe, are also perfect. On the north side of College Green is the small but ornate Mayor’s chapel (originally St Mark’s), devoted to the services of the mayor and corporation. It is mainly Decorated and Perpendicular. Of the churches within the centre of the city, the following are found within a radius of half-a-mile from Bristol Bridge. St Stephen’s church, built between 1450 and 1490, is a dignified structure, chiefly interesting for its fan-traceried porch and stately tower. It was built entirely by the munificence of John Shipward, a wealthy merchant. The tower and spire of St John’s (15th century) stand on one of the gateways of the city. This church is a parallelogram, without east or west windows or aisles, and is built upon a fine groined crypt. St James’s church, the burial place of its founder, Robert, earl of Gloucester, dates from 1130, and fine Norman work remains in the nave. The tower is of the 14th century. St Philip’s has an Early English tower, but its external walls and windows are for the most part debased Perpendicular. Robert FitzHamon’s Norman tower of St Peter, the oldest church tower in Bristol, still presents its massive square to the eye. This church stands in Castle Street, which commemorates the castle of Robert, earl of Gloucester, the walls of which were 25 ft. thick at the base. Nothing remains of this foundation, but there still exist some walls and vaults of the later stronghold, including a fine Early English cell. Adjacent to the church is St Peter’s hospital, a picturesque gabled building of Jacobean and earlier date, with a fine court room. St Mary le Port and St Augustine the Less are churches of the Perpendicular era, and not the richest specimens of their kind. St Nicholas church is modern, on a crypt of the date 1503, and earlier. On the island south of the Floating Harbour are two of the most interesting churches in the city. Temple church, with its leaning tower, 5 ft. off the perpendicular, retains nothing of the Templars’ period, but is a fine building of the Decorated and Perpendicular periods. The church of
