Where is the city centre in Bristol? It’s one of those questions which sounds like it’s quite easy to answer, but actually it’s quite a lot more complicated than it seems.
Everyone knows where the city centre is roughly located, everyone has a general idea of what is in the city centre and how far it stretches, but where is the actual city centre? Depending on who you ask, the city centre can be a number of different places affected by various factors.
Is the city centre where the main shops are located? In that case it is Broadmead (or even Cabot Circus for that matter). Is it where decisions are made across the city? In that case, College Green (where City Hall is) would be the answer.
You have the historical city centre, at the top of High Street at the end of Corn Street, there’s also what’s called the Centre, and there’s left-field contenders in the mix. The geographic centre of Bristol is in Redland, but most people would say that is not within the boundaries of the city centre.
Several journalists at Bristol Live have discussed where they personally think the city centre is in Bristol, and like the debate that this question has generated over many years, there were various different answers and opinions. So who is right?
Paul Gillis – “It’s by the fountains at Cascade Steps”
“The city centre of Bristol, to me, is by the fountains at the Cascade Steps, in the Centre. I felt that it was the most central point in Bristol.
“It was where John Cabot left Bristol on his voyage when he found Newfoundland in Canada. Being Canadian myself, it’s more pertinent to me than to others.
“I have never thought of anywhere else to be the centre of Bristol. It’s not Broadmead or College Green. If someone asked me where the centre is, the fountains are where it has always been.”
Tristan Cork – “Top of Corn Street”
“I was outside the Tesco in Canons Marsh the other day and two tourists stopped me to ask for directions ‘to the city centre?’ I didn’t help their confusion by asking them what they meant by that, and had to ask follow up questions to find out if they meant the retail centre, the cultural centre or the historic centre.
“For me the ‘city centre’ covers a wider area that goes from the Old Market Roundabout to the Bearpit to College Green, while within that, going to Broadmead or Cabot Circus is going ‘into town’. But when people ask ‘where is the centre of Bristol’, the weirdest thing is that it’s changed even in my adult lifetime.
“Back when I first passed my driving test and headed straight for the Redcliffe Flyover in the mid-90s, no one would have said the centre of Bristol was the run-down old docks. I and most people would have said the centre was in the middle of Broadmead. For a thousand years until maybe the 1950s or 60s, it would have been the crossroads at the top of the High Street.
“But since the redevelopment of the harbourside, the younger generations in the 2020s might well say it’s somewhere like the Cascade Steps, and with some justification. The area known as ‘The Centre’ was called that because the Tramway Centre, up by the old Colston Hall, was where the trams terminated, and ‘The Centre’ has become increasingly re-established as the main junction for buses in the 21st century.
“But for me, the centre of Bristol will also feel like it should still be at the top of Corn Street. It’s the middle of the medieval walled city, and will always be the epicentre of Bristol.”
Alex Driscoll – “Former Edward Colston plinth is the centre”
“As one of the younger generations, as my colleague above says, the city centre to me is quite a tricky thing to define. In fact, as a teenager, I was meeting one of my friends in ‘the city centre’ and we ended up in different places waiting for each other.
“I waited in what is called ‘The Centre’ whilst my friend waited in Broadmead. I know the city centre is not Broadmead, if you go to Broadmead then you’re ‘going into town’, it’s never dawned on me that Broadmead would be the city centre.
“You wouldn’t say that Temple Meads Station, or the surrounding area, is in the city centre, nor Redcliffe, named areas with a personality of their own, you know what you’ll get when you visit them. Broadmead falls into that category for me.
“I do find it extremely odd that the city centre is basically just that. There’s no shopping centre or decision-making to be held, it’s not even the centre of the city! It only really has become the city centre to those of us that use ‘The Centre’ bus stops.
“The actual point of the city centre though? I’d argue the former Edward Colston plinth is the centre of the city centre, it’s close to the middle of ‘The Centre’ and it is somewhere where I remember spending quite a lot of my time just wandering around, especially as a teen.
“What I find fascinating, though, is that developments on the corner of Castle Park alongside the impending demolition of the Galleries means that the city centre may soon return to the top of Corn Street. It feels like the city centre could move once again in the next 10 years when that area becomes the new epicentre of activity.”
Mark Taylor – “True centre isn’t in the city at all”
“It’s the perfect Bristol pub quiz question. But ask any locals where the centre of their city is and you’re likely to get a wide range of varying answers.
“Depending on your age, knowledge of the city or maybe if you just ask Siri, there are several trains of thought as to the mid-point of Bristol. When I was a kid growing up in the city, ‘let’s meet in the centre’ would invariably mean near the floral gardens – now the broken fountains – opposite the Hippodrome.
“After all, if a bus (and probably the trams before that) said ‘The Centre’ on the front, it usually stopped on that stretch between the docks and the cenotaph. And that’s pretty much still the case.
“But then, dusty old historians will say the ‘actual’ centre of Bristol is the spot where Broad Street, High Street and Wine Street meet, near the Christ Church with St Ewen church at the top of Corn Street. That’s where the High Cross once stood – a stone market cross now immortalised in sepia sketches from the Georgian period.
“Of course, the only fly in the ointment is that this Gothic-style monument was moved to the Stourhead estate in 1764. The impressive medieval cross is still there on the National Trust-owned estate.
“So, perhaps the true centre of Bristol isn’t in the city at all. After all, it’s technically in the stunning, world-famous gardens of this Wiltshire tourist attraction. Not that that answer is likely to win you any prizes in a Bristol pub quiz.”
Ellie Kendall – “Where the fountains are located”
“I remember back in the late 90s/early 00s embarking on my first trip with friends from the outskirts of Bristol to ‘town’ as we would call it. ‘Town’ to us was Broadmead and the Galleries, where we would shop in places like Tammy Girl, Miss Selfridge and the like. We’d snap photos in the booth in Tammy, and print off stickers for ourselves to keep as a memento of our girls’ days out.
“Then we would head into the food court in The Galleries for a jacket potato from Spud-U-Like. Those were the days. Everything we needed could be found right there in Broadmead back then.
“We would only ever end up in ‘The Centre’, if we needed to meet someone from another side of town or if we’d missed our bus stop – the buses all go to ‘The Centre’.
“To us, the ‘Centre’ was the area where the fountains are located, opposite the Bristol Hippodrome and, ironically, as a grown up, I spend more of my time here than in Broadmead (or ‘Town’). But maybe I’d journey to ‘town’ more if they still had that Tammy Girl photobooth.”
Who do you agree with? Let us know in the comments.