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Bristol (ⁱ/ˈbrɪstəl/) is a city, unitary authority and county in South West England with an estimated population of 437,500 in 2014. People from the city are known as Bristolians. It is England's sixth and the United Kingdom's eighth most populous city, and the second most populous city in Southern England after London.

Iron Age hill forts and Roman villas were built in the area around the confluence of the Rivers Frome and Avon, and it became known as Brycgstow (Old English "the place at the bridge") around the beginning of the 11th century. Bristol received a royal charter in 1155 and was part of Gloucestershire until 1373, when it became a county. From the 13th to the 18th century, Bristol was among the top three English cities after London (with York and Norwich) in tax receipts. Bristol was eclipsed by the rapid rise of Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham during the Industrial Revolution. It borders the counties of Somerset and Gloucestershire, with the historic cities of Bath and Gloucester to the southeast and northeast, respectively. The city has a short coastline on the Severn Estuary (which flows into the Bristol Channel).

Bristol's prosperity has been linked with the sea since its earliest days. Around 1500, it was the base for voyages of exploration to the New World: on a ship out of Bristol, John Cabot was the first European, since the Vikings 500 years earlier, to land in North America in 1497; and William Weston, a Bristol merchant, was the first Englishman to lead an exploration to North America, in 1499. The Port of Bristol was originally in the city centre before commercial shipping moved from Bristol Harbour to the Severn Estuary at Avonmouth. Royal Portbury Dock is on the western edge of the city. Its economy has recently depended on the creative media, electronics and aerospace industries, and the city-centre docks have been redeveloped as centres of heritage and culture. The city has two universities and a variety of artistic and sporting organisations and venues. In 2005, Bristol was named by the UK government one of England's six science cities. It is connected with the surrounding region and the rest of the country by road and rail, including the M5 and M4 (which connect to the city centre by the M32 motorway and Bristol Temple Meads and Bristol Parkway railway stations). Bristol, which was named England's first cycling city in 2008, won the European Green Capital Award in 2015. more about Bristol... Template:/box-footer

Clifton Down railway station is on the Severn Beach Line and serves the district of Clifton in Bristol, England. It is 3.9 miles (6.3 km) from Bristol Temple Meads. Its three letter station code is CFN. The station has two platforms, each serving trains in one direction only. As of 2015 it is managed by First Great Western, which is the third franchise to be responsible for the station since privatisation in 1997. They provide all train services at the station, mainly a train every forty minutes in each direction between Bristol Temple Meads and Avonmouth.

The station was opened in 1874 by the Great Western and Midland Railways as part of the Clifton Extension Railway, designed to connect the port of Avonmouth to the national rail network. The station had a large gothic revival building on the Bristol-bound platform, with smaller passenger facilities on the opposite platform and a goods yard beyond. Between 1903 and 1930 the station employed an average of 22 staff. Excursion trains were a regular sight, bringing people to nearby Bristol Zoo.

The Severn Beach Line declined over the latter half of the twentieth century, with passenger numbers falling significantly. Goods services at Clifton Down ended in 1965, and all staff were withdrawn in 1967. The line was largely reduced to single track in 1970, leaving Clifton Down as one of the few passing places. Services had decreased to ten per day each direction by 2005, but have since increased to twenty-four trains per day.

The nave of Bristol Cathedral.

The nave of Bristol Cathedral.

Peaches Golding B.  (1953-12-13) 13 December 1953 Lois Patricia (Peaches) Golding, OBE, commonly known as Peaches Golding (born 1953) in 2010 became the first black High Sheriff of Bristol, UK, and the only known black High Sheriff of England since the office was established some 1,000 years ago. She has served on a number of public bodies and private sector organisations, including as non-executive director of Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust, regional director of Business in the Community, North Bristol NHS Trust, GWR West, a member of the Ethnic Minority Business Forum, the Home Office representative on the Avon & Somerset Police Authority, governor of the University of the West of England, governor of the City of Bristol College, Regional Advisory Council for ITV West and as a member of the General Chiropractic Council. Since 2011 she has worked as a marketing consultant for Moon Consulting.

From Wikipedia's "Did You Know" archives:

The Maire of Bristowe is Kalendar

• ... that The Maire of Bristowe is Kalendar (pictured) is a late 15th-century manuscript recording the histories of England and of Bristol, the civic customs and list of mayors?
• ... that Mary Perkins was the first female optician to be made a Dame Commander of the British Empire?
• ... that every year the Portway trunk road in Bristol is closed to traffic to allow inspection of the limestone cliffs of the Avon Gorge and to allow remedial work on loose rocks to be carried out?
• ... that actors and audience in the Jacobs Well Theatre, a Georgian era playhouse in Bristol, England, could obtain drinks through a hole in the wall to an adjoining ale house?
• ... that Britain's first girls' reform school was set up in 1854 by Mary Carpenter, with the financial help of the poet Lord Byron's widow, at Bristol's Red Lodge?

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• St Mary Redcliffe was described by Queen Elizabeth I as "the fairest, goodliest, and most famous parish church in England."
• Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament.-Edmund Burke in his Speech to the Electors of Bristol (1774-11-03)

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