|
Almost buried behind modern blocks, one of Bristol's oldest churches, St Stephen's , stands just east of the Centre. It was established in the thirteenth century, rebuilt in the fifteenth and thoroughly restored with plenty of neo-Gothic trimmings in 1875. Nearby Corn Street represents the city's financial centre, where you'll find the Georgian Corn Exchange, designed by John Wood of Bath, which now holds the covered St Nicholas markets . Outside the entrance stand four engraved bronze pillars, dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and transferred from a nearby arcade where they served as trading tables - thought to be the "nails" from which the expression "pay on the nail" is derived. Beyond the market, and edging Castle Green - where Bristol Castle once stood - extends the Broadmead shopping centre, an uninspiring development laid out on the ruins left by wartime bombing. A couple of relics survive: accessible from both the central strip of Broadmead and the Horsefair, the New Room (Jan & Feb Mon-Sat 11am-2.30pm; rest of year Mon-Sat 10am-4pm; free, tours GBP2) was the country's first Methodist chapel, established by John Wesley in 1739. Lying very much as Wesley left it, the chapel has a double-deck pulpit beneath a hidden upstairs window, from which the evangelist could observe the progress of his trainee preachers. Nearby lies another testimony to Bristol's close links with nonconformist sects, Quakers' Friars , a thirteenth-century construction whose name derives from the Dominican friars who first used the building, and the Quakers who took it over from the sixteenth century. William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, was married here, as was the Quaker founder George Fox.
Your Tip for From the Centre to Broadmead
Help other backpackers! Write your own guides and backpacking tips to From the Centre to Broadmead - they will appear instantly on this page - Please only write a tip/guide to From the Centre to Broadmead - visit the main From the Centre to Broadmead forum to ask a question!
Please do not post links to your site here (they won't work) - please use the From the Centre to Broadmead webguide section below! Thanks.
|
