Merchant Venturers' House

Merchants' Hall was the eighteenth-century headquarters of the Society of the Merchant Venturers of the City of Bristol. It was on the site of the present office building called Merchant Venturers House.

A modern building with an interesting plaque on the left of the main entrance. This is the site of the old Merchants' Hall. In 1552, the merchants in Bristol obtained a Royal Charter, which established them as the Society of the Merchant Venturers of the City of Bristol, with exclusive control of foreign trade. The Merchant Venturers were a powerful lobby, responsible in the eighteenth century for ensuring Bristol had its share of the African trade and defending the trade on the grounds that the city's prosperity depended on it.  The original Hall was destroyed in the Second World War, and the present Merchants' Hall is now in Clifton.