Old Bank

This once was the site of one of the first banks outside London. Like many small banks mergers meant that the bank became part of a larger group; now it is a NatWest branch, which is itself part of the Royal Bank of Scotland! Old Bank was founded by traders to Africa, which shows the link between the slave trade in Bristol, growing wealth and investment, and profit from the slave trade spreading out across the whole of Britain.

Historians still argue over how much wealth the slave trade and the trade in slave-produced goods brought to England. It seems likely that the money from slavery made Britain a wealthy trading nation ready to take advantage of new economic opportunities. (But whether it was the main reason that Britain became the world's first industrial nation is less certain.)