VCH Explore

Explore England's Past

Bristol Slavery Trail

This is a town trail with a difference. It aims to show you what the handsome squares and quaint buildings of a pleasant English city have to do with one of the ugliest and most destructive events in human history... the Transatlantic slave trade. Bristol is over 1000 years old. It has been a city for over 700 years. Its involvement with the Transatlantic slave trade lasted just over 150 years from around the 1660's to the early 1800's. So the history of Bristol is not just about the enslavement of Africans. Nor was Bristol the only slaving port in Britain. But it was the trade in Africans, and even more importantly, the trade in the goods from slave plantations, which helped to make Bristol such a beautiful and prosperous port. The places you will visit on this trail are real places and you will learn about those who walked these same streets before you -- in the days of slavery.
Click on a marker to visit that item's page.

Collection Items

2: Quayside

Bristol, built at the bridging point of the Frome and Avon rivers in Saxon times, has been an important port for centuries.

1: Prince Street

This street was once a very busy location, with merchants and traders living here as well as warehouses alongside the quay at the backs of the hous

3: Merchant's Wharf

A modern housing development is now built on the site of Sydenham Teast's shipyards.

4: The Ostrich

Dating back to at least 1745, the Ostrich Public House is one of the pubs which Sailors, shipyard and dock workers, merchants and others used when

5: Redcliffe Caves

Some people mistakenly believe that the network of caves under Redcliffe Hill was used to store slaves before sale in Bristol.

6: Redcliffe Parade

These eighteenth century houses were owned by wealthy merchants and others during the eighteenth century.

7: Guinea Street

This street is named after the gold coin called a guinea, which took its name from the West African gold coast.

8: Quaker Burial Ground

The Christian religious group called the Quakers (The Religious Society of Friends) used this small plot of land as their burial ground for a numbe

9: St Mary Redcliffe Church

This large Church of England church is a very fine example of how a church can be enlarged and supported by a very wealthy congregation. Some membe

10: The Hole In The Wall

This Public House is one of many that were used by sailors and others in the Port of Bristol.

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