Tour Highlights
The Old City
Bristol Cathedral
City Museum and Art Gallery
Harbour Ferry Trip
St Mary Redcliffe Church
Llandoger Trow public house

Bristol's most famous cultural link is with the Romantic poets. Southey, Coleridge and Wordsworth all spent time in the city - Southey and Coleridge were linked to it by their marriages with the Fricker sisters of Bristol.

This trail has been designed to be walked. While concentrating on Bristol's literary connections it also offers a chance to view the City Museum & Art Gallery. This trail is mapped out in the booklet 'Four Themed Walks around Bristol', for sale from the Tourist Information Centre.

Begin on Bristol's High Street (coach drop off is nearby at the Thistle Hotel on Broad Street).

The Rummer public house on the High Street saw the launch of Coleridge's magazine The Watchman in 1795. Joseph Cottle, whose bookshop once stood on the corner of High Street and Corn Street (now a camera store), befriended Southey and Coleridge whilst they were still unknown, offering to publish their poems for 30 guineas. Wordsworth finished one of his poems in the back room of Cottle's shop.

There has been some speculation that Coleridge took inspiration for his epic The Ancient Mariner from Captain Thomas James who voyaged from Bristol to Hudson Bay in 1631.

Robert Southey was born at No 9 Wine Street in 1774. A Poet Laureate, he also wrote the children's favourite The Three Bears. A plaque commemorating him can be seen on the Prudential Buildings to the right. He gave lectures on politics and theology at The Plume of Feathers public house which once stood in Wine Street.

Before turning into Corn Street note the Quarter Jacks on Christchurch. Southey wrote how he often "stopt to see them strike..". Southey laid copper coins under the foundation stone of the present church. It was in this area that Bushey and Green, who figure in Shakespeare's Richard III, were executed by Henry Bolingbroke's men.

Walk down Corn Street, crossing over the City Centre towards the Cathedral.

At this point a diversion can be made to Harveys Wine Cellars. Originally the 13th century cellars of an Abbey, and the home of Harveys since 1796, these are today home to a museum, telling the story of wine and housing a collection of fine antiques. Group tours and tastings are extremely popular.

Allow 1 1/2 hours for Harveys

Bristol Cathedral contains a pair of silver candlesticks commemorating the voyage of the Duke and Princess, two ships owned by Bristol Merchant Thomas Goldney, who rescued the castaway Alexander Selkirk. Daniel Defoe is reputed to have met Selkirk on his return to Bristol. He was so inspired by his tale he turned fact into fiction with the book Robinson Crusoe.

In 1764 two women were viciously murdered in a dwelling by College Green. Thomas de Quincey, author of Confessions of an English Opium Eater, makes mention of this in his essay Murder is one of the Fine Arts.

Walk up Park Street. This thoroughfare was once the home of a boarding school for young ladies run by the author Hannah More and her sisters, the Philosophical and Literary Institution, an early 19th century intellectual society.

At the top of Park Street is The City Museum & Art Gallery. Free entrance all year is a good incentive to pop into this magnificent building, home to countless wonderful objects. Look out for the dazzling mineral collection, awesome Eygptology, impressive paintings, oriental ceramics, natural history and archeology.

Allow 1 hour for the City Museum & Art Gallery

Park Street runs into Queens Road. The Victoria Rooms, built in 1841 saw performances and readings by Charles Dickens, Sarah Bernhardt and Oscar Wilde amongst others. This neighbourhood is known as Clifton and attracted literary society throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Shelley, Tennyson, Byron and Jane Austen all visited, and Agatha Christie married in Clifton.

If you wish you can continue the tour into Clifton Village, a delightful Georgian suburb on the cliffs of the Avon Gorge.

The author E H Young lived at No 2 Saville Place. all seven of her Upper Radstowe books are based in Clifton.

At No 3 Rodney Place a short stroll away Dr Beddoes hosted many gatherings of literary society. The novelist and sister-in-law of Dr Beddoes, Maria Edgeworth, often stayed, and the romantic poet Thomas Lovell Beddoes was born here.

Descending the hill towards Hotwells you come to Dowry Square. Dr Beddoes moved to No 6 in 1799 to join Humphrey Davy (of miners lamp fame) at the Pneumatic institute. Their assistant was Peter Roget who later went on to find fame with his Thesaurus. Coleridge and Southey visited and joined in some rather dubious experiments with nitrous oxide!

Hotwells is so named because the Hot Well was once a famous spa attracting such visitors as Addison, Cowper, Sheridan, Pope and Mrs Thrale. Smollett set some of his novel Humphrey Clinker here, as did Fanny Burney with her novel Evelina. Anne Yearsley, the once famous milkmaid turned poet and protege of Hannah More had a library in the Colonnade which still stands at the base of the Suspension Bridge.

From Hotwells take a ferry along the harbour to St Mary Redcliffe. Alternatively pick your group up and drop off outside St Mary's.

Ferry ride 45 minutes. Drive 15 minutes

St Mary Redcliffe parish church is not only beautiful but has many literary links. Both Southey and Coleridge were married here, and the boy poet Chatterton spent much time within the church where his uncle was church sexton. Chatterton, after studying many scrolls, wrote verses in a medieval style and passed then off as being written by a monk called Rowley. His genius discovered Chatterton set off for London to seek his fortune. Unfortunately, fame did not reach him
and he killed himself at the age of 17. Dr Johnson and Boswell visited the church after Chatterton's death to see where the supposed Rowley manuscripts were found.

Cross Redcliffe Way to see the birthplace of Chatterton. Retrace your footsteps to cross Redcliffe Bridge and pause outside the Hole in the Wall public house which was the inspiration for the Spyglass Inn in Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island. Walk through Queen Square to historic King Street. Here the Llandoger Trow public house is the supposed model for the Admiral Benbow in Treasure Island. It is also said to be where Daniel Defoe met Alexander Selkirk on whom he based his character Robinson Crusoe.

Time for a drink!