Clifton, Bristol

Clifton was recorded in the Domesday Book as Clistone, the name of the village denoting a 'hillside settlement' and referring to its position on a steep hill. Situated to the west of Bristol city centre, it was at one time a separate settlement. The earliest depiction of the village is as a detail in James Millerd's 1673 prospect of Bristol. The village became attached to Bristol by continuous development during the Georgian era and was formally incorporated into the city in the 1830s. Until 1898, Clifton St Andrew was a separate civil parish within the Municipal Borough of Bristol. In 1891 the parish had a population of 29,345. On 30 September 1896, the parish was abolished to form North…

In Frances Burney's novel Evelina (1778), young gentlemen are racing their phaetons on the public highways of Clifton (then still outside Bristol), and not without incident. Clifton also features briefly in Tobias Smollett's epistolary novel The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771). Part of the background to Philippa Gregory's historical novel A Respectable Trade – dealing mainly with the slave trade in late 18th-century Bristol – is the start of construction at Clifton, then a far area outside the city limits as they were at the time. In some passages characters debate whether Clifton could ever become viable and whether investment in real estate there would not be too risky – questions…