Bristol built its wealth on wool, then sugar, then enslaved people — and its buildings still say so. Three days tracing Saxon churches, medieval crypts, Georgian counting houses, Brunel's iron ship and the streets where the city finally confronted its past.
Founded 1140 as an Augustinian abbey; the choir, rebuilt from 1298, is Europe's finest 'hall church' with aisles the same height as the nave. See the Norman chapter house (c.1155) and Saxon Harrowing of Hell stone carving, c.1050. Open 08:00–17:00.
Called 'the fairest, goodliest and most famous parish church in England' by Elizabeth I in 1574. The 89m spire, hexagonal north porch (c.1325) and a whalebone reputedly brought back by John Cabot in 1497. Open daily 09:00–17:00.
Excavated vaulted chambers of the Norman keep begun c.1120 by Robert of Gloucester, once one of the strongest castles in England until Cromwell ordered it demolished in 1656. Beside it stands the bombed shell of St Peter's, gutted 24 November 1940.
A cobbled 1663 street of timber-framed merchant houses. The Llandoger Trow (1664) is the pub where Daniel Defoe supposedly met Alexander Selkirk, the castaway behind Robinson Crusoe, and Stevenson's model for the Admiral Benbow in Treasure Island.
Launched 19 July 1843: the first iron-hulled, screw-propelled ocean liner, salvaged from the Falklands in 1970 and returned to the dry dock where she was built. Walk the 'glass sea' and inspect the hull in dehumidified air. Open 10:00–17:30.
On 7 June 2020 protesters toppled the 1895 bronze of slave trader Edward Colston and rolled it into the harbour at Pero's Bridge. The plinth stands bare with its original inscription — one of Britain's most contested pieces of public space.
The 1790 townhouse of John Pinney, sugar planter and owner of the Mountravers plantation on Nevis. Eleven rooms restored across four floors, including the basement kitchen and the cold-water plunge pool — and the story of Pero Jones, enslaved and brought here in 1783.
Brunel won the 1831 design competition aged 24; the bridge opened in 1864, five years after his death, spanning the Avon Gorge 75m above high water. The Leigh Woods side gives the classic profile view at sunset.
An Edwardian Baroque building of 1904 funded by tobacco money from the Wills family. Bristol's own archaeology gallery covers the Roman settlement at Abona and the Saxon burh, alongside Bristol blue glass and Bristol delftware. Open 10:00–17:00, closed Mondays.
Red sandstone caverns hand-dug from the 15th century for storing sand for the glass industry, later used for imported goods and as a WWII air-raid shelter. Rarely open — but the wharf-side entrances and the medieval Redcliffe Shot Tower area are visible year-round.
Royal York Crescent, begun 1791 and finished 1820, is at 335m the longest Georgian crescent in Europe, raised on a vaulted terrace. Built with profits from sugar, tobacco and slaving voyages, it was briefly requisitioned as barracks during the Napoleonic Wars.
The 1999 footbridge is named for Pero Jones, an enslaved man brought to Bristol in 1783 — the city's first monument to an enslaved individual. Walk on to Corn Street for the brass 'nails' where merchants paid cash, the origin of 'paying on the nail'.