Why Bristol: the city's creative legends and restless history

In short: Bristol is small, so its scenes mix. It keeps making music, art and protest that travel the world.

Bristol is a port city in the south west of England. Around 470,000 people live here. For its size, it has made a lot of music, art, film, science and protest. Here are the people and moments behind that. We also share some thoughts on why it keeps happening.

The sound

In the early 1980s, a St Pauls sound system called The Wild Bunch played parties across the city. Its members included Robert "3D" Del Naja, Grant "Daddy G" Marshall, Andrew "Mushroom" Vowles and Nellee Hooper. Three of them became Massive Attack. Their 1991 album Blue Lines set the pattern for what got called the Bristol sound. Hooper went on to produce Soul II Soul and Björk.

Portishead's Dummy won the Mercury Prize in 1995. That same year, Tricky released Maxinquaye. Smith & Mighty had been building the sound in the background for years. In 1997 Roni Size and Reprazent won the Mercury for New Forms. That put Bristol drum and bass on the map, through the Full Cycle crew.

Before all that there was punk and post-punk. The Pop Group started in 1977. Then came Rip Rig + Panic, with a young Neneh Cherry, and Vice Squad. Later came dubstep, through Pinch's Tectonic label, Peverelist and Joker. Then came bands like IDLES and Beak>. St Pauls Carnival has run since 1968. It keeps sound system culture central to the city.

Plenty of famous names came through its small venues too. The Fleece has hosted Radiohead and Oasis. The Louisiana put on early shows by Coldplay, Muse and Amy Winehouse.

Places that made history

The Granary, Welsh Back

It was built in 1869 as a grain store for Wait, James and Co. Archibald Ponton and William Venn Gough designed it. It's the finest surviving example of the Bristol Byzantine style, all red brick and arches. It's Grade II* listed (a protected building of special interest).

From 1968 to 1988 it was one of the city's great music clubs. It opened as a jazz club run by Ted Cowell, with Acker Bilk's backing. Bilk called it the most ornate jazz club in the world. From 1969 the Plastic Dog collective ran rock nights there, after their night at the Dug Out got too crowded. By 1978 it was a full rock club. It hosted Yes, Genesis, Status Quo, Motörhead and Iron Maiden. Only Fools and Horses filmed a scene there too. The building later became offices and then flats. Since 2023 the ground floor has been a restaurant again. The Granary Club cocktail bar is downstairs, and live music is back on its calendar.

The Bamboo Club, St Pauls

Tony and Lalel Bullimore opened it on 28 October 1966, at 7 St Paul's Street. It was one of the first places in Bristol built around Caribbean music and the people who loved it. Bob Marley and the Wailers played there in the early 1970s, one of their first UK shows. So did the likes of John Holt and Desmond Dekker. It ran until the late 1970s.

The Dug Out, Park Row

This small club on Park Row was near the university. People remember it as a meeting point for the city's scenes. The Wild Bunch played there, so it's often called the birthplace of trip hop. The site is now a Chinese restaurant.

Colston Hall, now Bristol Beacon

The Beatles played here in 1963. Generations of Bristolians saw their first big gig here. The name was dropped in 2020 over its link to Edward Colston. It reopened as Bristol Beacon in November 2023 after a £132 million rebuild.

The Thekla, the Old Duke and the Trinity

The Thekla is a 1958 German cargo ship. It sailed into Bristol in 1982 to become the Old Profanity Showboat. Ki Longfellow-Stanshall and Vivian Stanshall of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band ran it. The Old Duke on King Street is named after Duke Ellington. It has put on free jazz almost every night since the late 1960s. The Trinity Centre is a former church in Old Market. It has hosted live music since 1976, and reggae, punk and sound system culture are still central to it.

Blue Mountain and Lakota

Blue Mountain on Stokes Croft ran for 28 years. It helped raise UK drum and bass before it closed around 2018. Lakota has put on raves in a Stokes Croft warehouse for more than 30 years, and it's still going.

The walls

Bristol's graffiti scene took off in the 1980s with writers like 3D, Inkie, Cheo and Nick Walker. Banksy came out of it. Mild Mild West has been on Stokes Croft since 1999. In 2009, Banksy versus Bristol Museum drew queues round the block. The See No Evil project turned Nelson Street into a gallery in 2011. Upfest has run since 2008, and it's Europe's largest street art festival.

Away from the walls, land artist Richard Long was born here. He won the Turner Prize in 1989. Damien Hirst was born here too. The Arnolfini has shown contemporary art since 1961. The Royal West of England Academy dates back to 1844.

Stage and screen

Bristol Old Vic opened in 1766. It calls itself the oldest theatre in the English-speaking world that has never stopped working. Its theatre school trained Daniel Day-Lewis, Jeremy Irons and Olivia Colman. Cary Grant was born Archibald Leach in Horfield in 1904.

Aardman was founded in 1972. It made Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run here. The BBC Natural History Unit was set up in the city in 1957. It's behind much of David Attenborough's work. Skins was filmed on Bristol streets. The Encounters short film festival has run since 1995. UNESCO named Bristol a City of Film in 2017. Comedians Stephen Merchant and Russell Howard are both from here.

Words

The teenage poet Thomas Chatterton was born here in 1752. Coleridge and Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads was first published in Bristol in 1798. It's the book that launched English Romanticism. Poet Laureate Robert Southey was born in the city. Angela Carter studied at the University of Bristol. Allen Lane was born here in 1902, and went on to found Penguin Books. J.K. Rowling was born in Yate, just outside. Today the City Poet scheme and nights like Milk Poetry keep spoken word busy.

Science and engineering

Isambard Kingdom Brunel gave the city the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the SS Great Britain. He also built the Great Western Railway into Temple Meads. In 1799 Humphry Davy was breathing nitrous oxide in Hotwells to see what it did. Physicist Paul Dirac was born here in 1902. He predicted antimatter and won the Nobel Prize in 1933. Peter Higgs went to the same school, Cotham, and said Dirac inspired him. Cecil Powell won a Nobel in 1950 for work done at the University of Bristol.

Concorde's British prototype first flew from Filton in 1969. The last Concorde flight ever landed there in 2003. Film pioneer William Friese-Greene was born in Bristol in 1855. So was Elizabeth Blackwell, in 1821. She was the first woman on the UK medical register.

Protest and movements

The city has a long history of protest. In 1831 crowds demanding the vote burned parts of Queen Square. In 1909 suffragette Theresa Garnett went for Winston Churchill with a whip at Temple Meads. In 1963 came the Bristol Bus Boycott. Paul Stephenson led it, with Roy Hackett, Owen Henry, Audley Evans and Prince Brown. It forced the bus company to drop its colour bar. It also helped lead to the Race Relations Act.

St Pauls rose up against police harassment in 1980. Stokes Croft became the People's Republic, and saw the Tesco riots in 2011. There were social centres like Kebele (now BASE), the Anarchist Bookfair, squats and free parties. The Ashton Court Festival was free from 1974 to 2007. Together they built a DIY culture that still runs through the city. Bristol became the UK's first European Green Capital in 2015. It ran its own currency, the Bristol Pound, from 2012 to 2021.

Much of the old city's wealth came from the transatlantic slave trade. In June 2020, protesters pulled down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston and threw it in the harbour. It now lies on display in the M Shed museum. The city is still working through that history.

Why here

Here's our view. Bristol is small enough to cross in an afternoon, so scenes bump into each other. The sound system crews know the muralists. The muralists know the promoters (people who put on nights). The promoters know the people running the community garden. Spaces have been cheap enough for people to try things, at least until recently. And there's a stubborn streak that doesn't wait for permission.

That's why this directory exists. It keeps all of it easy to find, and it helps the next lot get started. Start exploring or join the community.