Port of Bristol

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

St Augustine's Reach and Pero's Bridge, during the 2004 Harbour Festival.

The Port of Bristol comprises the commercial, and former commercial, docks situated in and near the city of Bristol in England. The Port of Bristol Authority was the commercial title of the Bristol City, Avonmouth, Portishead and Royal Portbury Docks when they were operated by Bristol City Council, which ceased trade when the Avonmouth and Royal Portbury Docks were leased to The Bristol Port Company in 1991.

[edit] History

For more information on the history of the different dock complexes, see the articles on Bristol Harbour, Avonmouth Docks, Portishead and the Royal Portbury Dock respectively.

The Port of Bristol grew up on the banks of the Rivers Avon and Frome, at their confluence upstream of the Avon Gorge which connects the city with the Bristol Channel. This part of the port was known as the Bristol City Docks, and is now more usually known as Bristol Harbour. In the 1800s it was enclosed by locks, together with a diversion of the River Avon, resulting in its alternative name of the Floating Harbour.

The navigation of the Avon Gorge always presented a challenge, and became more and more difficult as ships got larger. In 1877, Avonmouth Old Dock, the first of the Avonmouth Docks, was opened, and in 1884 the Bristol Corporation acquired both the Avonmouth and Portishead Docks.^[1] In 1908 the Royal Edward Dock was built at Avonmouth to the north of the mouth of the River Avon and with direct access to the Severn estuary and Bristol Channel.

The Royal Portbury Dock

In 1972 the large deep water Royal Portbury Dock, across the river mouth from the Royal Edward Dock was constructed, again with direct access to the Bristol Channel.

These developments rendered the old Bristol City Docks in the Floating Harbour redundant as a commercial dock, and they have since been redeveloped as the centrepiece of many leisure, residential and retail developments in and around Bristol City Centre. A sand company was the last to use the docks commercially in 1981.

The closure of the power stations at Portishead also made the Portishead Dock redundant, and it was finally closed in 1992.

In 1991 The Bristol Port Company, a private company, purchased a 150 year lease of the Avonmouth and Royal Portbury Docks from Bristol City Council. Since then over £330m has been invested in the docks and the annual tonnage throughput has increased from 4m tonnes to 12m tonnes.