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Coombe Dingle is a suburb of 
Coombe Dingle was once a popular destination for outings from Bristol, and there was a well-known tea-room and tea garden in the wooded Dingle itself, now a private house (just West of Grove Road on The Dingle). It was there by 1888 and used to be known as Appletree Cottage. The original winding road passing it, called The Dingle, has been bypassed by the modern A4162, which is carried across the river on its own bridge with a classical-style balustrade. The bridge was completed in 1927. The bridge is made of ''in situ'' cast concrete. It is quite an early example showing the arch design of brick and stone bridges, but built of a material for which an arch is unnecessary. In the Dingle itself, the river drove a flour mill called Coombe Mill.
Below Coombe House, just above the confluence of the Trym and Hazel Brook, was a sluice where the footbridge now is. This diverted the water through a mill stream to Hazel Brook. Another sluice there diverted the water into a millstream which ran approximately below where the main path now runs down to the site of the mill. This clever arrangement meant that when the flow in Hazel Brook was low the miller could use the water of the River Trym as well as that of Hazel Brook.
Coombe House which stood to the South of the confluence of Hazel Brook and the Trym, backing on to Canford Lane, was the home of John Graves Livingston (born J.G. Thompson) who was a long time director and chairman of the Ffestiniog Railway Company.
There is a Tin Tabernacles website
/ref> It was a small building with plain Gothic-style windows dating from the 1890s, demolished in the mid-1990s and replaced by a house. There are no other places of worship in Coombe Dingle. Coombe Lane is the home of
Bristol
Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...
, England, centred near where the Hazel Brook tributary of the River Trym
The River Trym is a short river, some in length, which rises in Filton, South Gloucestershire, England. The upper reaches are culverted, some underground, through mostly urban landscapes, but once it emerges into the open it flows through a n ...
emerges from a limestone gorge bisecting the Blaise Castle Estate to join the main course of the Trym. Historically this area formed part of the parish of Westbury on Trym
Westbury-on-Trym (sometimes written without hyphenation) is a suburb in the north of the City of Bristol, near the suburbs of Stoke Bishop, Westbury Park, Henleaze, Southmead and Henbury, in the southwest of England.
The place is partly name ...
, Gloucestershire, and it is now part of Avonmouth and Lawrence Weston ward of the city of Bristol. South of Coombe Dingle is Sea Mills; to the north is Kings Weston Hill
Kings Weston Hill () is a hill in the north of Bristol, England. It forms a ridge about long, extending from Henbury to Shirehampton and separating Lawrence Weston to the north from Coombe Dingle to the south. The hill is a public open sp ...
; to the west are Kings Weston House
Kings Weston House () is a historic building in Kings Weston Lane, Kingsweston, Bristol, England. Built during the early 18th century, it was remodelled several times, most recently in the mid-19th century. The building was owned by several ge ...
and Shirehampton
Shirehampton is a district of Bristol in England, near Avonmouth, at the northwestern edge of the city.
It originated as a separate village, retains a High Street with a parish church and shops, and is still thought of as a village by many of ...
Park; and to the east, Henbury Golf Club and Westbury on Trym proper.
The inhabited place appears simply as ''Combe'', ''Coomb'' or ''Coombe'', meaning 'short bowl-shaped valley', in documents from the 13th century onwards and on early maps. The name applied to Coombe Farm and Coombe House on the eastern side of the confluence of the Hazel Brook and the Trym, not where the modern suburb lies. This area later became noted for its cherry orchards, commemorated in a modern house-name, and a nursery. Strictly speaking, Coombe Dingle was the wooded narrow valley through which the Trym passes south-west of the farm and house to flow southwards through Sea Mills to the River Avon. The name of the narrow valley was borrowed for the new development consisting mostly of private housing built to the west of the Trym in the 1920s and 1930s on an area called Boulton's (or Bowden's) Fields. It was and remains a desirable area to live. Near the western edge is Haig Close, a small development of houses originally built for ex-servicemen in 1929 on land donated from the Kingsweston Estate by Philip Napier Miles
Philip Napier Miles (21 January 1865 – 19 July 1935) was a philanthropist and musician in Bristol, and a descendent of the Napier family. He was High Sheriff of Gloucestershire for 1916–17.
Life and family
He was the only son of Philip ...
, though this is generally said to be in Sea Mills.
Coombe Dingle was once a popular destination for outings from Bristol, and there was a well-known tea-room and tea garden in the wooded Dingle itself, now a private house (just West of Grove Road on The Dingle). It was there by 1888 and used to be known as Appletree Cottage. The original winding road passing it, called The Dingle, has been bypassed by the modern A4162, which is carried across the river on its own bridge with a classical-style balustrade. The bridge was completed in 1927. The bridge is made of ''in situ'' cast concrete. It is quite an early example showing the arch design of brick and stone bridges, but built of a material for which an arch is unnecessary. In the Dingle itself, the river drove a flour mill called Coombe Mill.
Below Coombe House, just above the confluence of the Trym and Hazel Brook, was a sluice where the footbridge now is. This diverted the water through a mill stream to Hazel Brook. Another sluice there diverted the water into a millstream which ran approximately below where the main path now runs down to the site of the mill. This clever arrangement meant that when the flow in Hazel Brook was low the miller could use the water of the River Trym as well as that of Hazel Brook.
Coombe House which stood to the South of the confluence of Hazel Brook and the Trym, backing on to Canford Lane, was the home of John Graves Livingston (born J.G. Thompson) who was a long time director and chairman of the Ffestiniog Railway Company.
There is a parade of shops
A shopping parade, also known as a parade of shops, suburban parade, neighbourhood parade, or just a simply a parade is a group of between five and 40 shops in one or more continuous rows, mostly being retail and serving a local customer base; in ...
on Westbury Lane. There used to be, close to the road bridge and near the northern end of Coombe Lane, a "tin tabernacle
A tin tabernacle, also known as an iron church, is a type of prefabricated ecclesiastical building made from corrugated galvanised iron. They were developed in the mid-19th century, initially in the United Kingdom. Corrugated iron was first u ...
" Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...
chapel./ref> It was a small building with plain Gothic-style windows dating from the 1890s, demolished in the mid-1990s and replaced by a house. There are no other places of worship in Coombe Dingle. Coombe Lane is the home of
Bristol University
The University of Bristol is a public research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Bristol, which had ...
sports complex, which is commonly referred to as Coombe Dingle, though it is really in Stoke Bishop.
References
{{Areas of Bristol Areas of Bristol