Bishopston is a suburb of the city of

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, city, Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Glouces ...

in south west England. Bishopston is around Gloucester Road ( A38), the main northern arterial road in the city and Bishop Road.

Politics

Bishopston is in the

Bristol West Bristol West is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom since 2015 by Thangam Debbonaire of the Labour Party. It mostly covers the central and western parts of Bristol. Constituency ...

parliamentary constituency and is represented by

Thangam Debbonaire Thangam Elizabeth Rachel Debbonaire (' Singh; born 3 August 1966) is a British Labour Party politician, serving as Shadow Leader of the House of Commons since May 2021. She was previously the Shadow Secretary of State for Housing from 2020 t ...

of the Labour Party. It is split between the wards of Redland and

Bishopston and Ashley Down Bishopston and Ashley Down is one of the thirty-four council wards in the city of Bristol in the Southwest of England, United Kingdom. Bishopston and Ashley Down The ward covers all of Ashley Down as well as parts of Bishopston and Horfield. ...

. Redland ward is represented by Martin Fodor and Fi Hance, both of the

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence. Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation f ...

and Bishopston and Ashley Down ward is represented by Lily Fitzgibbon and Emma Edwards, also both of the

Bishopston

Bishopston is named after the bishop of the local

diocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associ ...

who controversially sold off the church's land to private developers in the early 19th century. The sale was even raised as an issue in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

. The parish of Bishopston was then created in July 1862 with a population of 1300 and expanding to 9140 in the Census 1901. In the Census 2001 Bishopston registered a resident population of 11,996. The district is part of the Bristol built-up area, having been swallowed by the growing city, running directly into the surrounding districts of Redland,

Ashley Down Ashley Down is an area in the north of Bristol. It lies on high ground east of Bishopston, north of St Andrews and St Werburghs, west of Muller Road and south of Horfield. The main artery is Ashley Down Road. Since May 2016 it is part of the B ...

, Horfield and Henleaze. The area has a relatively large student population, with 21% of the over-16 population in education compared to 8.4% in Bristol and 5.1% in England and

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

. Some of the location filming for the cult BBC sitcom '' The Young Ones'' was done in Codrington Road and elsewhere. The external shots for the famous "bank-robbing" scene in the last episode were filmed outside the now closed Bristol North Swimming Baths on Gloucester Road. Bishopston was the home of two Nobel Prize–winning physicists. In 1933

Paul Dirac Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (; 8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984) was an English theoretical physicist who is regarded as one of the most significant physicists of the 20th century. He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the Univer ...

, who attended the Bishop Road Primary School, just a few hundred metres from where he lived on Monk Road, won the prize after his contributions to

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, ...

. In 1950

Cecil Frank Powell Cecil Frank Powell, FRS (5 December 1903 – 9 August 1969) was a British physicist, and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate for heading the team that developed the photographic method of studying nuclear processes and for the resulting discovery of ...

won the prestigious award for contributions to Physics (specifically, for his development of the photographic method of studying nuclear processes and his discoveries regarding mesons made with this method). Bishopston was home to television presenter

Adam Hart-Davis Adam John Hart-Davis (born 4 July 1943) is an English scientist, author, photographer, historian and broadcaster. He presented the BBC television series '' Local Heroes'' and ''What the Romans Did for Us'', the latter spawning several spin-off ...

and psychologist

Susan Blackmore Susan Jane Blackmore (born 29 July 1951) is a British writer, lecturer, sceptic, broadcaster, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth. Her fields of research include memetics, parapsychology, consciousness, and she is best known ...

. The area has produced musicians of note including

Robert "3D" Del Naja Robert Del Naja (; born 21 January 1965), also known as 3D, is a British artist, musician, singer and songwriter. He emerged as a graffiti artist and member of the Bristol collective the Wild Bunch, and later as a founding member and sole con ...

and

Daddy G Grantley Evan Marshall (born 18 December 1959), also known by the stage name Daddy G, is a British DJ and a founding member of the band Massive Attack. Biography Born in Bristol to West Indian parents, Marshall joined the Bristol music scen ...

Massive Attack Massive Attack are an English trip hop collective formed in 1988 in Bristol by Robert "3D" Del Naja, Adrian "Tricky" Thaws, Andrew "Mushroom" Vowles and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall. The debut Massive Attack album '' Blue Lines'' was releas ...

, DJ Collective

Stanton Warriors Stanton Warriors are a British DJ and production duo consisting of Dominic Butler and Mark Yardley. Originally from the West Country, the duo have performed internationally with their infamous Stanton Sessions parties in Europe, North Ameri ...

and International DJ

Nick Warren Nicholas John Warren (born 24 October 1968) is an English DJ and record producer. He is best known as a member of the electronic music duo Way Out West, his record label and global live events brand, The Soundgarden, and for his albums release ...

. Juventus and Italian footballer

Alessandro Del Piero Alessandro Del Piero (; born 9 November 1974) is an Italian former professional footballer who mainly played as a deep-lying forward, although he was capable of playing in several offensive positions. Since 2015, he has worked as a pundit fo ...

also lived in the district for a period as a child when his father worked as a restaurateur in the thriving Italian community that lives there. The famous film star

Cary Grant Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was an English-American actor. He was known for his Mid-Atlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing. He was one of ...

(real name Archibald Alexander Leach) attended Bishop Road School in Bishopston. As a child he lived nearby in Hughenden Road next to Horfield Common, where there is a blue plaque to commemorate him. Bishopston has two primary schools,

St. Bonaventure Bonaventure ( ; it, Bonaventura ; la, Bonaventura de Balneoregio; 1221 – 15 July 1274), born Giovanni di Fidanza, was an Italian Catholic Franciscan, bishop, cardinal, scholastic theologian and philosopher. The seventh Minister G ...

's Catholic Primary School which served the huge

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

Irish and

South American South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

community and Bishop Road Primary School COE which was a secondary school up until the mid 1980s and served children of the Anglican faith and drew in children from the Asian and Jamaican community in St Paul's and

Montpellier Montpellier (, , ; oc, Montpelhièr ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the department of Hérault. In 2018, 290,053 people l ...

. The main artery, Gloucester Road well known for its pubs and restaurants, and one of the last remaining local

high street High Street is a common street name for the primary business street of a city, town, or village, especially in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. It implies that it is the focal point for business, especially shopping. It is also a metonym fo ...

s in the country, is well used by local residents. In addition to the independently run shops such as Scoopaway, La Ruca, Gardener's Patch and Harvest, recent years has seen several supermarket chains opening stores in the area. This, and the range of fairly traded and local goods available, has made it popular with ecologically minded shoppers. Bishopston is home to

Gloucestershire County Cricket Club Gloucestershire County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Gloucestershire. Founded in 1870, Gloucestershire have always ...

, located off Nevil Road. The ground's capacity has been increased to hold international cricket matches. The David Thomas Memorial church, in neighbouring St Andrews, was erected between 1879 and 1881 but was demolished in 1987, destroying most of a Gothic fantasy by Stuart Coleman. The building still retains a thin octagonal spire and west front but the massive halls, apse and rib vaults have now gone, and have been replaced by

flats Flat or flats may refer to: Architecture * Flat (housing), an apartment in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and other Commonwealth countries Arts and entertainment * Flat (music), a symbol () which denotes a lower pitch * Flat (soldier), ...

by Stride Treglown.

Education

Bishopston is the location of Bishop Road Primary School, which opened in 1900, and is the largest primary school in Bristol, notable for having educated

and

References

External links

Census data

Photographs of Bishopston at the Geograph project

Bristol Buddhist Centre
meeting in Gloucester Road, Bishopston
Bishopston Trading
A fair trade workers cooperative. {{coord, 51.47693, N, 2.59751, W, region:GB_source:enwiki-osgb36(ST586755), display=title Areas of Bristol