Bedminster - In the Beginning
- GVHeritage Groups
- 5 hours ago
- 2 min read
by the First ResidentsBS3 Heritage Group for Futures Past
The Bedminster awaiting new residents in the early 19th century was a small community centred around an ancient parish church, overlooking fertile pastures, and orchards, through which a constant stream of water flowed. Buildings were few and fields were plentiful. Apart from East Street, a major thoroughfare giving access to Bristol to and from the west, the landscape was rural.
The Malago stream through this part of Bedminster had played an important role in the life of the area. It certainly would have been a major source of drinking water for those who lived along its banks at one time. Further downstream, where the Malago crossed East Street, women would gather to wash clothes. For our prospective new residents, the Malago stream was initially to provide a power source.
Bedminster Mill at the southern end of Mill Lane was a corn mill, operated by using part of the Malago stream diverted to form a mill pond on what is now Dalby Avenue, to provide the power to drive the water wheel.
A later move to convert the power source to steam was not a success and a shortage of water due to increased extraction for the rising population and industrial demands may have led to its ultimate demise.
Meanwhile, as the 19th century progressed, things were beginning to change. Coal mines opened nearby and industrial development moved in. The attraction of work drew nearby countryside dwellers into the area and they needed places to live.
Our first street arrives on the map - Little Paradise - and so do the first residents. Parish Records of St Johns, the area’s principal church show on the 17th May 1829, George and Grace Burgess, who resided in Little Paradise, celebrated the baptism of their daughter Mary. New house and new baby!
Why Little Paradise? Was it to distinguish it from an area nearby called Paradise
Gardens? Or perhaps to recognise that this small ribbon of houses was now intruding
into countryside from the already developed East Street. Over the next 50 years,
with industrialisation raging through Bedminster, housing around Little Paradise
expanded on adjacent land. Stafford Street with over thirty new homes, and
Leicester Street with up to eight emerged. Parish Records reveal the human story of
the first 19th century residents, good and bad.
Ada Sarah Pierce was baptised 11th July 1875 residing at 4 Leicester Street.
On 26th August 1877 the burial took place of Henry John Broad age 3 who lived at 7 Stafford Street.
