Why is ALL the WEALTH in the north of BRISTOL?

[00:00:00]Welcome to the city of Bristol, de facto capital of Southwest England. A city of striking contrast. But how did it get this way? Stand on Brunell's suspension bridge and just look at the beautiful Georgian architecture and the 2 million pound houses and people earning some of the highest wages in the UK. Then drive just 20 minutes south and find postwar council estates with high crime, deprivation, few opportunities, and the lowest house prices in the entire city.

[00:00:26]Why did the wealth in this city go entirely one way? Today we're going to explore the history and find out why the wealth of this city is almost entirely in the north of the city. Our story starts out in parts as a city that the average person rarely lays their eyes on. They'd be seeing double.

[00:00:46]This city goes back a fair bit. In fact, there's evidence in Shy Hampton of Neanderthalss. Just head down to Shy Hampton High Street where you can visit them any day you want.

[00:00:58]The town of Bright Stow grew up to be a strong fort and after that a port. This is what much of Bristol's early history would be tied to. It grew up around the rivers through Medaven and the areas of Broadme and north of Casle Park and Redcliffs south of the park being the only medieval parts of Bristol. There isn't a whole lot left of it in all honesty. You get the remains of what was Bristol Castle and some churches. The port was a big success but became even more successful when it became part of the triangle slave trade. It was the capital of slave trading for a bit and traded with the Carolas and this is really what drove Bristol to develop into a rich city. By the year 1750, 45,000 people were living here in Bristol. Other parts of Bristol started to appear such as Old Market, St. Paul's, and the Park Street area. The Bristol extension continued during the Georgian era and reached the small village of Clifton, which would end up being a very important part of the city.

[00:01:55]Famous cleric John Wesley preached in Clifton Church in 1739, and he commented on how shocked he was at the amount of wealthy people in the congregation. He could tell that they were wealthy because when the collection plate went around, he barely had enough for a packet of ramen at the end. But Clifton wouldn't just be houses for the rich.

[00:02:17]This area that I'm standing in now below Clifton would actually turn out to be a luxury spa retreat which helped encourage the growth within this city. I know it's a bit mental looking at this water right here right now, but this was said to be the finest water around. And the rich and famous of the UK would come here and drink glass after glass, gallon after gallon late into night of this water. And it was said to be even nicer than Bath Spars water. The reason being is because it had less sulfate in it according to them tastewise. So, I'm sold. I'm gonna have to try a glass of this stuff. Let's see what we can do.

[00:02:58]Okay, bottoms up.

[00:03:05]It's exceptional, actually. I recommend it. We all need a bit more color of our corn flakes in the morning. Nowadays, not much remains from the spa except these buildings that you may have seen when going along the portway, or you might not have seen because you're moving so fast. This was originally a row of shops for hotel guests.

[00:03:25]Next to that, you're going to find the disused Clifton Rocks Railway, and this was added a bit later. Looking at it now, it's hard to believe that people would actually want to be here, but you have to remember this huge road wasn't here at the time.

[00:03:40]It's seriously disappointing that so much of Bristol's important history is just hidden away down here. Sorry, I have to shout quite loud to hear myself over the traffic. And that is why this part of Bristol is just so neglected.

[00:03:51]It's never going to be able to be a tourist hot spot because it's completely out of the way and it's so busy. There's nothing you can do. And the docks are in a complete state anyway.

[00:04:05]But sadly, nothing lasts forever. The tourists just got tired of having mud eating contests. They couldn't compete anymore with bigger resorts and jet two holidays came along. They just had more to offer than mud eating contests.

[00:04:21]Meanwhile, away from Clifton, much of the medieval parts of Bristol were becoming slumlike. The city was filled with disease and poor people. The wealthy class didn't want to associate with them any longer. They had considered living in St. pools, but then they ditched it because it was too close to everybody else. They invented the new pastime looking down on people, and Clifton on the hill would be deemed perfect for this hobby. Clifton became part of the city of Bristol by the year 1835.

[00:04:49]This would be known as a very wealthy part of the city. It became even more wealthy when an act of parliament ruled that they could not build on the downs.

[00:04:57]Brunell's famous suspension bridge was also completed in 1864.

[00:05:01]This means that Clifton was more affluent, beautiful, and selective than the cramped and lawless streets of Bristol below. It was a race to the top, but the true floater always rises.

[00:05:11]Beautiful Georgian terraces were built in Clifton that still survive today and command some of the highest prices in the city. You can expect to shell out between 2 and 3 million for one. It wasn't all going well, though. Lower Clifton in what is now the Hot Wells area joined a growing list of slums in the city of Bristol.

[00:05:34]Now, here's something you may have heard at one time or another. Clifton was built on slavery.

[00:05:41]Many of the wealthy merchants who made a living on the rivers below Clifton decided to retire in the ever popular and growing Bristol suburb. They put even more money into the area. These were merchants who had profited from the transatlantic slave trade directly or indirectly who now owned large parts of Clifton.

[00:05:59]They wanted to be amongst their own kind. So the grand buildings continued to be placed down as Clifton spilled past the downs. Other wealthy areas like Snape Park and Stoke Bishop were born.

[00:06:09]I'm not saying that Clifton doesn't exist without the slave trade. It's just a fact that some of the money here can be traced back to it. Clifton continued putting huge wealth into the architecture and keeping the downs green, which in turn continues to see these areas looking so nice today. Plus, it truly was the greatest time for architecture. If Clifton had been built in the 1970s, it would have been flattened by now. Imagine huge brutalist buildings standing on the edge of the famous view of Bristol. 2 million pounds to live in a bunker full of asbestos and tears just wouldn't fly. So the wealth went up the hill as it often does. So that explains why the north or more precisely the northwest of Bristol remains so wealthy to this day. Nine out of 10 of the highest earning areas of the city are in the north. And I'm aware that there are a couple of council states to the north of Bristol like Southmead, but I'm not ignoring them.

[00:06:57]I'm just saying overall the north is way more wealthy than the south.

[00:07:02]But anyway, what happened to the rest of Bristol?

[00:07:07]Many of the Georgian parts of Bristol are completely unrecognizable today with a lot of the communities just disappearing entirely. Really, the only way to tell in Bristol if you're in an old part of the town is that there'll be cobbled streets. In areas like St. Dudes, they were the rookeries. Slum houses which you wouldn't wish on your own worst enemy. One family per room built closely to factories and also close to the river Froom which brings with it all of the joys of disease and are also notably flooded here a couple of times too. No sanitation, no privacy, no money and hardly air to breathe.

[00:07:42]Just up the road from St. Jude, you'll find St. Worbergs and you'll see the last surviving Bristol tenement buildings. This is the sort of accommodation that most Bristolians would have been living in at the time.

[00:07:52]Although built in 1906, these would have been deemed luxurious. Conservatives at the time complained that they were too posh and also too ugly. And that's just their wives. It wasn't exactly Westbon trim, I'll put it that way. But this is what St. Judees was like. One street was so it was either known as Bull Punch Lane due to how the wives had to deal with their unruly husbands on a Friday night. Those were the days.

[00:08:16]They tried building churches to calm everybody down because that's what poor people want, more religion. By the 1920s, the stench of the rrookeries in Bristol had got a bit too much to endure and the council started compulsory purchasing the properties for as little as £1. And I'm stood right now in front of the first ever purpose-built council flats in Bristol. These were deemed to be revolutionary at the time as they had a shed for the pram.

[00:08:41]The slum clearance really accelerated during the Bristol Blitz in World War II. Just by coincidence, the slum areas of Bristol were hit extremely hard with German bombing. 89,000 buildings were either damaged or destroyed completely.

[00:08:55]1299 people were killed and the tramway in Bristol was also put out of action for good. what we would do to have this again nowadays. The problem was these areas were just so densely packed and poorly built that the bomb damage and fire wrecked havoc here compared to the affluent and leafy Clifton. And in turn, St. Paul's became the de facto slum.

[00:09:15]When the bombs hit St. Paul's, they proceeded to just kind of ignore the damage there as they look to do other projects around Bristol.

[00:09:24]Cabat Circus, the main shopping area of Bristol, towers over what is left of St. dudes and there is actually some of the oldest buildings in the city back here.

[00:09:32]But you'd never know it because most people choose to avoid this area at all costs. It hardly looks welcoming. It's truly hard to know what to do with this.

[00:09:40]Is this part of our history worth preserving or covering in bleach and flushing?

[00:09:48]So, we lost a lot of housing to the Blitz. Where did all the displaced people go? Something would have to be done about them. The residents on the hills above demand people to look down on. But before we can get to that, you want to know about the south of Bristol, don't you? After all, that's what half of this video is about.

[00:10:05]There wasn't a whole lot of the city of Bristol south of the River Haven. Just Redcliffe, Southville, and of course, the town of Bedminster. Bedminster, originally separate, would become a huge suburb of Bristol, home to lots of industry, and sadly home to a lot of poverty. It was also hit hard during World War II, and also it was deemed that this area was so vile it would need slum clearance. The problem was half of the city was now looking for somewhere to live. Moving them up the hill to Snade Park was completely out of the question. This is when Bristol went into expansion mode. During the 1920s, they started building the first ever council estate, Null West, to cope with everybody from the slum clearances, but they didn't exactly see what was around the corner with the Blitz. Something you may not know is that Null West was bombed quite heavily during World War II. The estate had only been up for 10 years.

[00:10:55]Melvin Square, where I am here, was hit hard and they even tried to drop the Satan bomb on Null. Fortunately, this one didn't go off.

[00:11:03]Perhaps the Germans had a crystal ball and they were trying to do us a favor.

[00:11:07]Now, despite what you may think from my videos, I'm not actually perfect and I do make mistakes. So, a small correction from my last video. The council have built a new youth club on the border of the two waring council estates, but the council are refusing to open the old youth club, which is a long way away from the border wars and the new club.

[00:11:25]And anyway, a place the size of null west should easily have multiple facilities. Apparently, a lot of kids have said they don't want to mix with the other estates. Hey, it's like Westbury on Trim and Southme all over again. This is something that I genuinely believe could help the kids of no West stop killing each other. be that through boxing lessons or just literally anything to keep them off the streets.

[00:11:46]This is the sort of cause that I'd like us to get behind. So, if you're somebody with anything to do with the Nor West youth club, please get in touch and I'll see if there's anything that we can do collectively. Let's force this issue. No West needed to keep expanding. But in the 1950s, we also got Hart Cliff thrown in for good measure. Another major expansion to Bristol.

[00:12:13]All in all, it's been a disaster. What they essentially did was take a load of poor people and just dump them in the middle of nowhere. That's how it feels being in Harkliff, South Bristol. They just left them here. There's nothing here. There's no jobs. All the works in the north, as you're going to find out in a minute. So, it's no wonder that this place ended up gaining a bit of a reputation around this area. Park Cliff is a prime example for why planning for social housing has been overhauled. The council's now mix social housing with regular housing. 20% of any new build estate must now be social housing.

[00:12:46]Regardless of how expensive the new estate is, it is thought that this will spread the wealth more evenly and not get people stuck in the slums surrounded by people of a certain mentality. But it's a bit late for the poor old south of Bristol.

[00:12:58]There was no mixing of the wealth. This in turn makes a place less desirable when it's seen in such a poor light. Is there anything to save the South?

[00:13:09]>> The South just hasn't had the same advantages that the North has had. The North has typically benefited from the higher paying jobs such as Rolls-Royce and British Aerospace, whilst the South only really had the tobacco place, which is no longer open. So, with advantages like that, you can see why the North would do better, being nearer the better jobs. Also, most of Bristol's higher education centers are in the north of the city. There's two universities, both of them north of the river. This creates not only jobs, but an influx of students spending their time and money in an area. The south of Bristol doesn't see any of that student money, which is kind of ironic because Bristol is seen as a student city, just not south of the river. The south of Bristol has this horrible stat. Statistically, it is one of the lowest areas in the entire country of white men going to university. The schools are better in the north, too. If life was fair, wouldn't some of the better teachers be paid to teach at schools where they are truly needed and to make a difference?

[00:14:05]Not only do they have the worst medical facilities in the south of Bristol and no 24-hour A&E, but compared to places in the north, they're expected to live 10 years less on average. Hart Cliff 79 years, Clifton 89 years.

[00:14:23]And then the divide continues when you look at transport within South Bristol, which is also shocking.

[00:14:34]There's only two railway stations. Both of them, Bedminster and Parson Street, are in the northernly part of South Bristol. They aren't even that far from the city center. You may as well walk it. Some parts of South Bristol could be as much as half an hour away from a railway station. The bus can take over an hour during rush hour. That doesn't really sound acceptable for a major city. There's no park and ride anywhere near Hartcliffe, although every other side of Bristol seems to have one. So, that's another reason people from this part of the city might be less economically active.

[00:15:08]Councilors were recently accused of handicapping the south of Bristol. And do you know how they responded to those accusations?

[00:15:15]They said, "Well, there is jobs because we're building this big battery station just south of Bridgewater.

[00:15:22]It's over an hour away. I don't see that's going to help them." And as established, transport isn't great, so they're not going to be able to get there from here. I don't see how that benefits them. It actually seems very patronizing and borderline lying.

[00:15:40]All the way back in 2004, Bristol almost got a tram network, which would have revolutionized the city's transport. It would have been great for the place, but in the end, the Labour government gave the money to Nottingham, and we got nothing here. But don't get too excited anyway because it was never going to go much further south than Bristol Temple meets. So, that wasn't really going to benefit the people of South Bristol anyway. It's failure after failure after failure. No wonder people are struggling here. try and include them for a change for God's sake. On top of that, the house prices haven't kept up with the rest of the city for all of the reasons that I've already listed. But also, a lot of the north, west, and east just have better housing stock. Areas like Eastern and St. Pauls, which weren't demolished in the 30s, but were still considered slums have since been going through regeneration. They're starting to be seen as trendy. In September 2024, Stokes Croft and St. pools were voted the sixth coolest neighborhoods in the world by a team from the magazine of Timeout. They can't possibly have visited. Whoever wrote that needs to be put in Timeout. The prices keep on rising for inner city suburbs, and their reputations aren't as bad as they had in the early 2000s. They kept a lot of their houses from the Georgia and Victorian eras, which is just in higher demand nowadays. Meanwhile, nobody wants to live in a postwar house in South Bristol. It just doesn't feel like there's any easy answers. all the issues I've highlighted. They aren't cheap to solve.

[00:17:05]We've recently got Bristol building again, but it's all being built in the north again around the Filton area.

[00:17:11]Let's build something in the south. They deserve a shot. Building in the south is a very expensive solution, but so many mistakes have already been made. It's most likely too late to fix the Bristol wealth divide. What would you do to solve these problems? Can anything be done? I don't know.

[00:17:28]>> And this is it. This is where my family are from. The old street we used to be in. And I think back, things could have been so different for me. I was horrible, horrible kid, turdy person.

[00:17:39]And if I'd have grown up around here, things would have definitely taken a bad turn for me. In fact, I think no, I know for sure I would have got swept up in trouble.

[00:17:52]And that makes me think about the advantages I've had over someone growing up in South Bristol. Sometimes in life you're dealt a strong hand of cards and other time, especially in South Bristol, life just isn't fair.