Bristol
Parish in the County of Gloucestershire
Etymology
The City of Bristol is a county borough, which now includes, besides the old city, the older parishes of St George, Stapleton, Clifton (which was originally in Swinehead Hundred), Henbury and Westbury on Trym (which were in Henbury Hundred), and Horfield (which was in the Lower Division of Berkeley Hundred), besides several parishes from south of the Avon in Somerset (Bedminster, Bishopworth, Brislington), which will be included in the survey of that county. But there was formerly some doubt about the exact southern boundary; in 1221 (Eyre), for example, the Knights Templars whose fee included the parishes of St Mary Redcliff and St Thomas refused to plead outside Somerset, and this property remained a member of the Somerset preceptory (cf. Templar cxxxi ff); in 1249 it was incorporated in Bristol (BrKal). On the parochial boundaries of Bristol cf. C. S. Taylor in BG xxxiii, 126 ff. The arrangement of material here follows the older parish organisation.