St Philip's Marsh
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St Philip's Marsh is an industrial inner suburb of
Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
,
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. It is bounded by River Avon and Harbour feeder canal making it an almost island area, unlike the other two areas surrounded by water, it was historically part of Gloucestershire and is part of North Bristol. The site is home of Avonmeads Retail Park, a large retail and leisure park with
Showcase Cinemas Showcase Cinemas is a movie theater chain owned and operated by National Amusements. It operates in a total of four countries: the United States (flagship), Brazil, the United Kingdom and Argentina. Locations Showcase operates more than 950 ...
and a Hollywood Bowl
ten-pin bowling Ten-pin bowling is a type of bowling in which a bowler rolls a bowling ball down a wood or synthetic lane toward ten pins positioned evenly in four rows in an equilateral triangle. The objective is to knock down all ten pins on the first roll ...
centre among its tenants. It was extensively redeveloped in the 15 years to 2007. A bypass runs over the River Avon creating a major transport link from the
A4 road This is a list of roads designated A4. A4 is the name of several roads: * A004 road (Argentina), a road connecting Buenos Aires-La Plata highway with the Juan María Gutiérrez circle * A4 motorway (Austria), a road connecting Vienna and Nickelsd ...
in south east Bristol, to junction 3 of the M32 motorway near the city centre. In past years St Philip's marsh was a housing development for the workers of Bristol's market area (now known as Old Market). One of St Philip's' more influential residents during the early 1900s was George Townsend, a major property developer of the South Bristol area. His family home situated in the St Anne's area of Bristol is still standing today and a reminder of Bristol's history. Today there is very little housing in the area making it almost deserted at night, and other than the retail area it does contain one shop, pub, takeaway and Sparke Evans Park. St Davids Welsh Anglican Church was sited on Feeder road until demolition in 1922. Other churches in the area include St Silas (also Feeder Road) which was damaged during the Bristol Blitz.


Geology

The solid geology of St Philip's Marsh comprises
Triassic The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 Mya. The Triassic is the first and shortest period ...
Redcliffe
Sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...
in the east, and Triassic
mudstone Mudstone, a type of mudrock, is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. Mudstone is distinguished from '' shale'' by its lack of fissility (parallel layering).Blatt, H., and R.J. Tracy, 1996, ''Petrology. ...
and halite-stone of the
Mercia Mudstone Group The Mercia Mudstone Group is an early Triassic lithostratigraphic group (a sequence of rock strata) which is widespread in Britain, especially in the English Midlands – the name is derived from the ancient kingdom of Mercia which corresponds to t ...
to the west. The solid geology is overlain by
Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...
Tidal Flat Deposits of
silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension with water. Silt usually has a floury feel when ...
and
clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...
, which are in turn covered by deep deposits of made ground.


Sparke Evans Park

Sparke Evans Park is situated on the riverside not far from the retail park. The land was donated by P.F. Sparke Evans and Jonathan Evans, local tannery owners, in 1902. It is a survivor from a time when the Marsh was a residential area. Since the area has become almost totally industrial it now gets little use, what use it does get is by workers on breaks and from the residents of Arno's Vale and
Totterdown Totterdown is an inner-suburb of Bristol, England, situated just south of the River Avon and to the south-east of Temple Meads railway station and the city centre. It rises relatively steeply from the river bank to a largely terraced Victorian ...
as there is a bridge linking the two areas. A shelter dating from 1925 is still extant on the far west of the park featuring wrought-iron pillars, with ornate and decorative brackets.


Railways

St Philip's Marsh is located close to
Bristol Temple Meads railway station Bristol Temple Meads is the oldest and largest railway station in Bristol, England. It is located away from London Paddington. It is an important transport hub for public transport in the city; there are bus services to many parts of the city ...
, on the
Great Western Main Line The Great Western Main Line (GWML) is a main line railway in England that runs westwards from London Paddington to . It connects to other main lines such as those from Reading to Penzance and Swindon to Swansea. Opened in 1841, it was the or ...
.
St Philip's Marsh depot St Philip's Marsh depot is a railway depot located in the St Philip's Marsh district of Bristol, England. It was established as a steam locomotive shed in 1910 but this facility closed in the 1960s. A new diesel facility opened nearby at Marsh ...
is a train maintenance depot located within the district. Originally developed by the
Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...
as a twin-turntable facility for freight locomotives, it was closed to steam in June 1964 and redeveloped as a diesel depot. Owned by
Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...
under depot code PM, it is leased to train operator
Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...
, and has been used since their introduction for the maintenance of
InterCity 125 The InterCity 125 (originally Inter-City 125New trai ...
trains operating between London Paddington, Bristol and
South Wales South Wales ( cy, De Cymru) is a loosely defined region of Wales bordered by England to the east and mid Wales to the north. Generally considered to include the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, south Wales extends westwards ...
. Both Class 43 power cars and Mark 3 coaching stock are serviced here. Following the merger of
First Great Western Great Western Railway (GWR) is a British train operating company owned by FirstGroup that operates the Greater Western passenger railway franchise. It manages 197 stations and its trains call at over 270. GWR operates long-distance inter-city ...
(FGW) and
Wessex Trains Wessex Trains was a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by National Express that operated the Wessex Trains franchise from October 2001 until March 2006, when the franchise was merged with the Great Western and Thames Valley f ...
operations into one new franchise in 2006, St Philip's Marsh took over the maintenance of FGW's fleet of diesel multiple units, previously maintained at
Cardiff Canton TMD Cardiff Canton TMD ( cy, Depo Cynnal a Chadw Treganna Caerdydd) is a diesel locomotive traction maintenance depot in Cardiff, Wales. Its depot code is CF. It is operated by Transport for Wales. The depot is used by Transport for Wales fleet and ...
by
Arriva Trains Wales Arriva Trains Wales (ATW; cy, Trenau Arriva Cymru) was a British train operating company owned by Arriva UK Trains that operated the Wales & Borders franchise. It ran urban and inter-urban passenger services to all railway stations in Wales, ...
. The move allowed the removal of the need for the majority of trains operating area, mostly in the
West Country The West Country (occasionally Westcountry) is a loosely defined area of South West England, usually taken to include all, some, or parts of the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Bristol, and, less commonly, Wiltshire, Gloucesters ...
, requiring to travel through the congested
Severn Tunnel The Severn Tunnel ( cy, Twnnel Hafren) is a railway tunnel in the United Kingdom, linking South Gloucestershire in the west of England to Monmouthshire in south Wales under the estuary of the River Severn. It was constructed by the Great Western ...
.


References


External links


Map of St Philip's Marsh circa 1900
* A
overhead view
of St Philip's Marsh T&RSMD. {{Areas of Bristol Areas of Bristol