Exploring the history of Bristol Harbour Festival

Bristol as we know it would not exist without the harbour.

For many centuries, for better and for – often horrifyingly – worse, it enabled the trade by which the city accrued its wealth and grew ever larger.

In modern Bristol, with the commercial docks long since gone, the harbour is leisure time central, from the boaters and paddle boarders on its surface to the drinkers, diners, joggers and loafers on its ancient perimeter.

Where does this Bristol Harbour Festival fit into the story?

Well, despite annually attracting crowds of a quarter of a million, it’s much more than the most vibrant manifestation of the area’s reinvention.

Because, as a quick leaf through history attests, without it, the harbour may not be here at all…

The Water Festival, as it was then called, was held in June 1971 – photo: Bristol24/7

As the 1960s gave way to the 70s, the space was really just a working port in name alone.

Rather than navigate the twisty, tide-dependent waters of the Avon, ships had increasingly been offloading their cargo downriver at Avonmouth.

In 1971, when that port was reached by the M5, it became more attractive still.

Plans were even in place to welcome new-fangled container ships, in a new dock eventually opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1977.

Avonmouth was the future and Bristol harbour was yesterday’s news. You could see it in the acres of tumbledown buildings, the eerily quiet waters, and the masses of cranes being dismantled and flogged off for scrap.

The festival’s fundamental appeal lies in how it has evolved over the years to reflect the city as a whole.

Having once been the lifeline for trade in and out of the city, in 1969 Bristol City Council announced plans to close the docks – photo: Paul Box

In council offices, the unthinkable was being thought. If the city didn’t need a harbour, it did need roads.

Plans were drawn up that would have seen an M32 roundabout situated over St Augustine’s Reach, another large junction at the M-Shed, an outer circuit running along the side of Brandon Hill and crossing the docks to where the SS Great Britain rests today, and the filling in of Feeder canal.

Water would be reduced to a cluster of pools, spelling the end of vessels sailing in and out of the harbour.

If the scheme sounds fanciful, consider some of the contemporary plans that were carried out: the dual carriageway that ran diagonally through Queen Square (removed in 1999), the multi-lane scars still stranding St Mary Redcliffe and bisecting Totterdown, and so on. The threat was real.

Step forward a collection of groups intent on overturning the plans, most notably the regional branch of the Inland Waterways Association (IWA), experienced campaigners after fighting to save the nation’s canals.

In a bid to highlight the harbour’s potential, it was they who suggested the first incarnation of the event you’re attending today.

Nowadays, children-entertaining circus aces have become central to the Harbour Festival – photo: Paul Box

The Water Festival, as it was then called, was held in June 1971. While organisers bent the ears of politicians behind the scenes, a crowd of more than 50,000 people were treated to a programme of traditional maritime entertainment – tug-of-war, marching bands, naval displays, etc – and the congregation of almost 100 vessels.

The benefits of retaining access to shipping had been made clear and, later that year, councillors passed legislation to ensure that it would continue.

If campaigners had scored their first success, the bigger picture remained uncertain. And so, in 1972, the festival returned with 50 per cent more boats, including some seriously big vessels loaned by the Royal Navy. A year later, it was larger again.

The first festival’s main aim was to show that the inland waterway of the city was a perfect location for people to enjoy leisure – photo: Bristol24/7

The first harbour festival was held in 1971, when a crowd of more than 50,000 people were treated to a programme of traditional maritime entertainment.

By now, with the impact of the huge road building programme all too evident, opposition to its continuation was becoming increasingly vociferous.

Events far beyond the harbour walls were starting to take effect, too.

There might not have been too many upsides to the fiscal ravages inflicted by the oil crisis and ensuing three-day week, but perhaps this was one: with the scheme now both economically and politically unaffordable, the legal time limit for the work to be carried out was quietly allowed to run down.

If the festival’s home had been saved, some of its iconic backdrop had not.

There were 26 cranes left standing when the docks were finally closed in 1975, all of them slated to follow the earlier load lifters to the scrapheap.

Step forward a group of campaigners with a more foresighted appreciation of their true worth, including Stephen Macfarlane, the influential architect; John Grimshaw, who would later found the cycling charity, Sustrans; and George Ferguson, who became the first elected mayor of Bristol in 2012.

Thanks to them, we still have the four electric cranes outside M-Shed, the only group of Stothert and Pitt travelling cranes known to be in working order. Since last year’s festival, they have been granted grade II-listed building status, with Historic England describing them as “emblematic” of Bristol.

The four instantly recognisable landmarks of Bristol’s skyline were given grade II-listed status – photo: Paul Box

As, of course, is the event they frame. Now more than ever. In its early days, the festival was very, well… boaty.

Over the course of its first 30 or so years, the event was known in turn as the Water Festival, the Bristol Regatta and Rally of Boats, the Harbour Regatta, and the International Festival of the Sea. Only at the start of the millennium did it become the Harbour Festival.

While the boats and water-based entertainment remains crucial, the festival’s fundamental appeal lies in how it has evolved over the years to do more than show off the prowess of the salty sea dog community and instead reflect the city as a whole.

Local musicians have come to play a huge role in the event, as have the likes of the city’s food merchants and children-entertaining circus aces.

Other events might serve certain tastes and demographics, but nowhere will you see a greater number and type of Bristolian than the 250,000 who annually celebrate Harbour Fest.

Bristol Harbour Festival takes place from Friday until Sunday. For more information, visit www.bristolharbourfestival.co.uk

Main photo: Bristol24/7

Read next:

• Remembering the road severed in half by the M32
• Bristol Harbour Festival announces full programme for 2023
• How children can go free at SS Great Britain for summer

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