Bristol is the largest city in the south west of England, with a population of approximately half a million. The city lies between Somerset and Gloucestershire and has been politically administered by both counties in part at various times. However, Bristol is historically a county in its own right and is properly entitled the City and County of Bristol.

 

A few miles from Bristol's centre, two motorways intersect. The M4 from London to South Wales bridges the River Severn before it widens to become the Bristol Channel. The North-South M5 skirts the city at Avonmouth.

 

Brunel's famous Clifton Suspension Bridge is such a well-known Bristol landmark nowadays that it is difficult to imagine the Avon Gorge without it.
 

The area called The Centre is not the original heart of the old settlement. It was the Tramways Centre which was the terminus for the tram and later bus service. Boats used to moor here until the early 1900s, when the river was gradually covered over. A lot of new building has taken place, mainly of large office blocks and shopping areas. On the other hand effort has been made to restore some of the neglected architectural features of the past.



The Tramways Clock was placed on the Company offices in 1897. It was controlled by the Alliance Electrical Control System, which kept it within a tenth of a second of Greenwich Mean Time, as there was a ten minute time difference between London and Bristol.

The Bristol Master Clock which controlled this and a few other clocks was regulated by the electric signal from Greenwich. The Master Clock still hangs outside a shop in College Green, but as all of the British Isles is now in the same time zone (GMT or BST depending on time of year) the Control System is no longer in force.

Behind the Tramways Clock can be seen the modern clock of the Colston Tower, erected in 1973. The building has been described as "An effective punctuation mark, a kind of giant bookend stopping the Centre from bleeding away into Broadmead."