Bristol Book of Days by D. G. Amphlett

Author:D. G. Amphlett [Amphlett, D. G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Bristol Book of Days, General, history
ISBN: 9780752480459
Google: w9MSDQAAQBAJ
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2011-10-10T00:14:26.113523+00:00

June 30th

1654: The diarist John Evelyn visited Bristol and describes it as ‘a city emulating London, not for its large extent, but manner of building, shops, traffic, exchange, market place &c. The governor showed us its castle of no great concernment. The city wholly mercantile, as standing near the famous Severn, commodiously for Ireland, and the Western World ... But what appeared most stupendous to me was the rock of St Vincent, a little distance from the town, the precipice whereof is equal to anything in nature I have seen in the most confragose cataracts of the Alps, the river gliding between them at an extraordinary depth. Here, we went searching for diamonds and to Hot Wells at its foot. There is also on the side of this horrid Alp a very romantic seat: and so we returned to Bath in the evening.’ The diamonds referred to in this extract are known as Bristol Diamonds, but were in fact quartz crystals dug for jewellery and for passing visitors including Celia Fiennes, who visited Bristol in 1698 and acquired ‘a piece just as it came out of the rock ... and appeared to me as a cluster of diamonds polish’d and irregularly cut.’ (Diary of John Evelyn / Celia Fiennes, Through England on a Side Saddle in the Time of William and Mary, Cambridge University Press, 2010)

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