Uploader's Comments

This part of Downleaze (there are three) faces Durdham Down, an area of 210 acres. It was long used as grazing land, since its thin soils made it unsuitable for arable land or woodland. An Anglo-Saxon charter of 883 grants grazing rights over part of Durdham Down. The down was the commons of pasture for the manor of Henbury during the Middle Ages. The land was also valuable farmland used by many livestock farms in the area. In 1643 and 1645, during the English Civil War, Royalist and Parliamentarian armies assembled on the down.

It has been owned by Bristol City Council from 1861 ‘for the benefit of the people of Bristol.’