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Power: The Longer Tour

Numbers 33-35, Queen Square:
The Home of Captain Woodes Rogers
(Trail Location 13)

Captain Woodes Rogers (1679-1732) is remembered in a plaque on 33-35 Queen Square, he was Captain of a voyage around the world from 1708 to 1711, was rich and invested his money in many things, including the slave ship Whetstone Folly which took 270 enslaved Africans to Jamaica from Africa.

He was a privateer, the captain of a ship specially licensed by the British Government to attack and rob enemy ships. Privateers were allowed because they helped Britain to take over control of the Caribbean islands from Spain and France. Towards the end of his life he was Governor of the British controlled Bahamas and their slave plantations.

The American Consulate
(Trail Location 14)

In 1792 the first overseas Consulate for the United States of America was established in this house. There were very strong trade links between Bristol and the USA, and a lot of slave grown and harvested tobacco came into the city. During the period 1698-1807 around 2 100 slaving related missions sailed out of Bristol, with most involving trade in the American colonies/ the USA.

The Custom House
(Trail Location 15)

This building was designed especially as a Custom House, and the original opened in 1711. The function of the building was to collect taxes on goods coming into the Port and pass them on to the local and national Government. Taxes have never been popular, and the present building was built after 1831 because the original was destroyed in the 1831 Riots.

Marsh Street (Trail Location 16)

Off to the side of Queen Square is Marsh Street, a rather less well to do and powerful address. This street leads to King Street, now famous for its pubs and restaurants. In the eighteenth century neither was a good place to be unless you were fairly tough! Marsh Street was full of rough taverns in the days of the slave trade, and anti-slavery campaigner Thomas Clarkson described the bars of Bristol as notorious for their 'music, drunkenness and profane swearing.' We think that there were thirty-seven bars on this one street! A lot of sailors who worked on slave ships were recruited in these bars when they were drunk.

The Longer Tour ends here.
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