Clifton, Bristol

Clifton ward, which includes Hotwells, has a population of 10,452 in 5,007 households, according to adjusted figures for the 2001 census. On the same basis, Clifton East ward has a population of 9,538 in 4,741 households. In Clifton ward, 27% of the adult population (aged 16 to 74 years) is in full-time education.[10][11]

Clifton High school, in Clifton

Immediately north of Clifton is Durdham Down, a relatively flat and open area, used for recreation purposes. On the western edge of Clifton is Clifton Down, a less open/more wooded area, adjacent to the gorge. Clifton is home to many buildings of the University of Bristol, including Goldney Hall; Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Clifton Suspension Bridge; the Roman Catholic Clifton Cathedral; Christ Church, Clifton Down; Clifton College; Clifton High School; the former Amberley House preparatory school; Queen Elizabeth's Hospital School, The Clifton Club; and Bristol Zoo.

Clifton is served by Clifton Down railway station on the local Severn Beach railway line, and by frequent bus services from central Bristol. It has road links to the city centre and outer western suburbs, and across the Clifton Suspension Bridge to Leigh Woods in North Somerset. Between 1893 and 1934, it was connected to Hotwells by the Clifton Rocks Railway.

• David Anderson - vicar of Clifton Church (1864–1881)[12]
• Angela Carter - author (whilst studying at the University of Bristol)[13]
• Carla Denyer - councillor for Clifton (2015–present) and Green Party co-leader (2021–present).
• Eliza Walker Dunbar - early female doctor[14]
• Eugénie de Montijo - later Empress Eugenie of France, wife of Napoleon III, was a student in Royal York Crescent where she was known as "Carrots"[15]
• Keith Floyd - restaurateur and TV personality[16]
• W. G. Grace - cricketer and surgeon[17]
• Francis Greenway - renowned Australian architect and designer of The Clifton Club[18]
• John Grimshaw - founder of Sustrans and a voice for cyclists in the UK.
• Sarah Guppy - inventor and collaborator with Isambard Kingdom Brunel[19]
• Charles Hansom - architect of Clifton College[20]
• Henry Selby Hele-Shaw - engineer and inventor of the Hele-Shaw clutch, Professor at the University of Bristol[21]
• Victoria Hughes - carer for prostitutes whilst cleaning the public toilets on Clifton Down[22]
• Annie Kenney - leading suffragette[23]
• Thomas MacAulay - historian[24]
• Charles Miles - cricketer and soldier[25]
• Peter Nichols - actor and playwright at the Bristol Old Vic
• Frank Norman - novelist and playwright
• Peter O'Toole - actor starting his career at the Bristol Old Vic[26]
• Svetlana Alliluyeva - later known as Lana Peters, Stalin's daughter[27]
• Edward Innes Pocock - Scottish rugby player, member of Cecil Rhodes' Pioneer Column, born in Clifton in 1855
• Reginald Innes Pocock - British zoologist, Edward's younger brother, born in 1863
• J. D. Sedding - English church architect
• Ellen Sharples and Rolinda Sharples - artist family
• Tom Stoppard - playwright
• John Addington Symonds - writer[28]
• Paule Vézelay - artist[29]
• Richmond Waller - English cricketer and decorated Royal Marines officer
• Fabian Ware - Founder of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Born Clifton 17 June 1869
• Sir Lawrence Weaver - influential editor of Country Life, architectural writer and organiser of the British Empire Exhibition in Wembley in 1924
• William West - artist and builder of Clifton Observatory[30]

In Frances Burney's novel Evelina (1778), young gentlemen are racing their phaetons on the public highways of Clifton (then still outside Bristol), and not without incident.

Part of the background to Philippa Gregory's historical novel A Respectable Trade – dealing mainly with the slave trade in late 18th-century Bristol – is the start of construction at Clifton, then a far area outside the city limits as they were at the time. In some passages characters debate whether Clifton could ever become viable and whether investment in real estate there would not be too risky – questions which were evidently quite relevant at the time though to the modern reader the answers are obvious.

The song "Clifton in the Rain" by Al Stewart appears on his first album Bed-Sitter Images.

The song "32 West Mall", which appeared on the 1971 album Stackridge was named after the communal flat that the band shared as their headquarters at 32 West Mall in 1970.[31]

The 1978 children's paranormal drama "The Clifton House Mystery" – produced by HTV; was set in the Clifton area. The plot revolved around a family moving into an old house; and subsequently finding a skeleton of a long-dead person in a hidden room. After some unexplained incidents, they become convinced that a ghost connected in some way with the Bristol Riots of 1831 is haunting the house. The plot is based on the story of the real-life Thomas Brereton, a Dragoon commander who committed suicide after being court-martialled for his lenient approach to suppressing the rioters; although the ghost is named "George Bretherton" in the TV series.

Clifton has been featured in many television sitcoms, including the late 1970s and early 1980s TV series Shoestring, which was set in Bristol and starred Trevor Eve as a radio reporter and part-time sleuth. Much of the BBC series Mistresses was set there, including the 2008, 2009 and 2010 seasons. The TV series Teachers was partly filmed in Clifton, as was teen drama Skins and Being Human. Costume drama The House of Eliott was also largely filmed in Clifton, including at Goldney Hall and Berkeley Square.

The long-running hospital drama Casualty also drew on Clifton for many scenes between 1986 and 2009, when it was filmed in Bristol.[32]

In a 2017 episode of the American historical adventure television series Black Sails, Blackbeard played by Ray Stevenson mentions Clifton as being the home of his mother.

A number of films have also been set in Clifton, including The Truth About Love (2005) starring Dougray Scott and Jennifer Love Hewitt, The Foolish Things (2005), starring Lauren Bacall and Anjelica Huston, and Starter for 10 (2006), starring James McAvoy and produced by Tom Hanks, which was filmed largely on Royal York Crescent.[33] The 1962 film about delinquent teenagers, Some People, starring Kenneth More and Ray Brooks was filmed in and around Clifton.[34]

In 2010, Bristol-based art gallery Antlers Gallery exhibited its first exhibition Grotesques. The exhibition was held at a disused retail space in Whiteladies Gate. The project featured work by eleven Bristol based artists.

Clifton has a long history of natural history television programming and global conservation, due to the presence of the former Bristol Zoo in the north of the ward and the proximity of the BBC Natural History Unit, which means that more than 25% of the world's wildlife programmes are made in Bristol.[35] Animal Magic with Johnny Morris was filmed at Bristol Zoo for the duration of the programme (1963–1983).

The UK arm of the conservation charity Ape Action Africa, which rescues and rehabilitates chimpanzees and gorillas in Cameroon, West Africa, operates out of Clifton.