Calle Bristol
The name refers to Bristol, a port city in southwest England, the second-largest English city by population for much of the 18th century. The street belongs to the La Guindalera neighbourhood, within the Colonia Madrid Moderno, a development built between 1890 and 1906 whose promoters adopted European place names for their streets.
Before it was a name on a Madrid street map, Bristol was, for the first half of the 18th century, the second city of England by population, behind only London. Its port ran Atlantic trade, until late in the century the rise of Liverpool and Manchester pushed it aside. The place name comes from Old English Brycgstow, “meeting place by a bridge.”
The Calle Bristol belongs to the Colonia Madrid Moderno, a development that began in 1890 on land in the eastern outskirts through architect Julián Marín and lawyer Francisco Andrés Octavio. Its promoters wanted something specific: the most European neighbourhood in Madrid. So they named the streets after cities of the continent, and Bristol fit the catalogue.
Here the mystery begins. The municipal agreement that set the name does not appear. The nearest clue comes from the neighbouring Calle de Londres, named in September 1905, just as the colony’s third phase advanced; by analogy Bristol might belong to those same months.