CLIFTON, watering-place and western residential suburb of Bristol, England, with stations on the G.W.R. and L.M.S.R. It occupies the lofty cliffs overhanging the river Avon (q.v.), at a height of 245 ft. above which Brunel's (q.v.) famous suspen sion bridge (1832-64), with a span of 702 ft., bestrides the gorge. The famous hot springs of Clifton (in Hotwells) to which the town owed its rise, issue from the foot of St. Vincent's Rock (308 ft.). The water which has a temperature of about 76° supplies a Spa and pump-room. Immediately above the sus pension bridge the Clifton Rocks railway ascends from the quays by the river-side to the heights above. The Clifton and Durd ham Downs (both on the Gloucestershire side of the river), form the principal pleasure-grounds of Bristol, commanding a beautiful prospect over the irregularly built city, and over the surrounding well-wooded country.
Three ancient earthworks on Clifton Down bear witness to an early settlement on the spot, and a church was in existence as far back as the time of Henry II., when it was bestowed by William de Clyfton on the abbot of the Austin canons in Bristol; but there is no surviving church older than the 18th century. Clifton gives name to a Roman Catholic bishopric. Clifton col lege, a public school, was founded in 1862.