Bedminster is a district of Bristol, England, on the south side of the city. It is also the name of a council ward which includes the central part of the district. The eastern part of Bedminster is known as Windmill Hill. To the south is Bedminster Down. Southville ward is also part of Bedminster. History Bedminster was once a small town in Somerset. The town's origins seem to be Roman, centred on the present East Street and West Street. Finds here have been interpreted as an enclosed rural farmstead, dating between the 2nd and 4th centuries, but with possible Iron Age origins. The river Malago, which runs through Bedminster to join the Avon, was an early Christian place for baptisms — the old word for which, beydd may be the origin of Bedminster's name. Substantial Roman remains have also been found at Bedminster Down, including plaster, tesserae (hence mosaic floors), sandstone roof tiles, coins and pottery, hence the site is thought to be a Roman Villa occupied by the Romano-British. By the late Anglo-Saxon period Bedminster was a manor held by King Edward the Confessor in the 11th century, and in the Domesday Book of 1086 was still in royal hands. The Royal Manor of Bedminster comprised all the land south of the Avon, from the Avon Gorge to Brislington, and in the Domesday Book had 25 villeins, 3 slaves and 27 smallholders. In 1154 it was given to the Lords of Berkeley, who kept it for 300 years. In 1605 it was purchased by the Smyth family of Ashton Court who remained the Lords of the Manor until the 19th century. The parish of Bedminster was part of the hundred of Hartcliffe. In 1644, during the English Civil War, Bedminster was sacked by Prince Rupert. When John Wesley preached there in the 1760s, it was a sprawling, decayed market town, with orchards next to brickworks, ropewalks and the beginnings of a mining industry. Open cast coal mining had been done on a small scale since the 1670s, but in 1748 the first shafts were sunk by Sir Jarrit Smyth at South Liberty Lane. By the end of the century there were eighteen coal-pits operating in the Bedminster and Ashton Vale coalfield. Between 1804 and 1809 the New Cut was excavated through the northern part of the parish from Temple Meads to Hotwells, providing a new course for the River