 Old Market suffered decades of neglect and severe decline in the mid-20th century due to the removal of Bristol's historic central shopping area from Castle Street to Broadmead and the construction of Temple Way Underpass and Easton Way, which severed it from Bristol's pre-war shopping axis in both directions.Some important buildings still suffer from neglect, but the actions of local conservationists together with grant-aided schemes in the wake of its declaration as a Conservation Area in 1979 have done much to arrest the decline.Old Market has in recent years become a centre of Bristol's gay scene, and has been proclaimed as ‘Bristol’s Gay Village’.