Stapleton Road has a rich and varied history. Once a vibrant gateway community and the main route from Bristol to Gloucester, the road staged the siege of the old city wall by Cromwell’s infantry in the 1600s and in the 1700s experienced substantial growth around the coal mines supplying fuel to the growing brass, copper, glass, sugar, pottery and distilling industries. Stapleton Road had a turnpike gate erected to collect a toll from travellers to pay for repair to the roads. Considering this an unfair tax, the miners staged a rebellion and burned down the gates outside what is now the Three Blackbirds.

As the city grew around Stapleton Road, the market gardeners sold up and moved outwards so their land could be used for new development. Baptist Mills right on the edge of Stapleton Road is viewed by many as the birthplace of the industrial revolution and Abraham Darby renowned for his foundering of the Bristol Brass Works Company in 1702. The brass industry thrived in Bristol for 40 odd years until pollution of the River Avon became problematic and in the late eighteenth century manufacturers elsewhere in the country sought to break the monopolies established by Bristol.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, 70 percent of the local population were migrants who had moved to the area in search of work and a better standard of life. The River Frome was central to the growth of industry along Stapleton Road and in Baptist Mills. Galas and community festivals would often take place on the riverbanks. Established in 1830, the main Easton coalmine was at the core of the working community. To the annoyance of the Church of England, most spiritual practice was within non-conformist churches and a Wesleyan Chapel was erected in 1837 only to be demolished in 1971 for the construction of the M32 roundabout.

The Stapleton Road Railway Station was opened in 1863 and became a major station in the Bristol area with four platforms serving South Wales, Clifton and Avonmouth. Travel down Stapleton Road and Old Market was by horse drawn tram until the first bus made its journey on this route in 1938.

In the late 1880s, Stapleton Road was a bustling shopping centre reputed to be one of the most varied and interesting shopping thoroughfares in the city. Then in the twentieth century post war redevelopment plans for Easton fell short of expectations. City Council had stated that by 1980 Easton would be a self-contained village of 13,000 people with a revolutionary shopping precinct offering everything within a quarter mile radius.

Today, Stapleton Road is still a community of migrants and entrepreneurs making it the most interesting and undoubtedly diverse shopping street in the South West. Stapleton Road is undergoing much in the way of regeneration, the road to a promising future.