Nailsea Tourist Information

The small North Somerset town of Nailsea lies 7 miles south-west of Bristol and 11 miles north-east of Weston-super-Mare.

To the west of the town are Nailsea moors, for centuries drained and farmed.

Nailsea developed with the coal mining industry, which was established here in the early 16th century.

By the late 1700s there were many pits in the town and these attracted the glass manufacturer John Robert Lucus. The glassworks he set up in Nailsea (producing bottles and plate glass) later became the 4th largest of its kind in the country. Although the glassworks closed in 1873, Nailsea's 'end of shift' domestic pieces and novelty ware are still highly sort after.

In the 1950s Nailsea was selected by Somerset County Council as the site of a new town and conveniently located close to the major business centres of Bristol, Bath and Weston-super-Mare, Nailsea has developed as a commuter town.