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The small
village of Pill lies on the southern bank of the River
Avon, adjacent to Easton-in-Gordano and opposite the Bristol
suburb of Shirehampton.
The village's
unusual name means 'inlet' or 'creek' off a river or channel.
This
area has provided some of the earliest evidence of human occupation
in the British Isles. Palaeolithic tools, uncovered in gravel
terraces above the River Avon, have been dated back some 250-400,000
years.
Pill
was traditionally the residence of the pilots who guided vessels
from the Bristol Channel through the Avon Gorge to the Port
of Bristol. Once boasting 21 public houses, the village was
notorious for drunkenness and wild abandon. Pilots were no
longer needed on the River Avon when the Port of Bristol was
relocated to Avonmouth and the Royal Portbury Dock in the
20th century.
A small
rowed ferry once operated between Pill and Shirehampton but
this closed owing to lack of trade once Avonmounth Bridge
(on the M5) opened in 1974.
The village
still has a yacht club.
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Pill
