Finzels Reach
development site on the Floating Harbour in Bristol, England
Finzels Reach is a 4.7-acre (1.9 ha) mixed use development site located in central Bristol, England, on a former industrial site, which occupies most of the south bank of Bristol Floating Harbour between Bristol Bridge and St Philip's Bridge, across the river from Castle Park.
A sugar refinery occupied part of the site from 1681, rebuilt by Conrad Finzel I in 1846 to become one of the largest sugar refineries in England. Known as Finzel's Sugar Refinery, it operated until 1881. Georges Bristol Brewery, founded in 1788, grew to occupy most of the site by the mid 20th century, when it was the largest brewery in southwest England. Known after 1961 as the Courage Brewery, it operated until 1999. The site also includes the former Tramway Generating Station, a Grade II* listed building built in 1899 which operated as the power station for Bristol Tramways until 1941.
Development plans were approved in 2006, but work was halted in 2011 due to financial issues with the developer, HDG Mansur, following the 2008 recession and the site was subsequently put on the market in 2013, after the company went into receivership. The development was revived when the developer, Cubex, bought the site in 2014.
History
Sugar refinery
The original Counterslip Sugar House was founded in 1681, in the northeast part of the site. German-born Conrad Finzel I (1793–1859) acquired the refinery in 1839.
“Finzels Reach” enters the record as development site on the Floating Harbour in Bristol, England. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Finzels, Reach and development can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q24993809. Authority coordinates are 51.454, -2.589. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1681, 1846, 1881 and 1788.
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This entry incorporates text from “Finzels Reach” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.