Speedwell, Bristol

The Speedwell area had many small coal mines in the 19th century.^[3][4] In the 1970s some of these old workings had to be stabilised in the area of Speedwell secondary school. A goods only railway connected the collieries and the Peckett and Sons locomotive works (also known as the Atlas Locomotive Works) with the Midland railway at Kingswood junction.^[5] In the early 1970s, shortly after Avon county council was formed, approximately half of Speedwell secondary school burnt down, the school was partly rebuilt. A number of 'temporary' prefab houses, built in the housing shortage after the World War II, existed in the west side of the suburb into the 21st century.^[6]