The Spread of the Great Plague of 1603-1604 to Bristol and its Rural Hinterland.

The Great Plague of1603-1604 was the widest-spreading and one of the longest-lasting epidemics in seventeenth-century England. It reached Bristol in June 1603 and went on to kill one fifth of the population. Plague was primarily an urban disease in early modern England, but how it arrived in cities and the extent to which it spread outside them has received little attention. This article suggests that the 1603-1604 outbreak probably arrived by roadfrom London. The impact on the city's parishes was swift and severe. The disease later spread to some closely associated communities, such as Pill and Shirehampton, further down the River Avon. Beyond this, the transmission of plague to nearby rural parishes was limited It seems likely that the factors protecting the unaffected rural parishes from the epidemic were their much lower population densities, combined with their relative isolation from major communication routes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]