Map - Nailsea

Nailsea is a town in Somerset, England, 8 mi southwest of Bristol, and 11 mi northeast of Weston-super-Mare. The nearest village is Backwell, which lies south of Nailsea on the opposite side of the Bristol to Exeter railway line. Nailsea had a population of 15,630 in the 2011 Census.

The town was an industrial centre based on coal mining and glass manufacture, which have now been replaced by service industries. The surrounding North Somerset Levels has wildlife habitats including the Tickenham, Nailsea and Kenn Moors biological Site of Special Scientific Interest and Bucklands Pool/Backwell Lake Local Nature Reserve. Nailsea is close to the M5 motorway and Bristol Airport, and its railway station, Nailsea & Backwell, has services operated by the Great Western Railway.

Secondary education is provided by Nailsea School (rebuilt in 2009), and primary education by St Francis School, Grove Junior School, Kingshill School and Golden Valley. Churches include the 14th-century Holy Trinity Church and Christ Church, which was built in 1843.

The name of the town may be derived from the Old English for Naegl's island, although it has also been suggested it was spelt Naylsey in 1657.

The parish of Nailsea was part of the Portbury Hundred. Little is known of the area occupied by Nailsea before the coal mining industry began, although it was used as a quarry in Roman times from which pennant sandstone was extracted. The Romans otherwise ignored Nailsea from 40 to 400 AD, but left a small villa near Jacklands Bridge.

Nailsea's early economy relied on coal mining, which began as early as the 16th century. The earliest recorded date for coal mining in Nailsea was 1507 when coal was being transported to light fires at Yatton. By the late 1700s the town had a large number of pits. Around this time Nailsea was visited by the social reformer Hannah More who founded a Sunday school for the workers. The Elms Colliery,(Middle Engine Pit), one of the most complete examples of an 18th-century colliery left in England, is now in disrepair. It has been designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument and is included in the Heritage at Risk Register produced by English Heritage. Remains of the old pits, most of which had closed down by the late 19th century as mining capital migrated to the richer seams of South Wales, are still visible around the town.

The coal mines attracted glass manufacturer John Robert Lucas, who in 1788 established the Nailsea Glassworks that became the fourth-largest of its kind in the United Kingdom, mostly producing low-grade bottle glass. The works closed down in 1873, but "Nailsea" glass (mostly made by glass workers at the end of their shift in Nailsea and at other glass works) is still sought after by collectors around the world. The site of the glass works has been covered by a Tesco supermarket car park, leaving it relatively accessible for future archaeological digs. Other parts of the site have been cleared and filled with sand to ensure that the remains of the old glass works are preserved. Nowhere was a historical hamlet that existed on the west side of the town until 1967, when it was demolished for development. Nowhere Wood, a small residential woodland, is named after it.

The 15th-century Nailsea Court, southwest of the town, is a Grade I listed building.