The empty stone plinth on Anchor Road, near the Centre, is where Edward Colston's statue stood until 7 June 2020, when it was pulled from its pedestal during a Black Lives Matter demonstration and rolled into Bristol Harbour. Colston (1636–1721) was a Bristol merchant, philanthropist, and major beneficiary of the Royal African Company, which transported an estimated 84,000 enslaved people from Africa to the Americas. Streets, schools, and buildings across Bristol had been named after him.
The plinth has been left empty — with the exception of a brief appearance by Jen Reid's sculpture "A Surge of Power" — while the city debates what, if anything, should replace Colston. The debate has been long and occasionally heated. The original statue was recovered from the harbour and is now displayed at M Shed, horizontal and covered with the protest placards placed on it during the events of 2020, an unexpectedly powerful exhibit. The empty plinth is itself now a site worth seeing, both for what it represents and for the ongoing civic conversation it embodies.