Along with the Feeder Canal, the New Cut forms part of the three miles of manmade waterways. It was constructed between 1804 and 1809 to divert the tidal River Avon. It provided a tidal bypass for smaller vessels to enter or leave the Harbour further inland, at Bathurst or Totterdown locks. This delivered the barges and small sailing vessels closer to the parts of the Harbour they wanted to use.
Work commenced on the construction on 1 May 1804 at 5am at a ceremony conducted by the directors of the Bristol Docks Company. Excavation was made through the predominant Redcliffe Sandstone, a Triassic rock that can be seen in cuttings all along the New Cut.
A report to the company stated that in the first year of excavation 596,831 cubic metres of earth and rock had been removed at a cost of £120,138 12s. 1d.The initial estimates of £300,000 for the whole docks scheme proved insufficient and further acts had to be passed to raise the capital to £600,000. The Avon was diverted into the New Cut in January 1809 and on 2 April the first ships passed up the cut and entered the harbour at the Bathurst Basin.
On 1 May 1809 the docks project was certified as complete and a celebratory dinner was held on Spike Island for a thousand of the navigational engineers who had worked on the construction. Latimer’s Annals of Bristol tells us that at the celebration ‘two oxen, roasted whole, a proportionate weight of potatoes, and six hundredweight of plum pudding’ were consumed, along with a gallon of strong beer for each man. When the beer ran out a mass brawl between English and Irish labourers turned into a riot which had to be suppressed by the press gang.