Bristol Temple Meads is a major in bristolrailway station in Bristol, England. It is situated about a mile south-east of the city centre, and is the main station for central Bristol. Bristol's other main-line station, Bristol Parkway, is situated on the northern outskirts of the town.

The station is presently served by express services on the Great Western route from London Paddington, Virgin Cross-Country express services between the North of England and the South West, and local and regional trains. Due to the layout of the lines around the station, trains to Wales, the midlands, the north, London and down to the south coast all exit out the east end of the station. Only trains heading on the line down to Cornwall exit out the west end. The station has its platforms numbered 1-15, excluding 14; most of the platform faces have two numbers, with platform 4 (for example) being the south end of platform 3.

The name of the site where the station was built derives from the nearby Temple (or Holy Cross) Church, which was built by the Knights Templar in the 12th century, rebuilt in the 14th century, and gutted by bombing during World War II. The site was within the boundaries of the old city, but some way distant from the commercial centre, and on the far side from fashionable Clifton. It did have the advantage of facing onto the Floating Harbour for transhipment of goods onto boats. The city's cattle market had been built on neighbouring land in 1830.

The original terminal station was built for the Great Western Railway (GWR) and was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the engineer of the GWR. The 72'-wide (22 m) train shed has a wooden box-frame roof and cast-iron columns disguised as hammerbeams above Tudor arches. The station also included a more utilitarian engine shed, and is fronted by an office building in the Tudor style. It is the oldest railway terminus in the world, and is regarded as one of the best Victorian station buildings. Services to Bath started on 31 August 1840 and to London Paddington in 1841. This part of the station was closed in 1965, and fell into disrepair for over twenty years. From 1989 until 1999 it was the home of The Exploratory, an interactive science centre, and is now the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum. It is a grade I listed building.

The adjacent through station, which is still used by trains, was built between 1871 and 1878 under the direction of Brunel's former associate Matthew Digby Wyatt. The curved train shed is 500' (154 m) long on the platform edge and has a wrought-iron roof structure by engineer Francis Fox. It replaced the 1844 station of the Bristol and Exeter Railway, which was perpendicular to the GWR station. The Bristol and Exeter's office building, by S. C. Fripp, still stands alongside the station approach. At the same time the Brunel terminus was extended eastward to join up with the new building; since the closure of the terminal station in 1965 this extension has served as a covered car park. The through station was further extended on the east side in the 1930s by architect P. E. Culverhouse, with the addition of two further platform islands, allowing the removal of a narrow island platform in the middle of the 1870s train shed. The through station is also a grade I listed building.

The GWR's goods yard was built on the north-west side of the station, between the passenger station and the Floating Harbour, allowing transhipment of goods onto boats (though not onto ships, as the wharf was upstream of Bristol Bridge). In 1872 a further connection to the harbour was made in the form of the Bristol Harbour Railway, which ran between the passenger station and the goods yard, onto a bridge over the street outside, and then descended into a tunnel under the churchyard of St. Mary Redcliffe on its way to a wharf in a more convenient position downstream of Bristol Bridge. The bridge outside the station remained in use until 1964, but has now, along with the goods yard, been entirely swept away.

The station was built for the GWR's broad gauge, and in 1844 broad gauge trains of the Bristol and Gloucester Railway began running from the station. In 1846 the B&G was taken over by the Midland Railway, and by 1853 it had been converted to standard gauge, with mixed gauge track running into Temple Meads. The station remained a joint GWR-Midland (later GWR-LMS) operation until nationalisation. It was converted to standard gauge when the GWR finally abandoned broad gauge in 1892.

• John Binding: Brunel's Bristol Temple Meads ISBN 0-86093-563-9
  
• A. Gomme, M. Jenner, B. Little: Bristol: an Architectural History ISBN 0-85331-409-8 (out of print)

• Train times and station information for Bristol Temple Meads railway station from National Rail
• Panorama of Bristol Temple Meads railway station
• Photos of Bristol Temple Meads railway station

Preceding station	National Rail			Following station
Terminus		Arriva Trains Wales (South Wales Main Line)		Severn Tunnel Junction
Bath Spa		First Great Western (Great Western Main Line)		Weston-super-Mare
Taunton		Virgin Trains (Cross-Country Route)		Bristol Parkway
Newport		Virgin Trains (Cross-Country Route)
Terminus		Wessex Trains Alphaline (Bristol-Penzance)		Bedminster
Terminus		Wessex Trains (Bristol-Worcester)		Filton Abbey Wood
Terminus		Wessex Trains (Severn Beach Line)		Lawrence Hill
Terminus		Wessex Trains Alphaline (Wessex Main Line)		Keynsham