Tagged: architecture
Man on a Mission
17 Apr 2021
I went rather outside my area today, as I went to pick something up from the Warhammer shop on Wine Street (Games Workshop as-was, and before that I think perhaps a rare retail outlet for Her Majesty's Stationery Office? I may be mis-remembering...) Anyway, a friend of mine wanted something picking up and posting to him, so I figured I'd knock some streets off my list along the way.
I first headed for the St George's Road area, walking down the narrow Brandon Steps and finding some strange wall art on Brandon Steep, then headed to the Old City via Zed Alley. The Warhammer shop visit was friendly and efficient, and, mission accomplished, I treated myself to a sausage roll and a flat white from Spicer + Cole, to take away and eat in Queen Square with its current decoration of hearts. I finished off with a detour up Park Street, looking out for St John's Conduit markers, before finally crossing Brandon Hill on the way home.
Quite a long wander, all told, and I'm a bit knackered today...
Who was it that decided that petrol stations had to be ugly? It's not like oil companies don't have money...
Apparently they're a "Cloud and Cyber Security Specialist". Let's not let them near this website, please; I wrote a lot of the code in a hurry when I was tired...
There's clearly quite a lot of technology in a street lamp these days. Interesting that you can still see the gas tap at the bottom from the original way of doing things...
I came down Brandon Steps, but I also needed to walk along Brandon Steep from the same place. I figured I might as well do a little circuit to knock this one off the list while I was here, so it's back up here to the top of the steps I go...
This doesn't seem particularly to belong to anyone, as a space, so it's interesting that someone's made a bit of an effort with this corner.
Solstice Rain
21 Dec 2020
Despite the weather, Sarah and Vik and I wandered around Ashton Court a bit as the sun rose. Not that you could really tell. Sadly, the bit we wanted to watch the sunrise from was closed, because people hadn't been treating the deer with appropriate respect. Ah well, at least it was some exercise.
Pastures New!
17 Jul 2021
Okay, not much in the way of actual pasture to be had in Bedminster these days, like most of Bristol, but I did take advantage of the current rather toasty weather in Bristol to go and sit under a tree in Greville Smyth Park to read a book for a while before firing up the GPS and taking a little detour around some back streets of Ashton and Bedminster rather than going straight to Coffee #1 for an espresso frappé. This is the first walk in a while where I've actually crossed off an entire new street (the frankly unexciting Carrington Road) as well as exploring a couple of back alleys, just because they were there, really. Along the way I spotted a few examples of graffiti of various qualities, including a live work-in-progress by SNUB23 on Ashton Road and the finished Six Sisters project on North Street.
With bonus transom. I thought I might have snapped the transom before, but I think I was thinking of this one.
Lunchtime Cliftonwood Wander
18 Jan 2022
Another workday, another quick lunchtime trip to get me out of the house. This time my flimsy pretext is a tiny bit of Clifton Vale Close that I'd apparently not walked, and the fact that although I'd walked down Church Lane at least once before I still hadn't taken a single photo of it. Really I just fancied a mosey through Cliftonwood in the sunshine, with the promise of a coffee from Clifton Village at the top of the hill.
Mid-to-late 18th century, in the "gothick" style according to the listing. I approve of their spelling. This is definitely the right listing, as here's exactly what we see:
Symmetrical end has an elaborate Dutch gable with a 2-centred arched doorway with panelled door, and matching windows each side with lattice leaded lights. Above is a tripartite window with 2-centred arched heads, central casement with interlacing upper glazing bars and blind outer ones.
I really do like these little houses. Hate to think how much you'd have to pay for them, though.
Ouch. Just looked it up. Apparently the average property sale price over the last year was £750,000. I suppose the Tesla parked to the left there should have given away the income level; the Model S sells for about £75,000 in the UK.
A Longer-than-it-looks Walk With Lisa
06 Jun 2021
The track on the map doesn't tell the whole story of this walk with Lisa around and about Clifton, Berkeley Square, Brandon Hill and the harbourside, because the batteries on my GPS ran out while we were on the roof of Trenchard Street car park, it seems. Oh well. I think I did most of the area I was interested in finishing off around the University; there were only a few new bits around Brandon Hill that won't be on the track, and I can easily do them again.
Still, technology woes aside it was a nice walk, albeit a bit warm for climbing all those hills, and sat on the harbourside watching the world go by for a while, too. It was good to see the Bristol Ferry Boats carrying people around again, especially.
I've sometimes idly wondered what this thing on the side of Richmond Heights is. I'm told by KYP Bristol (who certainly know their local history) that it used to have the name of the building on it, but the letters fell off.
This means that somewhere out there, a student almost certainly has all the letters they need to make a large sign saying "CHERISH MID THONG"...
Harbourside Milestone
17 Mar 2021
The other day I realised (hello, Maggie!) that my next walk would be my hundredth, and that I'd done 393.4km so far. I figured it would be nice to get to 100 walks and 400km on the same walk, so I went for a nice long harbourside wander after work, rather than dashing out at lunchtime. As it turned out, we're just coming up to the time of year where I can leave the house at 5:30 in the evening and there's still just enough light to take photos by the time I've made it around the harbourside. Though only just, and mostly because I've got a full-frame camera that's not bad in low light...
Still, the evening light made a lovely change, and some of the photos turned out to be pretty good photos per se, rather than just record shots of my walk. I'm looking forward to more evening walks like this as summer approaches.
On the way around this evening I wandered through one of the oldest bits of the city to extend my walk and snapped some interesting bits of architecture, including an NCP car park(!) and a nighttime shot of one of my favourite subjects, the clock tower at the Albion dockyard.
The NCP car park. Designed by Kenneth Wakeford Jarram & Harris in 1966, one of many brutalist Bristol buildings.
It's never occurred to me that when I"m wandering up the ramp at this entrace to the library that I'm also hanging suspended in mid-air
Rear of City Hall, which is still more normally known by its old name of the Council House.
The closest thing you'll find to a tree in Orchard Street is (a) some wisteria, and (b) some shrubs in planters. Seems a shame, especially when there's all this space. How about you plant just one big tree in the middle, huh? Huh?
There's something about this look that reminds me of Oldbury on Severn Nuclear Power Station.
The Long Lunchtime at the End of the World
27 Nov 2020
I took an extra-long break at lunchtime today as I'd taken the day off my normal day-job to do the accounts for my previous side-job, which is still generating paperwork, though not much in the way of money. This took me through some undiscovered bits of Cliftonwood, including Worlds End Lane, which unexpectedly leads to White Hart Steps. That's certainly not where I expected the end of the world to lead to...
A long ramble, starting with trying to find the Hot Well of Hotwells and leading up the side of the Avon Gorge to the Downs and then through Clifton for coffee.
When you take two virtually identical pictures but don't want to get rid of either one.
This is Towerhirst, on Sea Walls Road, "A fine example of domestic architecture in the Free Gothic style", according to the listing. I heard somewhere that it was a wine merchant's house, and that he had the tower built so he could watch for his ships coming in, but I can't find much to back up that story. Apparently built c. 1891.
Well, this whole street does seem quite mewsey. Christ Church pops up in the background, as it often does anywhere near Clifton Village.
Speaking of queueing, here's the queue for the newly-opened Eat a Pitta branch in the shop Boston Tea Party used to occupy on the corner of Regent Street and Princess Victoria Street. It had attracted the attention of the police more than once already, apparently, as not much social distancing seemed to be happening.
Ten O'Clock Shop and Can't Dance Coffee
30 Nov 2020
I had to return a faulty AirPod Pro to Apple (there's a first-world problem!) so I just took a quick trip up the hill to the nearest UPS drop-off point, The Ten O'Clock Shop, which is famously open until 11pm. Unfortunately it's a fairly cramped little place and neither of the staff were wearing masks, so I made it a very quick drop indeed and got out of there as quickly as I could.
I grabbed a quick coffee from Can't Dance, a stall that's—as of yesterday—in a tiny converted cargo container on the edge of Victoria Square; up until this week they were running from a little trike parked in the same place. Hopefully the new premises will let them see out the winter without worrying quite so much about the weather.
I tried to fit in a few extra streets from the surrounding area on my there and back, but that was basically my wander today: a quick little shopping trip.
Nothing New
02 Dec 2020
This may be the very first time I've gone for a One Mile Matt wander and not actually gone down any new roads, trod any new steps. I just wanted a coffee, frankly, so I went the same old way to Imagine That in the marina and back again.
