Tagged: asphalt
Since setting up a search for Hotwells on eBay I've mostly managed to restrain myself from buying much (or in one case, was outbid, luckily for my finances.) However, I couldn't resist a 1902 flyer for a singalong at the Terrett Memorial Hall, which would have stood five minutes' walk from my flat, overlooking Howard's Lock.
I've found out a fair bit about this non-denominational seaman's mission, including tracking down both a Loxton drawing and an aerial photo of it. The main thing that's eluded me, ironically enough, is finding out who Terrett was, so as a Memorial Hall it didn't do a very good job π.
EDIT: Ah! Did a little more digging and found that the Bristol Archives has a Bristol Dock Company document on file called "William Terrett, Esq.; corresp. etc. re proposed erection of a Mission Hall at Cumberland Basin, 1892", so that might be worth a look once the Archives are properly open again. Given that:
Sarah Terrett died suddenly on 25 November 1889, aged 53, after speaking at a meeting of the White Ribbon Army, the temperance organization she had founded in 1878. Following her death many people sent letters of sympathy to her bereaved husband, William. One of these, from the Rev. W. F. James, a minister of the Bible Christians, makes for especially interesting reading. The Bible Christian denomination, to which Sarah and William belonged, was one of the smaller Methodist connexions, and had its heartland in rural Devon, the area where she had grown up. James recalled the hospitality he enjoyed when visiting the Terrettsβ home, Church House, in Bedminster, south Bristol...
...I wonder if William Terrett built the hall in memory of his late wife. They were clearly just the kind of temperance movement people who would've founded a seaman's mission to get people together to have a nice non-alcoholic singsong rather than a night out on the tiles.
Anyway. This walk to grab a coffee from Hopper Coffee in Greville Smyth Park was mostly an excuse to post the leaflet, a few other things I found related to it, and some pictures of how the site looks now. I would suggest that the present day is not an improvement.
Here we'd be facing Terrett Hall square on. Crouching at work in the middle of the picture is one of the tireless people who are constantly found sprucing up Cumberland Piazza (or at least trying their best to make it look a little less awful.)
Given the coned-off line of civil engineering vehicles on the bridge, I think it's likely that the inspection I saw the other day has identified something that needs fixing...
Which sounds imposing, but apparently it wasn't that secure, at least as far as a place to store the golden regalia of Bristol's mayor and mayoress goes, anyway. Oops.
One Albermarle Row, Granby Green and... People
12 Mar 2021
I was browsing some historical photos the other day, and came across "Rear of Unspecified House" in the Bristol Archives' John Trelawny Ross collection, and immediately recognised it as being the back of 1 Albermarle Row, just around the corner from me. I've not had much time to research the history of this odd little addition to Albermarle Row, or what happened to 1-4 Cumberland Place, number 4 of which used to be attached to the side of 1 Albermarle Row, but it was interesting to look at old maps for a few minutes and work out what used to be where.
That all connects with the little local bit of land at Granby Green, too, as it used to be numbers 1-3 Cumberland Place. There was something of a planning battle over Granby Green, and I've included an old edition of Hotwells & Cliftonwood News that I found online, a copy of which would have been popped through my letterbox at the time.
I was also inspired by some old pictures of Hotwell Road to try to put a few more people in my pictures, though I set my pre-focus a couple of extra metres out from normal to make sure I didn't get too close to anyone!
There was a suggestion that the new green space below Wallace Place be called "Gromit Green" :D
This was a hard-won green by all accounts. I remember the brilliantly-acronymed Friends of Granby Green popping leaflets through our doors to drum up local support for having it declared a Town Green to stop more development. See the next picture from some background, and a tiny picture of what it looked like before it was turned into this little green space.
It's the school in the back of the council photo that relly confirms that the picture is of Albermarle Row.
Leigh Woods Walk
14 Mar 2021
An enormous walk today, or at least it felt enormous. My feet are sore, anyway. I started off recreating a couple of local historical photos in Hotwells, but then headed for my traditional walk along the towpath in the Avon Gorge to the far extreme of Leigh Woods, up and through the woods to the height of the Suspension Bridge, finally crossing into Clifton Village for a well-deserved vanilla latte.
I say "traditional" because this used to be a very regular route for me, first walking, years and years ago, and later joggingβthis route combined with a circuit of the Downs on the other side used to be my way of making sure I was fit to do a half-marathon (I did six of them in total, between 2010 and 2014).
I miss the routine of this walk, even though it's a long way and it used to pretty much wipe me out when I did itβI'd come back home and collapse and do very little for the rest of the day. But perhaps that's what Sundays are for, and I should try to remember that.
Doing this walk regularly was quite a meditative experience. Not so much of that today, but once I got to the further extreme of the towpath, where the roar of the Portway traffic on the other side of the river dwindles and I turned into Leigh Woods to climb ever closer to birdsong and further from rushing cars, I did seem to recapture a little of the feeling of previous walks. (I would say my mind cleared, but I was mentally singing along to Life Without Buildings' The Leanover for most of the wander. There are worse songs to have stuck in one's head, though; it's a great track...)
Anyway. Apparently the walk made me more likely to ramble in words, too. I'll stop now :)
I'm not sure what the cross-beam over the top with the height restriction on is called, but I much prefer the original one. Although the bridge is very utilitarian in looks, anyway.
This is the rock face more traditionally viewed from the other side. There were a couple of lads right at the top. I can barely see them if I zoom in on this photo on my giant Mac screen, so you'll probably have to take my word for it.
Via KYP Bristol/The Tarring Collection. ca. 1930.
The Tarring Collection is a grand set of images of Bristol taken by Herbert Frank Tarring, who worked as a Quantity Surveyor for Bristol Corporation in the 1930s.
I'm not a fan of the mobile cafe. Not only is the coffee mediocre at best, but their generator makes too much of a racket.
John Carr's Terrace
16 Mar 2021
I wanted a nice simple lunch-hour walk that took me past a cafe today, and I managed to find the perfect road to knock off my list of targets to do it. Situated just off Jacobs Wells Road, right next to Queen Elizabeth's Hospital, John Carr's Terrace, and Rosebery terrace above it, which I'd completely forgotten existed, are a little cul-de-sac that many Bristolians will have wandered past a thousand times without ever seeing.
There's a reason it's next to QEH:
Known traditionally as "The City School", Queen Elizabeth's Hospital was founded by the will of affluent merchant John Carr in 1586, gaining its first royal charter in 1590.
John Carr's terrace itself isn't much to write home about, architecturally, but I like the secluded feel of it, and I really liked Rosebery Terrace with its little houses, commanding position and friendly, slightly tumbledown feel.
On the way home I popped into Foliage Cafe for a coffee and a very pleasant nutella and banana pastry, then walked home past the refurbishment of the old Thali Cafe into a new and interesting clinic...
Just adjacent to QEH, John Carr's terrace is named for the 16th-century English merchant and founder of the school next door.
At the end of John Carr's Terrace. Apparently it's a 5 bedroom semi and is ranked as the most expensive property in BS8 1DW, with a valuation of nearly two million quid. I couldn't see much of it. I wonder if it's owned by QEH's headmaster, or something...
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.
Cheeky. I also run a Cafe Signs Tumblr so I'm always on the lookout for good signage.
This is actually a Banksy work, not as well-known as many. Oddly, it seems like this loading bay may have been added after the graffiti was put there, and the graffit carefully transferred. I'll have to find out whether that's what actually happened...
Just a brief glimpse. It's probably quite hard to find a street in Bristol that doesn't have some connection with IKB.
Oddly, everyone in Bristol knows the wall above this little alleyway/loading bay, but probably woudln't recognise this bit down here.
It's seen better day. Virtually every Banksy appears to be either vandalised or stolen as soon as it turns up in Bristol these days. Wikipedia even has an article devoted to a list of his works that have been destroyed.
Featuring the building that once housed the Merchant Ventuers Trade School. (I presume they sold it.)
Before the Venturers bought it it was occupied by Bristol Grammar school.
Quick Around-the-Harbour Wander with Lisa
20 Mar 2021
My friend Lisa was meeting another friend for a walk near the suspension bridge, so we fitted in a quick harbourside loop from my place first. We discussed gardening (we're both envious of the gardening skills of the Pooles Wharf residents; we can just about keep herbs alive, whereas they're growing heartily-fruiting lemon trees outdoors in England along with everything from bonsai to magnolias), cafes, work and architecture, among other things.
Well, they're a gang, and they're bikers. I don't think it was the Hell's Angel's, though.
I wasn't going to take a very long walk on this nice spring evening; it just happened. I was going to knock off a path or two on Brandon Hill, home over centuries to hermits and windmills, cannons and Chartists, and then just wander home, stopping only to fill up my milk bottle at the vending machine in the Pump House car park.
However, when I heard a distant gas burner I stayed on the hill long enough to see if I could get a decent photo of both the hot air balloon drifting over with Cabot Tower in the same frame (spoiler: I couldn't. And only having the fixed-focal-length Fuji with me didn't help) and then, on the way home, bumped into my "support bubble", Sarah and Vik, and extended my walk even further do creep carefully down the slipway next to the old paddle steamer landing stage and get some photos from its furthest extreme during a very low tide...
I've bought many things from Marcuss over the years. A pair of secondhand German para boots got me started, I think, and I've bought snowboarding gear, camping gear, winter coats and sundry other things like the Opinel No. 06 knife I use for hunting and skinning the geek's natural prey: Amazon parcels.
Perhaps to stop the public gathering a little too close for comfort on the pub's outside tables.
I got interested in Bristol's medieval water supplies after poking around near Jacobs Wells Road and Brandon Hill. It was during that research I found out about a pipe that's still there today, and, as far as I know, still actually functioning, that was originally commissioned by Carmelite monks in the 13th century. They wanted a supply of spring water from Brandon Hill to their priory on the site of what's now the Bristol BeaconβColston Hall, as-was. It was created around 1267, and later, in 1376, extended generously with an extra "feather" pipe to St John's On The Wall, giving the pipework its modern name of "St John's Conduit".
St John's on the Wall is still there, guarding the remaining city gate at the end of Broad Street, and the outlet tap area was recently refurbished. It doesn't run continuously now, like it did when I first moved to Bristol and worked at the end of Broad Street, in the Everard Building, but I believe the pipe still functions. One day I'd like to see that tap running...
There are a few links on the web about the pipe, but by far the best thing to do is to watch this short and fascinating 1970s TV documentary called The Hidden Source, which has some footage of the actual pipe and also lots of fantastic general footage of Bristol in the seventies.
On my walk today I was actually just going to the building society in town, but I decided to trace some of the route of the Carmelite pipe, including visiting streets it runs under, like Park Street, Christmas Street, and, of course, Pipe Lane. I also went a bit out of my way to check out St James' Priory, the oldest building in Bristol, seeing as it was just around the corner from the building society.
There are far too many pictures from this walk, and my feet are now quite sore, because it was a long one. But I enjoyed it.
Looks like something's getting spruced up ready for opening. Good. This bit of the Hotwell Road needs some nice new shops, of any and all varieties.
This place was joined up with the shop to the left as a hot tub sales showroom, and before that it was the View art gallery. Before that it was a brothel for a while, oddly, but I think the general community reaction was a bit too hostile for it to survive. Looks like it's now been separated from the next door shop.
I didn't know it at the time I took this photo, but this is the former site of the Bethesda Chapel, destroyed during World War II. There's a picture of it on the Community Layer of the Know Your Place site.
I found out when I was doing some research on this later photoβAlma Church in Clifton was originally a daughter church of Bethesda Chapel, and has "Clifton Bethesda" engraved in the pediment.
Bethesda Chapel was founded by George MΓΌller, one of the founders of the Plymouth Brethren, and director of Ashley Down orphanage, looking after more than ten thousand orphans in his lifetime.
As I was reminded on my travels today, virtually any street in Bristol could wear the tag "hill street", but this one really is just called Hill Street.
Believe it or not, this little pavement marker says "St John's Conduit" and marks the still-functional Carmelite water pipe that was built in 1267 to bring water from a spring near the top of Park Street to the Priory where Bristol Beacon now stands, with a "feather" branch added later (1376) to bring water to St John's church. Source: Bristol's Fascinating Fountains, Temple Local History Group
Clever: stencil out the pavement, then pressure-wash it, to make your point by highlighting the discolouration that's partly caused by airborne particulate pollution.
This is the place that still has some of the reused fixtures and fittings of the RMS Mauretania installed inside.
I bumped into my friend Lisa in town during yesterday's wander, and we decided to have a wander today, too. We managed quite a long ramble, starting up through Clifton and nipping down Park Row to investigate the two tower blocks I'd noticed popping up behind Park Street yesterday, then took in a few roads I'd not managed to get to before, including cutting through the grounds of Bristol Grammar School.
I've mentioned before how this apparently continuous road contains York Place, Tottenham Place, Dover Place, Meridian Place, Bruton Place and Park Placeβunsurprisingly it's confusing the delivery drivers. Some of the terraces re-start the numbering, so it can't be easy to figure out where you're meant to drop the pizzas off.
One of the world's largest archives of British Theatre History. I had no idea it was there.
A lot going on here. The little orange thing that looks like a cross between a litter bin and a buoy is the heat vent for the electrical substation that's below the double metal doors in the pavement to its left. Then in the middle is an Edwardian toilet converted to a cafe, though the last time I was in there it was hosting an art exhibition. Finally on the right is a mural that I completely missed when taking this photo because I was concentrating so much on the old lavvy!
It's the little details that stand out for me on Woodland Road. I imagine it's prettier when it's not bin day, mind.
Which stands for Fire Cock. This is how they did fire hydrant symbols in the old days. There a modern fire hydrant 6 feet in front of this sign, as indicated. This little placard is on the front of the Britannia Buildings.
Hotwells Evening
29 Mar 2021
Just a little potter around Hotwells with Sarah and Vik. I didn't visit any new streets, but I liked a couple of the photos a lot.
