Tagged: asphalt
Clifton Village: Jesus and the Tympanum
12 Nov 2020
My goal is walk down every public road within a mile of me; sometimes it's not easy to tell what's public. I've passed the turning for Cornwallis Grove a thousand times, but never had a reason to venture down it, and although the street signs at the end seem to be council-deployed and I didn't spot any "private" signs, it's a gated road and definitely feels private.
Gathering all the white middle-class privilege I could muster, I wandered down and was rewarded with the sight of a Victorian pump, a statue of Jesus, and from the end of the road, a view of a private garden that once belonged to a private girls' school.
The Cornwallis House history page says:
In the early 20th century the house, together with Grove House, became a Catholic school, St Joseph’s High School for Girls.
The Congregation of La Retraite took over the school in 1924, with the nuns living in Grove House while the schoolrooms were
in Cornwallis House. The headmistress was Mother St Paul de la Croix (Sister Paula Yerby). By the 1970s La Retraite High
School had around 700 pupils.It closed in 1982 and the building was bought by Pearce Homes Ltd (now part of Crest Nicholson) who developed it into 21
flats. Grove House next door was bought by the Bristol Cancer Help Centre, and was later converted into flats in 2007.
Glendale. One of those streets that's just around the corner from me, but that doesn't take me anywhere I ever need to be, so I've probably only walked up it half a dozen times in the couple of decades I've lived here.
I've only been in there once, and I didn't like it. Every pub deserves some sympathy in the current trying circumstances, though.
Some days I barely notice this view, but if the light's right when I'm coming home I find it stunning.
Rabbits, bad pedestrian signage and good coffee
13 Nov 2020
A quick trip with the aim of finding a better way to Greville Smyth park and a good coffee. Sadly I was stymied yet again with the former—it turns out that you do apparently have to take a strange loop around the houses (or at least around the roads) to get to Greville Smyth any way other than my normal route, unless you're prepared to vault some railings. It may be that the disused steps from where the skater kids hang out to the flyover above might once have led to a shorter route, but it's hard to tell. The geography in the area has always confused me.
On the plus side, Rich, who runs Hopper Coffee from a Piaggio Ape does a great flat white and often has a good sign. (I collect cafe signs...)
This is one place the sign for Greville Smyth Park takes you. Presumably you're meant to dash across many lanes of busy road here.
This is the only safe way to the park from following that sign. So you go a hell of a long way around just to avoid crossing this adjacent road because there's no gap in the railings here. I don't think it's designed for people coming from the Hotwells direction.
Presumably this is where you're meant to dash across the road to from the ramp that leads up from the sign on the far side.
Misty Walk
30 Oct 2020
Something of a misty start took me around the viewpoint at the end of Spike Island and then on to try to find a new way into Greville Smyth Park. I got lost.
This sign alleges that this underpass leads to Greville Smyth Park. From the Hotwells direction it basically leads back where you came from, or onto a four-lane flyover with no place to cross.
Hotwells and Clifton/Clifton Village
14 Nov 2020
A local walk with my friend Lisa in tow, including a coffee from the cafe in the Clifton Observatory, where I have fond memories of experiencing my first camera obscura, and cake from Twelve in Clifton Village, one of my favourite recent finds for both food and flat whites.
Outside the Zone
01 Nov 2020
This started as a little local walk with my friend Lisa, but when we randomly met my friends Sarah and Vik at Ashton Court, turned into joining them for a very long wander out to Abbots Leigh Pool. Most of this was well outside my one-mile radius but it was a lovely walk.
Came across a pipe band practising in the car park of the Avon wood project (I think)
Sunday Morning
15 Nov 2020
My friend Sarah mentioned the high tide and I managed to drag myself out early, though still a little late. We nearly drowned in torrential rain, but the weather changed quickly and we ended up walking over to Bedminster in sunshine.
Sunday Afternoon
15 Nov 2020
A walk back from Bedminster to my place, mostly down Duckmoor Road, which I found a little dull—probably because it reminded me a little of the suburbs I grew up in on the outskirts of London—then held up slightly by some filming on Ashton Avenue Bridge. They were trying not to let the crowds build up too much in between takes, it seems, so it wasn't a long delay.
Dowry Square Jaunt
16 Nov 2020
A quick lunchtime jaunt to Dowry Square, which is very close to me but, being effectively a cul-de-sac as well as a square, I've probably only circumnavigated a couple of times in the last couple of decades.
I believe the Hotwells Pine owners decided to retire, like the owner of the fish & chip shop a little further along. Asia Channel did excellent food, but had some kind of family crisis and closed down quite abruptly, sadly. The dentist on the end seems to do a good trade, and Hotwells Fabrics is still going. The one in between them and Asia Channel has been threatening to turn into a deli for a few years now, I think, but perhaps that's fallen by the wayside. Seems a terrible shame when we could do with a few more good local shops. Hotwells has definitely thrived more than this, in the past.
I hope the Bear survives. It's a bit too sport-oriented for my taste, but they've been welcoming the couple of times I've been in.
It looks like the fish & chip shop might be getting a refurb, and the restaurant at the end, which used to be a great Persian place is apparently now a great Indian place. The bow-fronted place in the middle was a small "corner" shop for years, but there's barely any more space in there than there is in my living room so it must've been hard to keep it going. That closed down four or five years ago, I think.
Jaunt to a Closed Coffee Shop
17 Nov 2020
A fruitless wander, as Spoke and Stringer (who I thought might do a decent flat white) were closed, and the only other harbourside inlet offering were a bit too busy to wait at, especially as I'd spent some time wandering some of the convolutions of Rownham Mead. This last congeries of dull alleyways and brown-painted garages was at least somewhere I've never been before, in parts.
I've walked along the Hotwell Road on the other side of this wall a thousand times—possibly ten thousand. Never seen this side of it before.
This year there's been a little contoversy about the bells at Holy Trinity. They used to ring on the hour, every hour. I think the general stress of lockdown led to people suffering greater levels of insomnia, though, and people complained and the church bells were silenced. The church consulted and just this week (I write this on 10 December 2020) the bells were reinstated with a timing mechanism that switched them off during the small hours. Hopefully this compromise will satisfy everyone, because personally I really missed the tolling of the bell over Hotwells. I sent a small donation to help with the cost of the timing mechanism and to generally say "thanks" for the bell over the years.
Never the most attractive corner of Hotwells, this odd bit of land has recently been oddly fenced in, public bench and all. Well, I thought it was a public bench, anyway. No idea what's going on there.
In which our intrepid hero levels up.
I keep on thinking there might be a quick way to Greville Smyth from here, but I think the only shortcut is up that muddy slope to the staircase on the left. And it's quite steep and very slippery-looking, so I've never tried it.
The other way to get to Greville Smyth more quickly from there would be to go up that set of steps, but it would mean vaulting the railings, and I don't really do vaulting.
