Tagged: automotive-lighting
A trip up the hill to get my winter flu jab. I'm not sure I really needed it this year, what with avoiding Covid—I haven't had so much as a sniffle in more than a year—but seeing as they offered... Instead of the doctor's surgery on Pembroke Road, they'd taken over Christ Church, presumably to give more room and ventilation for the necessary social distancing at the moment. As usual, it was their typically efficient operation, and I was in and out in about three minutes.
On the way there and back I snapped as much as I could, but I wanted to be home in time for the first online Times Crossword Championship. As it turned out, I needn't have bothered, as the technology at the Times couldn't keep up with the demand from competitors, and their system just collapsed under the weight of page-views. They tried again the day after, and it collapsed just as badly. Maybe next year...
This wander is split into two parts, as I turned my tech off to go into Christ Church for my jab. The walk home can be found over here.
Although it looks like the side of the kind of flats you see everywhere in Clifton Village, the building to the left is actually the Christchurch Recording Studios. Among other artists who've used the studios, two of Massive Attack's number one albums were recorded here, according to this article that sadly but inevitably seems to suggest that the building might be converted into luxury flats soon.
It was originally fitted out as a drama and recording studio by the BBC in the 1980s.
I really like the random scattering of windows on the backs of Bristol's houses, especially the arched ones here.
I took the day off my day job to do my accounts—or at least do enough bookkeeping to send them to my accountant. I hate doing the books. I woke up late, tired and with a headache and decided to bunk off for a walk around Cliftonwood, Clifton Village and Clifton instead, taking in a couple of good coffees along the way. Thanks, Foliage Café, and Twelve for the flat whites.
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.
In full flow. The flat top of the water to the left of the overflowing rim sits above a semicircular-profile concrete trough that's designed to calm the water and channel it into the fairly calm wide flow you see here to reduce the erosion it would otherwise cause.
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.
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.
This bit of grass is apparently called "Bobby's Green" or "Bobbies Green"—I've seen it written both ways. Several locals call it this; the only guess I've seen came from Louise on NextDoor:
don’t know why it’s called the Bobbies green except sometimes policemen used to lean or leave their bikes on the railings before there were so many parked cars. They used to come up constitution hill from the old police station at the entrance to Brandon hill on Jacobs Wells Rd and cycle around clifton so maybe that’s the reason- but that’s just a random guess.
Unfortunately by the time I got to Greville Smyth Park I was already about halfway through my lunch-hour, and the queue was too long to wait to actually get a coffee. Is that a fruitless excursion? Presumably a coffee bean is technically a fruit...
This kind of vague musing was sadly overshadowed by my delay at Ashton Avenue Bridge on the way back, where someone—hopefully still a someone, rather than a body—was being stretchered up the bank of the river, presumably having just been rescued from the water. As I made my way home the long way around, avoiding the cordoned-off area at the back of the CREATE centre and its car park, I saw an ambulance haring across the Plimsoll Bridge, siren running, presumably on its way to the BRI. I'd like to think that was a good sign.
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.
I love the isolation of Cliftonwood -- the geography of it, with its solid boundary of Clifton Vale to the west and Jacob's Wells Road to the east mean that you tend not to be in Cliftonwood unless you've got a reason to be there. It's not a cut-through to anywhere, at least not from side-to-side, and you can only really exit to the south on foot.
I sense that I'd be happy living in Cliftonwood -- like my bit of Hotwells, it's a quiet little area with a sort of quirky feel to it. Plus it contributes the colourful houses that are the backdrop of about half of all Bristol postcards ever made :)
I found the "secret" garden especially interesting, just for the fact that it really does feel quite secret, despite the obvious name on the gate. I've lived a half-mile from it for twenty years and I don't think I've ever noticed it before, despite exploring the area a few times.
I tried to find the Strangers' Burial Ground the last time was up in Clifton, but I'd not realised that Lower Clifton Hill continues further on after the turning with Constitution Hill. Sadly it was chained shut, but it still looks beautifully-maintained, perhaps by the same man referenced by this story from John Hodgson, which helped me find it. Apparently Thomas Beddoes is buried here.
Back to Cliftonwood for a wander that included some of the belle views of Bellevue Crescent and other bits of the easternmost part. Highlights included watching someone bump-starting an elderly Nissan Micra in the narrow confines of Bellevue Crescent.
A "bright and airy self contained single storey Freehold studio / workshop (277 Sq Ft)". The floorplan shows that it's basically just a single room with tiny room with a loo and a sink inset, and nothing else. I suppose an enterprising hairdresser or nail technician might be able to make something of it.
I looked back on the old maps, and found “School Ruins” on the 1947-1965 OS maps layer, then just “School” on a few earlier maps, but then, finally, the 1874 Ashmead map told me enough to track it down: “Clifton National School”.
According to the Clifton and Hotwells Character Appraisal:
In 1835, the Clifton National School was built on the terrace above Hotwell Road and the Clifton Poor-Law Union workhouse on the lower terrace, becoming Clifton Industrial School in 1849; the same year, Hotwell Road was widened. A Training Institute for Females and Domestic Servants in Clifton Wood also appeared in this area by 1860 and by 1901, 53 trades were recorded between Dowry Square to Anchor Road, including 23 pubs…
…Clifton largely escaped widespread destruction during the blitz, though… a bomb also largely destroyed the Clifton National School and Mardyke House School. The lack of bomb-proof shelters in Clifton led to the Clifton Rocks Railway to be used as shelter, which was prepared for occupation in 1940. Throughout the bombing up to 200 spent the night there.
