Tagged: bedminster
Fruitless Coffee Excursion
01 Dec 2020
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.
Mark's Bread
07 Dec 2020
I realised that if Hopper Coffee in Greville Smyth Park was in reach during my lunch hour, then perhaps Mark's Bread at the end of North Street would be do-able, too. And I was right. I also managed to cross Clift Road, with its pretty gable bargeboards, off my list, and encounter a dapper gent walking his dogs while playing loud jazz music from somewhere under his jacket. That's North Street for you.
I loved these colourful bargeboards. I went back on a later wander and snapped them on a day with more blue in its sky.
There was some kind of portable music unit under his coat, producing trad jazz at a surprisingly good quality and volume level. It may have been Beiderbecke, but I'm not that conversant with the genre.
Quick Hopper Coffee
11 Dec 2020
No new streets today—just out for a quick coffee from Hopper in Greville Smyth. Got caught in a bit of a rainstorm on the way out, but it didn't last long enough to bother me much.
Bedminster, Ashton, Ashton Court sunset walk
12 Dec 2020
A walk with Sarah focusing on Ashton and the surrounds, taken on a day with really nice light around sunset. Just what I needed.
Drained Basin
15 Dec 2020
On the down side, I got to Bedminster and found long enough queues at both Mark's Bread and Hopper Coffee that I gave up on the idea of buying a drink and a pasty (from the former) or a mince pie flapjack (from the latter.) On the up side, I got to take some pictures of Cumberland Basin being drained and sluiced out, part of its regular maintenance cycle.
To Bedminster
19 Dec 2020
Despite a mild headache, I enjoyed this wander over to Bedminster. The light was lovely, especially toward the end. I always enjoy the view down the streets south of North Street at this time of day/year, with the distant hills backdropping the Victorian terraces.
I think this is the rather unsalubrious back of a portacabin behind Ashton Gate Primary School.
Coming Home in the Dark
19 Dec 2020
A nice walk home in the dark early evening—we're only a couple of days away from the winter solstice—found me getting a bit lost in Southville as I tried to knock a few new streets of my list. Happily getting lost in Southville at this time of year is in no way unpleasant, and just lets you look at more Christmas lights, really.
Having got lost in Southville, I took a punt on there being a way through for pedestrians at the end of the no-through road Langton Park. I lucked out, and found this little cut-through to Greville Street
Sunday Bedmo
20 Dec 2020
A long meander around bits of Bedminster, from the river to the north to Winterstoke Road to the south, taking a few roads I've seen before, and a few I haven't. The Christmas decorations were an extra bonus.
I'd love to see this in action. I'm guessing it pivots around the top centre, but I imagine that the circular bit also does something quite cool.
EDIT: I went back and had another look a few months later and tracked down a newspaper article with some video of the gate being opened while it was under construction.
The original artist is John Tenniel (whose name I can never remember.) It was Stewy and homeowner Alison Larkman who did the work of putting it on the wall here, though.
Harbour Circumnavigation
01 Mar 2021
Normally I don't have enough time in my lunch hour to get all the way around the harbourside. This is a shame, as Wapping Wharf is a great place to get coffee and a snack, but it's pretty much diametrically (perimetrically?) opposite me on the harbour. Today I had the day off, so I decided to go and knock off a few streets around Anchor Road that I'd not covered, as well as visiting the site of the Read Dispensary (well, one of them) and dropping into Mokoko for one of their astounding almond croissants. From there I came back along the south side, checking out the views from as much of the Chocolate Path as you can venture down at the moment, and swapping from Cumberland Road to Coronation Road at Vauxhall Bridge.
There's a lot of meh photos on this walk—my chief output from this project could be politely described as "record shots"—but a few turned out well, especially those of Vauxhall Bridge from the Chocolate Path, which reminded me how much of a loss the current closure of the Chocolate Path is to walkers and cyclists in Bristol.
This is why the Chocolate Path is so missed now it's out of action. A pedestrian route through the middle of a city that's this pretty is a real boon.
The path was closed following part of the New Cut wall collapsing in 2017. It's still closed, and repair work is still going on. To put that into some interesting historical perspective, the entire New Cut was created between 1904 and 1909. All two miles of it. Okay, so they had a thousand or so navvies on the job, but I still find it an interesting comparison :)
I headed to Bedminster to do a crossword with my support bubble today. On the way I delved into a couple of bits of Hotwells history, first of all snapping a "now" shot to go with a historical photo of Holy Trinity I happened across recently, and second of all to snap the Britannia Buildings.
The Britannia Buildings are a little strip of offices on a corner of the Hotwell Road. They've mostly been the headquarters of a cleaning company for years, but I've often wondered what this distinctive curve of offices, its ground floor standing proudly out from the upper floors, used to be. Well, after my last wander, where I poked about the landing stage just down the road, I found out! Researching the paddleboat company P&A Campbell I came across this nugget in The A-Z of Curious Bristol, by Maurice Fells (£):
The firm of P & A Campbell was the main steamer operator in the Bristol Channel, with its local headquarters in offices close to the Hotwells pier and overlooking the harbour at the Cumberland Basin. Campbell's named their offices Britannia Buildings, after one of the ships in their White Funnel Fleet.
So! Turns out the Britannia Buildings were named after a paddle steamer—you can see some pictures of Britannia here.
In related news, I've now bought three of Maurice Fells' local history books, and they were hand-delivered by the author on Sunday, a half-hour after I ordered them online (through a message exchange on Nextdoor!) Not even Amazon Prime has managed to deliver me anything that quickly...
Once the Imperial Tobacco building, now a part of Ashton Gate Primary School. A change for the better, I think.
"I'd like to buy an owl, please."
"We don't sell owls."
"Someone told me you did."
"Who?"
"See! I just heard one!"
It's odd that someone seems to have renovated this building in such a way that the ground floor looks newer than the upper floors.
Many of the houses of the Victorian terraces of Bedminster bear names, and I really like noticing them as I wander past.
