Tagged: brick
I noticed I'd missed a bit of Circular Road and Ladies Mile, and it was a nice evening for a sunset wander up to Clifton. There was something I recorded along the way, not photographically but in video.
Bristol Zoo, the world's oldest provincial zoo, has recently decided to close its Clifton site after 185 years of occupation, which means that the sounds of wild animals will no longer drift incongruously through this leafy Georgian area. They're moving everything up to their existing second site, The Wild Place Project near Cribbs Causeway. As I was wandering the Downs, I heard some fierce roaring noises, so I decided to see if I could get a little closer while they were still going on and record a sound that's soon to disappear.
I don't have a way yet to put video directly on this site, so here's a link to the video of my attempt to catch a bit of the zoo noises that I just popped on YouTube. It's sad that this might be the last time I hear such noises in Clifton.
Is it still a potsherd if it's from a plate? (I just checked the dictionary, and apparently it is...) This one's embedded in a wall on Windsor Place.
Swinging By Sydney Row
01 Apr 2021
Another workday, another quick coffee excursion. This time I decided to swing past Sydney Row on the way back from the marina car park where Imagine That have their horsebox. I didn't know until recently that the terrace was built for workers at the adjacent dockyard.
I've also gradually come to the conclusion that I don't really think very two-dimensionally when it comes to finding my way around or associating one place with another. I only realised in the last few days that the odd industrial building that takes up the other half of Syndey Row, the one that's always covered with graffiti, is the back of the dockyard works. In my defence, as it's tucked away in a corner of the little industrial estate that I've never ventured into (I rarely find I have a need for the products of safety valve manufacturers), I don't think I've ever seen the front of the building...
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.
The best-known artist of the Bristol School, apparently. We have something in common: we've both seen Bristol harbour frozen over, though I never saw anyone brave enough to ice skate on it.
A Journey to the Far East
25 Jul 2021
The far east of the intersection of my one-mile radius and Bedminster, anyway. I was feeling a bit tired this morning, so I motivated myself to get out of the door by imagining one of Mokoko's almond croissants. That got me on my way, and I wandered across to Bedminster, through Greville Smyth Park, along most of the length of North Street (looking out for new Upfest 75-pieces-in-75-days artwork as I went) and then onto some new roads at the far end.
I only wanted to knock a few streets off my "to do" list, but by the time I'd diverted here and there to check out various bits of graffiti and other attractions and come back via the aforementioned purveyors of Bristol's finest croissants, I'd walked 7.4km. Not bad for someone who woke up tired, and at least I've done something with my day. I'm very glad the weather broke (we had tremendous thunderstorms yesterday), even if some of the pictures might've looked better with a blue sky. I was getting fed up with walking around in 29°C heat...
I don't normally edit photos to the extent of doing perspective correction, but I thought it would be interesting to see this piece straight-on.
It says "BLACK METAL LIVES", apparently, and it seems like it might be some kind of comment on the Black Lives Matter movement, but it's not entirely clear what the motivation is, really, apart from not liking Upfest. "KILL UPFEST" was painted elsewhere.
There are obviously moral grey areas here, but for me I think the intent behind putting up the vast (commissioned and permitted/encouraged by the property owners) artworks from international artists that is Upfest is both creative and kind, and the scrawling over it with barely-understandable threatening bullshit is not, and I side with kindness.
I imagine that the person who daubed the crap over other people's art probably stays at home on rainy days and posts hate in the comments sections on newspaper websites instead.
One of those streets with Bedminster's tradition of named houses in evidence. I do enjoy them.
The word "woodbine" always reminds me of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, where Bert Baxter smoked Woodbine cigarettes. I see that they were invented by Wills Tobacco, presumably in Bristol, and I'd guess not that far away—Wills was founded in Bristol, and the Tobacco Factory bar on North Street was actually a Wills factory. They had offices nearby, too.
I imagine this house was named for the honeysuckle, though...
Library, Bookshop, Coffee
03 Jul 2021
I was headed into town to return RA Gilbert's biography of AE Waite to the library and along the way I noticed that Dreadnought had finished their refurbishment, but wouldn't be open until midday. That left me some time to kill, so I bimbled around the old St Augustine's/Gaunt's area for a while, then headed up Park Street for a coffee and a snack to eat on Brandon Hill before heading home the way I'd came so I could pop in and buy a pamphlet on the Hot Well I'd been interested in for a while.
I imagine this is the house whose owners also own the plot with planning permission; it seems to be the end of their back garden.
Though what caught my eye was the barely-visible slogan on the side wall in the middle of the picture: "I DID MY FIRST GRAFFITI HERE WAY TOO LONG AGO".
Anyway. Then I popped along the walkway to return the biography of AE Waite I've just finished, and to discover if the library's reference section had re-opened yet. It hadn't.
Something tells me that this side passage that leads through to the side door of the chapel has been here quite some time.
This may be the least salubrious bit of the Old City. End of the alleyway behind Toni and Guy, just behind the back of the Greenhouse on Park Street. The most glamorous thing I passed was two hairdressers having a fag.
Speaking of Toni and Guy, I guess the salon used to be a Halifax. Given the glue remnants, it seems a newer plate has fallen off at some point, revealing a bit of history.
Leigh Woods Solo
19 Jun 2021
I hadn't really planned to go out for a wander yesterday; I just got the urge and thought "why not?" (Well, the weather forecast was one possible reason, but I managed to avoid the rain, luckily.)
I wanted to finish off the A369—as it turns out I may still have a small section to go, but I've now walked the bulk of it out to my one-mile radius—and also a few random tracks in Leigh Woods. I'm still not really sure that I'm going to walk them all, especially after discovering today that "the map is not the territory" applies even more in the woods, where one of the marked tracks on the map wasn't really that recognisable as a track in real life... I'm glad I'd programmed the route into the GPS in advance!
Anyway. A pleasant enough walk, oddly bookended, photographically at least, by unusual vehicles. Leigh Woods was fairly busy, especially the section I'd chosen, which was positively dripping with teenage schoolkids with rah accents muttering opprobrium about the Duke of Edinburgh. I'm presuming the harsh remarks were more about taking part in his award scheme than the late Consort himself, but I didn't eavesdrop enough to be certain...
It caught my eye not just because I've been here before—there's a lovely house just up the hill which I think may itself be called Bannerleigh House—but also because the recent University-based wander I went on with Lisa also had a Bannerleigh.
A little housing estate I've snapped before. I think it's an alternative spelling of "Fowey". Which frankly, being actually phonetic, should probably be the actual spelling.
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.
No idea why there's a window in this wall. The wall looks a lot older than everything surrounding it, so perhaps it's just some historical vestige leftover in between bits of University development.
This is clearly a 5-star insect hotel. I imagine the rooms come with hotel-monogrammed bathrobes and that there's a swimming pool around the back.
This is apparently a "smaller, adaptable studio space" connected with the University's adjacent Wickham Theatre.
"Identified as an Unlisted building of Merit in the St Michael's Hill and Christmas Steps Conservation Area Character Appraisal, January 2009.". It's certainly attractive, clearly old, and feels quite out of place dwarfed by the Uni's modern architecture. Interesting little house.
Bank Holiday Street Art
31 May 2021
A nice warm Bank Holiday Monday saw me walk back over to Bedminster to do justice to something we glimpsed on my last wander. Along the way I spotted a couple of new pieces of street art tucked away on the south side of the Cumberland Basin Flyover system, so this turned into a micro-graffiti walk.
(my title)
By EMAN...LRS (as is the preceeding piece); I know very little about the Bristol graff scene, but apparently that's the Last Radical Souls krew.
I managed to knock off a reasonable chunk of the roads I had left to walk around the University at the north-eastern extremity of my mile on this nice sunny walk. As well as being impressed by the number of big townhouses now occupied by various departments, I took some time on my way there to check out a war memorial, and some time on the way back to do a little extra wandering of Berkeley Square.
Coffee, Coronation and Clift House Road
28 May 2021
Another dash to Greville Smyth Park for a coffee from Rich at Hopper, but at least this time I managed to divert a bit and knock off a small section of Cumberland Road I'd managed to miss on previous excursions. Along the way I muse on a strange residence in between a warehouse and a tannery, and wonder if the Mayor might be deliberately letting the Cumberland Road Flyover area go to seed...
I composed a few photos to get the full length of wall in here. The whole of the Cumberland Road Flyover System is covered in tagging and graff at the moment; either it's really burst into life as pastime for bored youth since Covid or the council have given up on cleaning it up.
I suspect the latter—the more clapped-out and unattractive this bit of Hotwells is made to look, the more the Mayor can point at his pet Western Harbour project as an improvement.
Perched between the C Bond and the Thomas Ware tannery, I've always been curious about this odd residence with its tall mansards and unusual layout. It is, apparently, 8 and 9 Clift House Road. If it wasn't for the big busy route in front it could be in the middle of the countryside, really.
I imagine having that both the road and the tannery—operating since 1840 and still going strong, apparently—rather detracts from property value, but perhaps it's actually owned by the tanners and tenanted by people who are used to the smell anyway...