Tagged: brickwork
My historical research took a wander underground recently, partly inspired by the Canynge Square sinkhole, partly by St Vincent's (Ghyston's) cave and its tunnel to the Observatory, and I was surprised to find that there might be an intact tunnel from the Bristol Port Railway and Pier still just sitting there under Bridge Valley Road. A quick search turned up this recent video by an intrepid explorer, so it's definitely still there.
I went looking for the entrances today, and definitely found the south entrance, at the start of the Bridge Valley Path, the footpath that starts with steps at the bottom of Bridge Valley Road. It's easy to miss if you're not looking for it. I think I've figured out where the north entrance is, too, but it was getting dark at that stage and the Portway was still busy enough that crossing the road was still the normal nuisance, so I thought I'd leave further explorations for another day.
A fragment from Horace's Odes: "not taught to suffer poverty."
Wikipedia says that the defunct Bristol magazine Venue once did a bit of investigative journalism on them:
Venue claimed that the Merchant Venturers control 12 charities and 40 trust funds, and also a private unlimited company, SMV Investments, that has major investments in defence contracting, tobacco, genetically modified agriculture and the petroleum industry. Merchant Venturers serve on the boards of many local charitable and cultural organisations, and are guaranteed seats on the University of Bristol Court and the Downs Committee. It quotes Paul Burton of the University's School of Policy Studies as saying, "they exert quite a bit of influence and we, the people of Bristol, don't know much about them and can't hold them to account"
A Promenade on New Year's Day
01 Jan 2021
I wandered along the gorge today and found the entrance to the disused Portnalls Number 1 railway tunnel of the Bristol Port Railway and Pier. The door was unlocked, but as soon as I opened it I felt a sense of current habitation and decided discretion was the best option. There's a lot of people homeless in Bristol at the moment, and they don't need disturbing. For the same reason, I've omitted posting some pictures of a little encampment somewhat off the beaten track of the new Zig Zag, where I reversed direction as soon as I realised I'd come across a current habitation of some sort.
Up in Clifton it took me a little while to work out that the picture of the Promenade I was trying to reproduce was taken from the viewpoint I'd thought, it was just that the Alderman's fountain was moved from the top of Bridge Valley Road to the other side of the promenade in 1987, so trying to use it as my initial landmark wasn't very helpful!
Finally I swung past the Society of Merchant Venturers, who presumably still own most of Clifton, having bought the entire manor, including Clifton Down, in 1676, and I imagine aren't in much danger of running out of money. That's true to their motto: indocilis pauperiem pati is apparently from the Odes of Horace, and translates as "will not learn to endure poverty"...
The older signs in Bristol just say e.g. 8 instead of the full postcode district of BS8.
This sign, on the grotto that used to house the last remaining Hot Well pump, is the last Hotwell Road sign before it turns into the Portway. Which seems reasonable, as the Hotwell Road should obviously include the Hot Well...
I imagine this alarm was last connected to anything during the tunnel's last commercial incarnation, where is was a shooting range for a Bristol gun club. Not even the lights are wired up these days. Or the water.
Erected by Alderman Thomas Proctor of Bristol to record the liberal gift of certain rights over clifton down made to the citizens by the Society of Merchant Venturers under the provisions of the Clifton and Durdham Downs Acts of Parliament 1861 whereby the enjoyment of these Downs is preserved to the citizens of Bristol for ever.
They get about, these Merchant Venturers.
Tiny Houses, Crocodiles and Views
05 Jan 2021
I didn't really intend to record my walk today, but once I was out and about I couldn't really resist taking some pictures. The sun was lovely, but it was cold...
Prince's Lane
06 Jan 2021
The International Grotto Directory website says:
Prince’s Lane might have been one of the original ancient tracks from Hotwells to Clifton, in the Avon Gorge. The site later formed part of Rownham Woods which comprised some thirteen acres. By the end of the 18th century and the early 19th century, the Society of Merchant Venturers granted to Samuel Powell a building lease, for The Colonnade (1786), St. Vincent’s Parade (1790), Prince’s Buildings (1796), and Rock House. Rock House is generally considered to be the oldest surviving building associated with the Hotwell (see Chapter 20). John Power conveyed part of the woods to William Watts for the construction of Windsor Terrace (1790-1808).
The above development of the Avon Gorge cleared Rownham Woods, and created a triangle of land on the north side of the gorge, that became enclosed as a result, by Mansion Houses, whose garden walls all entered on to Prince’s Lane. The Lane started at the bottom of the gorge, at the base rock of Windsor Terrace, and came out half way up Sion Hill. It is clearly shown as a public footpath, dotted with trees, in Ashmead’s map of 1828. Some of the gardens were quite steep in parts and therefore, had to be terraced, because of the gradient of the gorge.
I've passed Prince's Lane literally thousands of times in my life, every time I've walked past the Avon Gorge Hotel, which itself started (in 1898) as the Grand Clifton Spa and Hydropathic Institution and pumped water up from the Hot Well for its hydropathic treatments. I've never actually ventured down it until today, or at least nothing like as far down it as I did this afternoon—I may have poked my head around the back of the hotel to see the original pump rooms at some point in the past.
This was a great wander, though it does very much feel like a private road, and frankly I may have been pushing my luck a bit by winding my way between the astoundingly big back gardens of the houses of some presumably very wealthy Cliftonites, but I felt vaguely justified in exploring the history of one of the oldest footpaths in my part of Bristol...
This building is 1894, but commemorates the original Hot Well House down in actual Hotwells, built in 1694.
The nice folk who look after the Clifton Rocks Railway have an example of what one of the carriages would look like at the top, though the tunnel here has been bricked up for a long, long time. If you get the chance to visit on one of their open days, it's pretty fascinating.
A Little Local Wander
07 Jan 2021
Which included a literal "local", the Pump House, to try out their shop/deli/cafe. A flat white, some apples and a New York Deli toastie. Eleven quid, mind, but the Pump House was never a cheap pub...
I enjoyed the fog, and wandering down a few more out-of-the-way back alleys and what-have-you on the Hotwell Road.
I'm thinking of getting up early and going for a morning walk tomorrow, weather-depending, but at the moment my motivation to do things like this seems to be much strong in the evenings when I'm just thinking about it rather than in the morning when I actually have to do it. But it's going to be cold, and low tide is quite early, so there's always a chance of getting some footage of the hot well actually being visibly hot; you never know...
From the article I was reading to accompany yesterday's Prince's Lane wander:
"In the 1970s, access to Prince’s Lane from Hotwell Road was walled off, and a gate was put in the wall on Hinton Lane, which was locked and prevented people from using it."
I think this is likely to be that gate. It's certainly close to the most likely path for Prince's Lane to shimmy between the back gardens of St Vincent's Parade and the back gardens of Windsor Terrace to emerge from the Clifton hillside onto Hinton Lane, anyway.
I didn't realise this was just a car park and an entrance to a couple of the flats. I exited quite quickly once I'd worked that out. I did spot a gate that looked like it might lead through to the rest of the estate, but I didn't try it.
And, inevitably, a load of tagging. The Spar is a pretty awful example of the kind of chain shop that's not good at the best of times. It survives, I imagine, because there aren't any other shops.
Morning Walk
08 Jan 2021
Tempted by a hopeful repeat of yesterday's weather, I got up early this morning and went for a short walk up into Clifton Village, around Observatory Hill, back down the Zig Zag and home. Instead of beautiful and mysterious fog and crisp freezing brightness I got some murk and slight dampness which included witnessing a road-raging van driver and finding that it still wasn't cold enough for the hot well to be even gently steaming when I got down there. I've still never seen it steaming, but I've been told it does, on colder days.
Mirror Maze
10 Jan 2021
Went for a wander with my friend Lisa—the current lockdown rules seem to be that one local walk for exercise per day with a maximum of one person not in one's "bubble" is fine—up to the University of Bristol area right at the edge of my one-mile perimeter to see the Jeppe Hein Mirror Maze, among other things. On the way we mused about Merchant Venturers, the slave and tobacco trades, and dating in the time of Covid.
Bristol Water Works, I'm thinking. This grid square of Clifton is basically the reservoir and waterworks, both historic and modern.
The old pump house is just out of shot to the right; next time I go I'll grab a photo of it for completeness. The giant covered reservoir around the back of this is gravity-fed from Barrow Reservoir and then a pumping station here sends it up the hill to the covered reservoir and water tower on Durdham Down.
Later on this wander I took a photo of the covered reservoir itself, so look out for that.
Architectural tidbit:
By local repute, the bungalow at 46 Upper Belgrave Road was owned by BWW and was of reduced height so that the man in charge of the pump at Oakfield Road could see the standpipe and stop pumping when the reservoir was full! — 'To Keep Open and Unenclosed':
The Management of Durdham down since 1861, by Gerry Nichols
Northern Clifton
16 Jan 2021
A raggedy wander with my friend Lisa, picking up a few stray streets and venturing only briefly onto Whiteladies Road, where it was too damn busy, given the current pandemic. We retreated fairly quickly. Found a couple of interesting back alleys, and got a very pointed "can I help you?" from a man who was working in his garage in one of the rather run-down garage areas behind some posh houses, and clearly didn't want us just wandering around there.
Oddly, this is a little crescent that two-thirds Coddrington Place and one-third Belgrave Place, it seems
Coffee and Graff
22 Jan 2021
Took myself around the harbour to Imagine That's horsebox cafe and treated myself to a flat white and a sourdough cheese toastie. On the way there and back I encountered some local flooding and various bit of graffiti, from some ugly tagging on someone's front windows to a large new piece being added to Cumberland Piazza in the ongoing attempts to cheer the place up.
This was covered with graff & tags last time I saw it; I don't imagine it'll be long before it is again.
Snowy Leigh Wander
24 Jan 2021
I started this wander with my "support bubble" Sarah and Vik, after Sarah texted me to say "SNOW!" We parted ways on the towpath and I headed up into the bit of Leigh Woods that's not actually the woods—the village-like part in between Leigh Woods and Ashton Court, where I'd noticed on a map a church I'd not seen before. I found St Mary the Virgin and quite a few other things I'd never experienced, despite having walked nearby them many, many times over many years, including a castellated Victorian water tower that's been turned into a house...
Seems to lead onto a field below the posh houses on Rownham Hill, which I have a couple of snaps of in a mo.
Or is this a narthex? I'm not too up on my church terminology. Anyway. This is the main entrance to St Mary the Virgin, Church Road, Leigh Woods, currently vicared by Rev. Dr Hester Jones, built 1891, designed by John Medland.
As with many pretty things in Bristol, the church was partially funded by money from booze and fags (via the church website):
At 4pm on 1st November 1890 a meeting was called at the home of Mr John Harvey (Harvey’s Wine). A committee of nine men with business acumen and money was formed including Thomas Davey (Franklin Davey Tobacco Co later subsumed into Imperial Tobacco), Mr Edward Swann (an influential solicitor and banker and on very good terms with the Bishop of Bath & Wells), Mr William Garnett, Mr Hoskens Lowe (timber importer) and Mr John Russell Harvey (John Harvey’s son) and Mr E Burrow Hill (the son of Charles Hill, shipbuilder) who became the committee’s secretaries. By the end of the month sufficient funds had been pledged and, with land given by the Leigh Woods Land Company, to proceed to plans.
