Tagged: city
On Christmas Day in the Morning
25 Dec 2020
A Christmas Day walk with my friends Sarah and Vik, taking in the shipwrecked Shadow and a hilly chunk of Leigh Woods.
I went to have a peep at the giant sinkhole that's opened up in Canynge Square—ironically, having recently discovered the gardens were public I'd had the (triangular!) square on my list to re-visit for a few days, but now there's no entrance to the gardens due to the danger. The area was well fenced-off for safety, but I tried to get a couple of photos from behind the barriers.
I also explored the area around Camp Road, an real melange of architectures, one of the most mixed-up areas I've seen in Clifton, in fact, and confirmed my friend Claire's suspicion that an earlier snap of a sign from Manilla Road was in fact for a fire hydrant. Nice.
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.
I'm not sure I knew until today's wander that the Bridge Valley Path exited almost opposite the Society of Merchant Ventuers' clubhouse.
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"
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...
I wanted to catch the jogger in the blast of reflected sunshine, and apparently I succeeded.
It wasn't there the last time. Gawd knows where it would have come from; it's not like there's a lot of big retail in Hotwells.
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...
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...
Is "knts" really a helpful abbreviation for "knots"? It's not like there wasn't room for the "o"...
It's a private estate, but I figured nobody would object too much if I wandered straight through. I don't push my way into private areas too much on these walks—my intention in the first place was to only walk down public roads—but sometimes my curiosity about a place I've walked past for decades but never set foot on gets the better of me.
It helps, I'm sure, that I'm white, approaching middle age and have a vaguely RP accent. Plus I do my best to look as un-furtive as possible and only wander through private areas in broad daylight and carrying a big obvious camera, which might be helping rather than hindering. In all the years I've been walking around places and poking my nose in I've never been asked to leave anywhere, anyway, so I've been taking that as a sign that my hopefully-repectful approach is working.
I didn't walk into the private garden here, but it was nice to get a new perspective on this curved terrace I've walked past so many times on the way down the harbourside into town.
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.
There are a few traditional vantage points for snapping the suspension bridge from Observatory Hill
I quite liked the colours and the light, but this photo doesn't really capture the feeling. Ah well.
The way the left-hand side looks a lot more together than the right-hand side may be explained by the very first part of the listing:
Rock House, now divided into 2. c1800. Render with limestone dressings, roof not visible. Double-depth plan. Late Georgian style. 3 storeys and basement; 5-window range. A symmetrical front has pilaster strips to a moulded coping, a wide basement area with Pennant-stepped bridge to an elliptical-arched doorway with metal batswing fanlight and 2-leaf 12-panel door with fluted lower panels. In front of the basement area is a later colonnade of 6 slim Tuscan columns, square to each end, to a deep first-floor balcony, and a shallow, tented second-floor balcony on cast-iron brackets with flat stanchions, both with pointed-arched wrought-iron railings with quatrefoils; 8/8-pane ground-floor sashes, French windows above, and plate-glass basement sashes.
However, I've found several references that suggest that even Historic England's estimate of the date of the property is wrong. I just found one in a planning document, part of an objection to a planning application related to Prince's Lane by the Cliftonwood and Hotwells Improvement Society:
Rock House (412 Hotwell Rd) is shown in an early engraving by William Halfpenny in 1731 so is much older than any of the neighbouring buildings and is the sole survivor of the original Hotwell Spa. It is incorrect to say it dates from 1800, and the planners have been told this.
I haven't, sadly, tracked down the engraving itself.
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.
It may say "Reflections House", but in its listing it's called "The White House". Charles Dyer, 1850.
I imagine it would look a lot nicer if it weren't backlit. Maybe I'll try taking another snap of it at a different time of day...
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
Birthday Coffee
21 Jan 2021
A quick jaunt to Clifton Village to grab a birthday coffee and cake (courgette, lime & pistachio, thanks for asking) from Twelve, and rubberneck at the demolition of the block that used to house the WH Smith, among other things. I remember the Havana Cafe, Mail Boxes Etc (for those who wanted a Clifton postcode without living there?) and others.
