Tagged: clifton-village
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.
A homeless guy used to live in that doorway. I don't know if the boarding up coincided with the religious order that used to run Emmaus House as a retreat centre moving to Whitchurch or not...
I'd assumed I'd be taking a picture of a squirrel, because that seems to be the main population of St Andrew's Churchyard, but hey, I'll take a blackbird.
Nice top to the turret on the corner of this house on the end of Mortimer Road. Anywhere else, you'd expect it to be listed, I'd've thought...
Strangers' Burial Ground
04 Dec 2020
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.
Although, given the sign, perhaps I shouldn't have. But I didn't think they'd object terribly. I've actively interested in living here; a couple of flats have popped up on the market in recent times and the views are amazing.
I take a snap of the Clifton Club virtually every time I pass. Perhaps it's having read too much Jeeves & Wooster; I fancy belonging to a private members' club. But then, on reflection, I'm perhaps with Groucho Marx on that one.
Up for the flu jab
21 Nov 2020
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.
This was meant to be the day of the first online Times Cryptic Crossword Championship. Sadly the Times's web servers let them down, so the event was a washout, and I dashed back from my flu jab to take part for no good reason, as it turned out.
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.
Ten O'Clock Shop and Can't Dance Coffee
30 Nov 2020
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.
Mint on the left, Rosemarino on the corner ahead, where the old York Cafe used to be, serving a full English for £1, back in the day.
Looking down onto Hanover Lane, which I often use as a cut-through when heading for the Triangle. In the Beforetimes I'd often walk between Waitrose and home via that route.
Clifton Hill
23 Nov 2020
I've just got to the bit in Fanny Burney's Evelina where our eponymous heroine visit a grand house on Clifton Hill during her stay in Hotwells. It was interesting to wonder if it could be any of the places I passed in my lunchtime jaunt, which took in both Clifton Hill and Lower Clifton Hill.
From Evelina (1778):
"Yes, Ma'am; his Lordship is coming with her. I have had certain information. They are to be at the Honourable Mrs. Beaumont's. She is a relation of my Lord's, and has a very fine house upon Clifton Hill."
I used to walk along Clifton Road so regularly I started diverting a litte out of my way and using this little ramp and steps just to break up the monotony.
"From 1851 until 1877 it was occupied by the family of John Addington Symonds (1840-93), Bristol’s most important gay historical figure." — OutStoriesBristol
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.
It's very nice in there. I will never be wealthy enough to be asked to join, which I understand it the only qualification I don't fulfill, being white, male and old. Actually, I tell a lie; in 2006 they voted to allow women to join, after only 188 years of prior existence
Not sure whose initials those are, but this is The Ivy, Clifton, formely NatWest bank, on the corner of The Mall and Caledonia Place. The listing says of 32-44 Caledonia Place, "he left-hand end pair rebuilt as one in 1922 to form a bank", and mentions 'the monogram "NUP"'
Has some local socialist been throwing rocks through the Clifton Club windows? Or maybe some descendant of WG Grace (a former member) was re-enacting some cricketing action a little too animatedly at the dinner table...
The Avometer brand multimeter was popular for decades; first made in 1923, the last one was produced in 2008. AVO stands for Amps, Volts and Ohms, the three things this multimeter can measure.
This collection was on display as part of an auction being held by a jeweller's on Princess Victoria Street.
And Back Down the Hill from the Flu Jab
21 Nov 2020
This is my return from getting my annual flu jab at Christ Church, as explained in more detail in my wander up the hill.
I don't think this is exactly a public right of way. But I started so I tried to finish without getting the police called on me by worried residents
I do love this terrace. The mansard roofs, the grand central house, the ornamentation, the porches. It's all rather grand.
This is now the Bristol School of Dancing. Their website says:
Built in 1893, it stands in the garden of 20 Vyvyan Terrace and it is rumoured that it was once a Swedish diplomatic building that contained a gymnasium. This is probably why on either side of the main entrance the words “Swedish Gymnasium” are carved.
Don't know what the JMJ is all about. Seems to be part of Cedar Care Homes (this is all behind their grand head office on Clifton Down Road, Mortimer House), but it's hard to tell for sure.
Clifton Village Mini Wander
20 Nov 2020
Just a quick wander up the hill to get a flat white from Twelve. I really enjoyed the spooky mannequin (?) in the window.
The one nearest is an AirB&B-style rental and looks lovely inside. This is the kind of quirkiness I might aspire to.
Many a time have I wandered down this little cut-through that joins Saville Place and the Fosseway. A shortcut through the Polygon starts me off, then it's pretty much a straight line up through to here and on to Queen's Road.
A little retirement housing block sitting at the end of a private road at the end of the Fossway. I've never wandered up and seen it before, though I've walked past it a thousand times.
I'm not sure what's going on in this fanlight on Richmond Terrace. Maybe it's space for a lamp?
Clifton Village: Jesus and the Tympanum
12 Nov 2020
My goal is walk down every public road within a mile of me; sometimes it's not easy to tell what's public. I've passed the turning for Cornwallis Grove a thousand times, but never had a reason to venture down it, and although the street signs at the end seem to be council-deployed and I didn't spot any "private" signs, it's a gated road and definitely feels private.
Gathering all the white middle-class privilege I could muster, I wandered down and was rewarded with the sight of a Victorian pump, a statue of Jesus, and from the end of the road, a view of a private garden that once belonged to a private girls' school.
The Cornwallis House history page says:
In the early 20th century the house, together with Grove House, became a Catholic school, St Joseph’s High School for Girls. The Congregation of La Retraite took over the school in 1924, with the nuns living in Grove House while the schoolrooms were in Cornwallis House. The headmistress was Mother St Paul de la Croix (Sister Paula Yerby). By the 1970s La Retraite High School had around 700 pupils.
It closed in 1982 and the building was bought by Pearce Homes Ltd (now part of Crest Nicholson) who developed it into 21 flats. Grove House next door was bought by the Bristol Cancer Help Centre, and was later converted into flats in 2007.
Glendale. One of those streets that's just around the corner from me, but that doesn't take me anywhere I ever need to be, so I've probably only walked up it half a dozen times in the couple of decades I've lived here.
According to the history page on its website, it's been everything from the private residence of the wealthy nephew of a shipping agent who had a hand in the slave trade, to a Protestant nunnery and a Catholic school, St Joseph’s High School for Girls. It's now residential.
This is opposite Grove House, but I'm wondering if it might be a remnant of the adjacent Cornwallis House having been a Catholic girls' school or a Protestant nunnery. All I know is that I've walked past the end of this road a thousand times without knowing how close to Jesus I was.
Cornwallis House's extensive private garden, with the back of York Gardens serried at the top.
Inspired by this plaque, I'm now (a couple of months later) about a third of the way through EH Young's Chatterton Square, set in a fictionalised Clifton called Upper Radstowe, whose eponymous square is based on Canynge Square.
Royal York Crescent
02 Nov 2020
I've taken a lot of photos of Royal York Crescent over the years. This time I walked right to the dead-end bit at the far west corner and found a plaque to the Empress of the French. Call me hard to impress, but among the scientists, novelists, architects and artists whose plaques litter the rest of the area, that seems quite minor claim to fame.
A gated community, apparently. There's a few of these little enclaves in Clifton, often hidden "around the back", as mews always were, I suppose.
I enjoy walking along Royal York Crescent enough that it's a frequent diversion from my quickest way home
And in between times were the Napoleonic Wars, which probably explains the desire for a barracks.
I've been tempted to try these Voi scooters-for-hire to expand my range for lunchtime wanders. However, having read their rules, at 118kg I'm 18kg over their maximum weight limit.
