Tagged: door
Lunchtime Cliftonwood Wander
18 Jan 2022
Another workday, another quick lunchtime trip to get me out of the house. This time my flimsy pretext is a tiny bit of Clifton Vale Close that I'd apparently not walked, and the fact that although I'd walked down Church Lane at least once before I still hadn't taken a single photo of it. Really I just fancied a mosey through Cliftonwood in the sunshine, with the promise of a coffee from Clifton Village at the top of the hill.
This is apparently "Amhurst", "House and stables, now pair of attached houses."
In a few pics' time we'll take a closer look at the door, and its description in the listing...
As promised, a bit more detail of the Amhurst door from the listing:
Left-of-centre doorway has Gibbs surround and thin consoles to a pediment, architrave with a split key, overlight with 4 pointed-arched panes and a 6-panel door, the upper ones raised.
Hopefully someone plans to give it a lick of paint at some point soon...
Bedminster Trip for New Walking Shoes
26 Feb 2022
I needed to buy new walking shoes—my old ones were squeaking and it was driving me up the wall—so I ordered some for collection from Taunton Leisure on East Street in Bedminster, and decided to make picking them up an official wander.
I didn't cover any new ground within my mile, but I did take advantage of the trip to take in a few interesting things just outside my normal radius, mostly New Gaol-related. Along the way there are a couple of sanitation-related diversions, including a visit to a rare manhole cover. You can hardly wait, I can tell!
The blurb for The Cuckoo Cage sounds fun:
In this unique experiment, twelve authors have been tasked with resurrecting that tradition: to spawn a new generation of present-day British superheroes, willing to bring the fight back to British shores and to more progressive causes.
But I'd probably take issue with the experiment's claimed uniqueness, given that it sounds virtually the same concept as 1991's Temps. Still, I'll be interested to read it and I snapped this to remind myself that I might want to get a ticket for the launch.
I'm sure I must have seen/noticed this giant pile on the corner of the New Cut and Bedminster Parade before, but It's quite well-hidden from the road.
This place has both astoundingly good reviews and a gallery, apparently. According to the website, it's run by "Annie, a well-known celebrity on the Street Art scene".
I may have to pop in at some point, though I'm rarely at a loose end in this bit of town.
I couldn't find out why it's called the Rope Walk, but it does seem to be the starting point for the Blood and Butchery in Bedminster walking tour, so that might be a way of finding a local historian who knows...
I didn't know this was here, in the dark corner of the covered bit of Bedminster Parade. I had to pop in, and procured a small selection of excellent beers.
My colleague Helen says she's a regular at the place, often stopping in for a beer.
It looks like the kind of place you'd get great fish & chips. Having had a look at the reviews, most of the bad ones seem to be from people having delivery problems through Deliveroo and Just Eat, so probably best sampled up close and in person, I think.
It's a strange mix of shops. This rather high-end sounding deli is sandwiched between two mobile phone repair places.
I'm glad that you can tell from the other signs that this should say "Regal Amusements" and not "Illegal Amusements", as I'd originally assumed.
I noticed I had a few things on my "potential wanders" list that could all be done relatively close to home, and in a fairly straight line, so I set off at lunchtime to recreate a photo of a now-defunct pub, wander behind a Spar (which turned out to be more interesting than I'd expected, but I admit it's a low bar) and spend some time browsing in Dreadnought Books before coming home via a coffee from Spoke & Stringer, a little diversion up Gasworks Lane and a tiny bit of the Rownham Mead estate I'd somehow previously skipped.
Uncredited apart from "from our archives" and undated, this photo appeared in this article on Hotwells in the Evening Post and made me want to re-create the same view today.
The pub had a few changes of name over time—in the Bristol Then and Now Facebook group people recall this being the Spring Gardens in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Someone remembers it turning into Durty Nelly's in 1995, but I swear it was back to being the Spring Gardens again by the time I moved to the area in 1999. Then it spent some time as La Demi Lune, which you can see on Street View in 2008, and then by 2009 it's back to The Spring Garden (without the "s").
So, from what I can work out, this snap was probably taken in the 1990s, most likely between 1995 and 1999.
This pub—which did good food, and had an extensive garden at the back, from what I remember, when it was the Spring Gardens in the early 2000s—is rather more bland in looks today, as we'll see in the next picture.
Here's the Spring Garden(s)/Durty Nelly's/La Demi Lune as it looks today. Rather dull modern accommodation, sadly. I understand they may have extended the building back into the garden to make it roomy enough to be flats.
A Swing of the Plimsoll Bridge
24 Apr 2022
I was originally going to head over to the Ashton area to see if I'd missed any bits around the football stadium—and also to grab some lunch from the Tobacco Factory Market—but in the end I got a little distracted by having accidentally chosen exactly the right time to see the Plimsoll Bridge swing on one of the first busy days of Spring, where a lot of pleasure trips tend to head out down the Avon (and possibly the New Cut) from Hotwells.
In the end I mostly snapped that, and just a couple of photos from the Ashton area where I grabbed some lunch but didn't do any new exploring.
Ticking Off a Pocket of Paths in Leigh Woods
03 Jun 2022
I managed to go for a wander a while ago that was meant to finish off a little tangle of paths in Leigh Woods, or at the very least finish off my wandering of the Purple Path there. And I managed to miss doing either of those things through some kind of navigational incompetence.
Today I woke up with a bit of a headache, feeling a bit knackered as soon as I dragged myself out of bed, but at least with the energy to realise that I'd be better off (a) going for a walk in what looked likely to be the last of the Jubilee weekend sunshine than (b) moping around the flat until it started raining, at which point I could mope more thoroughly.
I had a look at my map, considered going to Ashton Court, but remembered that there was a music festival there today, and instead found these little leftovers of Leigh Woods and decided to have one more try at walking them.
Having started in the woods, this is the first hint of the Jubilee celebrations I've seen, on the alpine chalet-style house near the Suspension Bridge.
A Quick Swing Past Ashton Court
05 Jun 2022
Another day not dissimilar to my last wander: I'm feeling a bit tired and rather than just moping around the house I thought I'd find some tiny bit of somewhere that I'd not yet walked and get outdoors. This time I headed for the Tobacco Factory Market in Bedminster, as I often do, but went the long way around via Ashton Court Mansion as I knew there were some footpaths and a small section of road I'd not ticked off up there. Finishing all the Ashton Court footpaths will be quite a long job, but you've got to start somewhere...
I did feel rather better by the time I got home, and, pretty much astoundingly given the weather forecast, managed to avoid the rain completely.
We're suddenly out of the woods and a fair distance away; I didn't take any snaps on my way through the little alleyway I've used before to get to Rownham village and down Parklands Road back toward Bedminster. Here we see an eye peeking out at the start of an underpass.
The technique that Ant Carver used for this piece, called "Love Me/Love Not", is intriguing. I recommend reading the write-up on the always-informative Natural Adventures.
I've been pretty awful at reading so far this year, apparently averaging about one book per month. That's a far cry from 2019, say, where I got through 41 books in the year. Today's wander was prompted by my rubbish reading, as I needed to go hand back some books to the library, because I'd managed to renew them so many times that I hit the limit on renewals. Oops. Several of them were still unread.
So, off to the Central Library for me, tail between my legs. On the way there I did my best to recreate a historical photo of Dowry Square; while I was in the area I walked under the adjacent Norman arch and poked around behind the Cathedral, and I also had a little diversion to the city centre and came back along the south side of the river, hitting some trouble with the lock gates as I finally crossed the harbour back towards home.
Off to the side of the photo we've just seen is the pub frontage on the Hotwell Road, apparently a later addition. The listing says
The right-hand return has a late C19 ashlar public house front with 5 panelled pilasters and foliate capitals to left-hand and central doorways, 2 windows with tripartite frames and semicircular-arched panes below, panelled aprons and dentil cornice.
Nowadays known as York House, and apparently offices, this was originally built by George Tully, like a lot of the rest of the square.
According to this Heritage Statement about No. 10 by Mark Hines Architects he started building in 1723, imagining accommodation houses for Hotwells visitors, but later built this large hotel and other buildings like the Clifton Dispensary at No 12 as the spa became more popular and the square evolved into a centre of medicine. I'm a little confused by that claim as the York Hotel went up c. 1780, according to the listing, when Tully had been dead for ten years, but perhaps it means he planned it before he died.
Okay, so given that the library won't be open until 1pm I need to kill some time. I decided to have a mooch around the "old city" area.
Here I noticed a newish specialist darts club, apparently. Can't for the life of me remember what was at 41 Corn Street before this appeared.
My boss plays darts, but given how accident-prone she is it would take some convincing for me to enter a room where she was both drinking and in charge of throwable pointy objects.
It's a cocktail bar inspired by the occult in general and the Tarot in particular, apparently. It's by the same people behind Hyde's, which I remember enjoying very much on the couple of occasions I've made it there.
Nipping Up the Zig Zag to the Shops
19 Aug 2023
It's been a long while since I did one of these walks.
I'm thinking of finishing up the project by walking one or two last bits of road, thus being able to declare with all honesty that I've done my best to walk every public road within my mile (and quite a few alleyways besides.) As a prelude, and just because I felt like it, I decided to drag out the camera and GPS on this little wander to the local shops.
I may not personally be a fan of evangelical Christianity, but at least they keep the place looking nice. It's still very tidy since the recent renovation, installaltion of solar panels on the roof and repainting of the HOPE CHAPEL sign.
I was concerned about the state of Rock House, or at least its southern half, the last time I took a closer look at it while passing. Happily it seems to have been bought by someone prepared to fix up that drooping balcony. Here's hoping these repairs continue and my next photo of the place shows both sides of this old house (dated back to at least 1731 by a William Halfpenny engraving, no matter what the Listing says.)
Just behind Rock House you can see a bit of the Colonnade, sawn off at the end to make room for the widened Hotwell Road, I believe. Back in the day, according to 1925's The Bristol guide; being a complete ancient and modern history of the city of Bristol, the Hotwells and Clifton:
For those who prefer exercise to silting, there is the Colonade with shops, built beneath the rocks, and a parade about
800 feet long, shaded with trees, by the side of the river, so that the company may enjoy a dry and pleasant walk when it rains, or an airy, cool, and shady walk in the warmest season: also during the influx and efflux of the river, they may be entertained with the sight of the Merchant's ships, Steam packets, and Coasting vessels that generally pass up or down.
Quick Around-the-Harbour Wander with Lisa
20 Mar 2021
My friend Lisa was meeting another friend for a walk near the suspension bridge, so we fitted in a quick harbourside loop from my place first. We discussed gardening (we're both envious of the gardening skills of the Pooles Wharf residents; we can just about keep herbs alive, whereas they're growing heartily-fruiting lemon trees outdoors in England along with everything from bonsai to magnolias), cafes, work and architecture, among other things.
I've probably snapped this before, as it's just the kind of detail that catches my eye every time.
In what used to be the mediocre tea room for the Framing Factory/gallery. The new occupants are Jack Hudspith and Kate Evans, of Small Street Espresso fame. Small Street Espresso was one of my favourite cafes in town in the Beforetimes. Small Street Espresso is also the "sister" cafe to long-time Wapping Wharf resident Little Victories, just around the corner from here, but I'm not sure what's owned by who and/or still open right now.
I wasn't going to take a very long walk on this nice spring evening; it just happened. I was going to knock off a path or two on Brandon Hill, home over centuries to hermits and windmills, cannons and Chartists, and then just wander home, stopping only to fill up my milk bottle at the vending machine in the Pump House car park.
However, when I heard a distant gas burner I stayed on the hill long enough to see if I could get a decent photo of both the hot air balloon drifting over with Cabot Tower in the same frame (spoiler: I couldn't. And only having the fixed-focal-length Fuji with me didn't help) and then, on the way home, bumped into my "support bubble", Sarah and Vik, and extended my walk even further do creep carefully down the slipway next to the old paddle steamer landing stage and get some photos from its furthest extreme during a very low tide...
