Tagged: facade
Pastures New!
17 Jul 2021
Okay, not much in the way of actual pasture to be had in Bedminster these days, like most of Bristol, but I did take advantage of the current rather toasty weather in Bristol to go and sit under a tree in Greville Smyth Park to read a book for a while before firing up the GPS and taking a little detour around some back streets of Ashton and Bedminster rather than going straight to Coffee #1 for an espresso frappé. This is the first walk in a while where I've actually crossed off an entire new street (the frankly unexciting Carrington Road) as well as exploring a couple of back alleys, just because they were there, really. Along the way I spotted a few examples of graffiti of various qualities, including a live work-in-progress by SNUB23 on Ashton Road and the finished Six Sisters project on North Street.
By all accounts a fine cafe in the greasy spoon archetype. Top right you can see a little tribute to Ashton Gate football stadium, a stone's throw away. Currently the stadium is being used as a Covid-19 vaccination centre.
According to Google Street View, a few years ago this was just a modest corner house. I imagine someone's made a tidy profit.
This was a work in progress last time I passed. Now all Six Sisters of this female-led graffiti project are finished and fair glowing in the sunshine.
Lunchtime Zig Zag Climb
13 Jul 2021
A snappy little trip up the Zig Zag to the shops. It's a steep old route, the Zig Zag, going from just over river level to about the height of the suspension bridge (101 metres) in a compact switchback of a footpath.
I was too busy struggling to breathe to take many snaps of the actual Zig Zag (I've been trying to make it up all the way without stopping the last few times, but I've not quite managed it yet). I did at least take a few snaps either side on this quick lunchtime jaunt to fetch coffee (Coffee #1) and a sarnie (Parsons) from Clifton Village...
I will always enjoy the fact that Brunel looks out from this window. Have I ever noticed the smaller figure in the lower-left corner? Maybe it's new...
One of many fine old lamp posts in Clifton Village. The late, great Maggie Shapland apparently used to keep an eagle eye on them and make sure they were returned if they were ever carted off for repair. The Clifton Club lurks grandly in the background.
Although you may immediately think "gas lamp", here's an extract from Electric Arc Lamps in Bristol by Peter Lamb, published as a supplement to the Histelec News, newsletter of the Western Power Electricity Historical Society:
In looking at old photographs of late Victorian or early Edwardian scenes, many of you may have noticed very decorative street lights gracing the foregrounds. These lamp standards had long cylindrical shapes above the lamp, which distinguished them as being electric arc lamps. You may have wondered, like me, what was inside these housings. These cylinders, known colloquially at the turn of the century as “chimneys” were not chimneys at all, but housed the complex mechanisms regulating the carbon electrodes. Only two lamp standards of this distinctive design remain as street furniture on the Bristol streets and these are situated at The Mall, Clifton Village.
Autonomous Vehicle
14 Jul 2021
As it turned out, I didn't manage to get a coffee on my lunchtime coffee trip, as Imagine That were briefly shut down by a Covid-19 exposure notification (false alarm, it seems.) On the plus side, my trip was made worthwhile by spotting a couple of people from the University of Bath Mechanical Engineering Department testing an autonomous body-finding catamaran, which isn't a phrase I was ever expecting to write...
A Cliftonwood Revisit with Lisa
10 Jul 2021
Lisa had a couple of hours to spare before going up in a hot air balloon (exciting!) so we went for a quick local walk, revisiting a bit of Cliftonwood we've seen before, exploring the secret garden I'd visited before that I thought she'd enjoy (I didn't take any new photos there) and then pushing on to another garden, Cherry Garden. Last time we passed this way, I'd noticed the gate, but we hadn't gone in as I'd assumed it was private. I'd since found it on CHIS's list of communal gardens in Clifton, so I wanted to have a look inside this time, and try to figure out whether it was private-communal or public, and possibly Council-owned, like several of the other gardens in Clifton.
I'm assuming it doesn't get opened much, or there'd be a little more pruning going on. Still, very pretty for a garage...
The rather tumbleodown letters remind me of the tricks played with both Fawlty Towers and Sunshine Desserts.
Seemed to be open and busy, which is good. It's always been a good, friendly pub, but I understand it's been on the verge of closure a couple of times recently.
...with the end of "Jacobethan" Transit Shed "E". The end facing and baroque tower were apparently created to make looking this way from the centre a bit more pleasant; it's fairly plain further down. This is a smidge outside my one mile, but I was interested in the gates, having spotted them in a historic photo in one of my research books—see next pic.
There are some other pics from earlier times on the Watershed's web site, including one from 1981, not long before the E and W sheds were transformed into the complex that houses the excellent Watershed Cinema, their Cafe Bar, the Pervasive Media Studio and other modern features.
Bocye's Avenue Windows
19 May 2021
I just nipped up to Clifton Village to get a coffee, though I did manage to walk down a little alleyway I'd not really noticed before. Or perhaps I had noticed it and it looked private, but today I felt like wandering up its twenty or so feet anyway... The reflections in the shop windows on Boyce's Avenue gave me the idea to take a few snaps of them, so that's the majority of my small amount of snapping today.
Not that you can get much of a view of it with a little camera and with it behind a bunch of netting. Looks rather friable. Apparently it was part of a scheme to attract Queen Victoria to visit that never came to fruition.
Whistle Stop Tour Via a Hansom
12 May 2021
I wanted to take another snap of an interesting Gothic Revival place in Clifton, having found out a bit more about the owner. On the way I walked through the Clifton Vale Close estate, idly wondering again whether it might've been the site of Bristol's Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (I've not researched further yet.) On the way back I knocked off the last remaining bit of Queens Road I had yet to walk and tried to find the bit of communal land that Sarah Guppy bought so as not to have her view built on...
The swan's impressive, but also the effort involved in making all those origami cubes hung on strings. I wonder if it's a lockdown hobby? Perhaps they'd have been better off trying for one thousand origami cranes...
I foolishly didn't leave time to pop in and pick up a coffee on my way back from my outing.
I love this Gothic Revival pile. I've snapped it before, but I recently found out something interesting...
"House. 1860. By JA Hansom. For himself."
Does the name Joseph Hansom sound familiar? As well as being the architect of this house, and, to pick a couple of things at random, Arundel Cathedral and Brimingham Town Hall, he also found the time to invent the Hansom Cab.
...lived here. You may remember seeing her gravestone in St Andrew's Churchyard...
Her Wikipedia entry notes:
She bought the land opposite the house for the benefit of Clifton residents and it still remains green space
While there is some green space opposite, it looks very private and seems to belong to Edgecumbe Hall (sometimes spelled Edgecombe, it seems...)
CHIS's Communal Gardens web page says:
Richmond Hill Gardens. ca 1830 This forms a key visual feature at the top of the triangle. There are specimens of at least 23 tree species, including a magnificent Weeping Beech, the finest in the city, and a Redwood, which is an offshoot of a tree cut down twenty years ago. The land was bought by Sarah Guppy (1770-1857) an inventor and designer who was consulted by Brunel. She lived in Richmond Hill and did not want any building opposite, so bought the land and made it communal. For many years it was a nursery garden but now it has become a well hidden car park for those houses to which it is attached.
...and lists it under "Private Communal Gardens", so I suppose it's not public, but it is communally-owned (and likely to have a covenant against building?) Seems a bit of a shame it's ended up as a car-park.
Sequel Injection
07 May 2021
I saw this tweet the other day and started thinking of my second Covid-19 vaccination as my "Sequel Injection" (to a geek, it's funny. You'll have to take my word for it.) Whatever you call it, this morning I went and got it.
It was in the same place I got my initial injection—my left arm! No, okay, it was at the Clifton College Prep School. I didn't take any photos of the event itself; the NHS production line is so efficient you barely have time to do anything else, even if the privacy of other patients wasn't a factor.
Along the way I mused at all the road resurfacing going on in Clifton, and also discovered a secret (okay, not-well-known and possibly slightly trespassey) way into Canynge Square, and on the way back I knocked off a few streets from my "leftovers list" of north-east Clifton. I've got much of Clifton done now, with the only obvious "to dos" on the east side of Whiteladies Road...
It was quite a long walk, and I'm feeling pretty tired now, though that might be the effects of the jab too, I suppose. Anyway. Tomorrow and Monday I'm walking outside Bristol, I think, and I imagine my feet will need some recovery time on Sunday, so it might be a while before I post another Wander.
I wonder if this is the stage door to the Redgrave? And how it came to be connected to the corner of Canynge Square? Either way, I love finding these little cut-throughs that are normally only known by locals.
It's just off the main drag, but having a little garden that separates it from Oakfield Road makes it seem a little more private.
I couldn't really do them justice, but each garden was really nicely kept, in its own way. I wonder if they have a gardening committee?
I've snapped Oakfield Court before, but it was looking so nice in the sunshine that I couldn't resist another pic.
Down the side of the Bristol Water building you can see the side of the mound that marks the covered Oakfield Road reservoir.
Shop Fronts of Regent Street
22 May 2021
I didn't even think I'd manage to get out today, such was the weather forecast. As it turned out, it's been quite a nice day, and I managed to nip up to Clifton Village to pop to the Post Office. As with my last outing, I decided after snapping one shop-front on Regent Street that I might as well snap the whole row, and muse on a few of them, the only service I really offer over and above Google Street View for a lot of my pictures 😀
The gentleman kicking the recycling bag is not in the queue for Foliage; he's one of the proprietors of Clifton Hardware, next door.
Foliage was Wainwright's Coffee for a while before it changed hands; I think the current people are doing a much better job of giving the place a distinctive feel and attracting people in. Before that it was a boutique called Grace and Mabel.
One of those places where if you go in and ask for some fly spray, a socket set and some tachyon conduit for a Type 40 TARDIS they'll just start rummaging in the back room and ask you whether you want the socket set in metric or Imperial.
I should really try this place at some point. The only Sushi place I've tried in Clifton Village is Noa, which was excellent.
And the pedestrian and vehicle entrances to Regent House, the offices above. Looks like someone's managed to smash Knight Frank's window; maybe it's a protest against the house prices in the area.
At the time I was a little annoyed to lose the cashpoint at this former HSBC branch (it used to be at the bottom of the middle window; they were stone-faced up to about the height of where the railings reach now.
Then it turned into a Waterstones, and now I have to be careful not to go in too often as I will inevitably buy something to add to my vast tsundoku pile.
I've not been in since it changed from a Boston Tea Party, but I may have to try it just to sit upstairs and watch the world go by like I used to...
Leftovers with Lisa
01 May 2021
I didn't get to all the little leftover streets around the northeastern part of my area in today's wander, but I definitely knocked a few off the list, plus Lisa and I enjoyed the walk, and didn't get rained on too badly. We spotted the hotting-up of Wisteria season, checked out Birdcage Walk (both old and new), ventured onto the wrong side of the tracks1 and generally enjoyed the architecture.
1 Well, technically we probably shouldn't have been on the grounds of those retirement flats, but nobody started chasing us around the garden with a Zimmer frame
It's nice to see one of Bristol's defunct fountains being put to some kind of purpose.
The places of worship are looking rather splendid in the sun today. The clock's right, too!
Canons Marsh Coffee Trip
29 Apr 2021
Another quick excursion to Canon's Marsh, tempted back by Rod & Ruby's cannoli and flat white. This time I poked around some bits of the modern flats I'd not really experienced before, mused on the old gasworks, and headed back down the Hotwell Road, spotting a re-opening gallery and finishing off at the Adam & Eve, for which some locals are currently rushing to launch a bid to turn it into a community business rather than have a developer turn it into yet-more flats.
I was in a bouncy, positive mood, helped out by Life Without Buildings' Live at the Annandale Hotel album1. Note to self, though: the album is nearly an hour long, so if you hear the encore starting and you're still halfway down the Hotwell Road, you'll probably be late back from lunch...
1 That review's well worth a read. Music journalists tend to go extra-dreamy when trying to describe Sue Tompkins. See what I mean:
She circles her limber tongue-twisters, feints, and attacks from unexpected angles, dicing and rearranging them with the superhuman brio of an anime ninja and a telegraphic sense of lexical rhythm.
So new it doesn't seem to be on Google or Bing Maps yet, at least on the actual map bit, this is the one new build that stands alongside the two historic-building-conversion jobs (Purifier House and Engine House) at Brandon Yard, basically the site of the old gasworks.
They were one of the last sites to be regenerated, after some failed attempts to turn them into offices, including by the Soil Association. I don't know much about what they do in a gasworks, but I heard that the ground was highly polluted and needed a lot of remedial work before anything new could be put there.
