Tagged: gaol-ferry
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 bridge is in a pretty poor state at the moment, apparently. It's about to be closed for repairs until the end of 2022, though if I know anything about the quality of Council estimates for bridge repairs, I wouldn't expect to see it finished until the end of 2023...
That can't really be anything other than a slipway for the old ferry, can it? Especially as there are steps down there from the road, albeit overgrown to the point of invisibility and with their entrance bricked up, as we'll see when we get to the other side.
This bridge was only put up to replace the ferry in the 1930s, so it's not surprising that the ferry facilities are still pretty obvious from this side.
We have, in fact, wandered down there on a previous walk.
You can see the New Gaol entrance there on the left, poking out incongruously from the modern flats, with the spire of St Mary's rising from behind it in the distance.
Presumably this was the entrance to the stairs down to the ferry, long ago bricked up. There certainly seems to be a stairway behind it, though it's hard to tell for sure...
Well, it slopes down to the riverside at the top of the slipway. I presume there are still steps under there.
Leaning over the wall, we can see the overgrown steps from the bricked up gate leading down to the start of the ramp down to the ferry crossing.
The old ferry crossing, the newer 1930s bridge that replaced it, and the shiny new flats and shops of Wapping Wharf on the far side.