Tagged: grass
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.
I'm absolutely fascinated by this sinkhole in the Canynge Square garden. I'm not sure why. But every time I'm there there's normally another rubbernecker or three, so perhaps I can take solace in that.
Presumably people were getting to what looked like the end of the road without finding number 23 and getting confused. I can see how that could happen.
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.
I wonder if the bit about it being closed for one day a year is a non-sequitur, or whether there's actually some legal requirement to close the garden every now and again to maintain its private status.
Coffee and Graff
22 Jan 2021
Took myself around the harbour to Imagine That's horsebox cafe and treated myself to a flat white and a sourdough cheese toastie. On the way there and back I encountered some local flooding and various bit of graffiti, from some ugly tagging on someone's front windows to a large new piece being added to Cumberland Piazza in the ongoing attempts to cheer the place up.
Snowy Leigh Wander
24 Jan 2021
I started this wander with my "support bubble" Sarah and Vik, after Sarah texted me to say "SNOW!" We parted ways on the towpath and I headed up into the bit of Leigh Woods that's not actually the woods—the village-like part in between Leigh Woods and Ashton Court, where I'd noticed on a map a church I'd not seen before. I found St Mary the Virgin and quite a few other things I'd never experienced, despite having walked nearby them many, many times over many years, including a castellated Victorian water tower that's been turned into a house...
Another Lunchtime, Another Quick Coffee Trip
28 Jan 2021
With very little photography, and no new streets. Still, I did manage to buy milk at the "Simple Cow" vending machine—and "simple" is very definitely false advertising; it took me bloody ages to work out how to use the thing—and snap the new ACER/SEPR piece down in Cumberland Piazza.
It was not simple. But now I have some clue what I'm doing I might manage it better next time.
Unexpected Snow
31 Jan 2021
I just nipped out to post a blood test (not Covid-related) and check that my car was okay, because I've not driven it for weeks. I was just going to walk up to Clifton Village, but I spotted the opportunity to re-park the car on my street rather than up the hill around the corner where it was, so instead I got in, intending just to move a hundred metres, but it turned over slowly before it started, and then warned me that the battery was very low and I should go for a long drive to recharge it.
So, I did my best, zipping up the A4018 to the motorway junction and back again, dropping off my blood at a postbox along the way, and while I did that, it started snowing. I noticed it was low tide, too, so when I got back home I headed back out again, this time on foot and with a camera so I could see if I could find any evidence of the Hot Well steaming.
I saw not a single sign of the Hot Well steaming, but it was quite a nice quick outing and I enjoyed my brief walk in the snow. Iike Hinton Lane, too, and while it's all old ground I was re-treading, I did at least get a picture or two with a bit of snow and some of the cold winter atmosphere of the trip, I think.
Went down to see if I could see it steaming. No dice. I really want to clear the spring of all that junk every time I see it, but I have no means to do it, let alone the knowledge and wisdom to know if it might do more harm than good...
Jacob's Well Wander
01 Feb 2021
I just wanted to get some exercise, really, so I set out to knock off the lower bit of Jacobs Wells Road that I'd not managed to walk up yet. I set the new signboard that the community association had had erected as my destination, after reading about it on their blog.
As it turned out, I couldn't even read it, as the building that houses the actual Jacob's Well had water flooding out onto the pavement. I wonder if it was actual Jacob's Well water? Have the soles of my walking shoes been mystically blessed now?
You can't see much of the flood in the photos I snapped, but I did shoot a little video, too. Ed on Twitter said:
I spoke to the seller at the time with a view to buying it - I mentioned an old friend who grew up nearby remembers it flooding regularly. He swore blind my friend was wrong.
This was quite hard to read in person and I only nipped out for a quick walk in my lunch hour, so I didn't have the time to spend checking it out.
Main entrance to Queen Elizabeth's Hospital. One of those buildings that's easier to take photos of from significantly further away.
Greville Smyth Path Completionism
02 Feb 2021
I needed to get away from my desk at lunchtime, and I saw a little segment of path in Greville Smyth Park that needed knocking off my "to walk down" list, so that gave me a target. Sadly Hopper Coffee's little Piaggio Ape wasn't there to sell me a coffee. I hope Rich is all right, not seen him so far this year.
Anyway, a fairly uneventful walk. They're putting new boundary fencing up around Hotwell Primary School (I wandered down Albermarle Row to see what the pneumatic drilling was about), the house on Granby Hill that's been covered in scaffolding and swaddled in protective sheeting has finally been revealed in its cleaned and refurbished form, and they were doing something to the flyover that leads up from the end of the Portway/Hotwell Road to the Plimsoll Bridge. Nothing much else to report.
Easy to miss in the previous photo. I didn't have a camera with a zoom lens today. The Fujifilm X100T is a fantastic camera for many purposes, but zooming in on distant details is not one of them.
In Between
06 Feb 2021
A lovely walk in the early spring sunshine with my friend Lisa. We headed directly for Jacobs Wells Road, to start off around the scene of one of our earlier walks, but this time took in Jacobs Wells from QEH upward, stopping to snap some photos of a Bear With Me, some interesting areas between Park Street and Brandon Hill including a peculiarly quiet enclave with a ruined old build I'd never found before, then crossed the Centre to grab take-away pies from Pieminister (I had the Heidi Pie) and head back to my place down the harbourside.
Very long story short: it's a cut-down replica of the Bristol High Cross. The original used to stand in the centre of Bristol, erected in 1373 to commemorate the granting of a charter by Edward III to make Bristol a county, separate from Somerset and Gloucestershire, and now stands in the Stourhead Estate. This replica was made in 1851, and originally sited on College Green.
Facing us is Charles I, who used to look down Broad Street, and whose beard appears to have fallen off. On the right is Elizabeth I (Corn Street); on the left, Henry VI (Wine Street), and out of sight around the back is James I (High Street.) Directions and ID courtesy the interesting Wikipedia article.
I found out during later research into the Hughes family (including [James] Donald Hughes, who lived at 23 Berkeley Square) that it was Ellard Hughes, Donald's younger brother, who saved the upper part of the cross from the scrapheap and had it re-erected here. His father, Walter William Hughes, was an estate agent and general man of property with strong College Green connections, including being involved in the purchasing of land for the Council House, now City Hall1. I think it was during that work that the cross was removed from College Green.
This Tweet from Nick Howes shows the full cross standing in the centre of College Green in an aerial photo from 1931-2.
1 Source: A College Green Man, Article by William R Hughes on the many connections his father Walter William Hughes (1833 - 1909)
had with life round College Green, Bristol, Bristol Archives 30508, Deeds and documents of the Hughes family, estate agents of Bristol, 1791-1910.
Lisa said there was a giant paved area behind here, and Google Maps seems to confirm that this is the very large back garden of the house on the corner of Great George Street, which is mostly paved. Must be nice to have so much space in the middle of Bristol.
A wander to knock off a couple of bits around Clifton Park that I'd missed out on previous excursions. This one took in the drinking fountain near Sion Hill and explained a little of how the Seven Years War, which ended in 1763, still has some history on display near Manilla Road.
Lots of information at Memorial Drinking Fountains, which starts with a general overview:
Located on Sion Hill at the junction of Gloucester Row and Observatory Road this drinking fountain was erected in 1866. It can be found on the south side of Clifton down near the suspension bridge.
Seated on a two tiered square granite plinth, drinking fountain number 8 from Walter Macfarlane & Co.’s catalogue was manufactured at the Saracen Foundry at Possilpark in Glasgow, the most prolific architectural iron founders in the world. The structure is 9 feet 6 inches high and consists of four columns, from the capitals of which consoles with griffin terminals unite with arches formed of decorated mouldings.
It makes a lot more sense when you realise that there's a bit missing. On this page you can see a drawing of the original with an ornate centrepiece where "a central urn with four consoles offered drinking cups suspended by chains", and there's also a photo from c. 1980 of a replacement "font" in place, rather more utilitarian, but still at least raising the water from down here up to a bowl rather closer to drinking level!
I'm sure I've written in more depth on this obelisk to William Pitt the Elder, which used to stand in the grounds of Manilla Hall, which itself used to stand just off to the right of this photo, in a space itself commemorated by the name of Manilla Road.
This sarcophagus surmounted by an urn is a 1767 memorial to the dead of the Seven Years War.
Leading off the far side of the roundabout in the background is Manilla Road, former site of Manilla Hall, built by General Sir William Draper, whose victories include capture of Manilla City in 1762. This cenotaph and the adjoining obelisk to Pitt used to stand in the grounds there.
It looks like a nice spot, but (a) it was bloody freezing, even to the point of snowing very slightly, and (b) it's a private garden.
It's cool to have an oculus window in your garage gable-end, but the fact that it's just offset from the centre of the roofline would drive me mad. I suppose if you live in the house behind it you don't have to look at it.
