Tagged: neighbourhood
I was just about starting to feel better—the antibiotics seemed to have kicked in for my dental issues, and it had been some days since I'd left the house, and I was at last starting to get itchy feet. So, a wander. But where? Well, there were a few industrial bits near Winterstoke Road in the Ashton/Ashton Vale areas of Bristol that needed walking. I knew they were likely to be quite, well, unattractive, frankly. So why not do them while I wasn't feeling exactly 100% myself? Maybe it would fit my mood. Hopefully you're also in the mood for a bit of post-industrial wasteland, for that's what some of this feels like...
Then, at the last minute, I thought again about the Bristol International Exhibition—I've got a book about it on the way now—and that gave me another goal, which could just about be said to be in the same direction, and I decided to walk significantly further than my normal 1-mile limit and try recreating another historical photo...
Sadly I don't know much about the Ashton area; it's just on the edges of my mile and I rarely have cause to go there. It's brimming with history, I'm sure: the whole South Bristol area rapidly developed from farmland to coal mines to factories to its current interesting mixture of suburbs and industrial work over the last few hundred years. As a more working class area less attention was paid to it by historians, at least historically-speaking, than the Georgian heights of Clifton, and much of it has been knocked down and reinvented rather than listed and preserved. I see here and there some of this lack is being addressed, but I'm afraid I'll be very light on the history myself on this wander, as most of my usual sources aren't throwing up their normal reams of information as when I point them at Clifton, Hotwells or the old city.
I think the whole of (admittedly-short) Albemarle Terrace had wreathes on the doors. Nice.
I did know this existed at some point, I think, but I'd completely forgotten that there was a level crossing within my mile. We need to wander over it, too, as this road, Ashton Vale Road, is one of the roads within my mile that I've not ventured down yet.
Partly that's because no bugger wants to walk down roads like this with me, as it's basically just industrial wasteland, especially in this interregnum period, where there's not even the buzz of industry to keep things interesting, but seeing as we're here...
I appear to have walked to a drive-thru KFC. Rookie error. I think the last time I was in a KFC was at least twenty years ago. I have nothing against fried chicken per se; it's just that on the few occasions I've had it since then Miss Millie's has been more convenient.
Fascinating architecture. Can't find anything out about this place from my usual sources, but a lot of the historical sources do seem to concentrate on things north of the river. If this was in Clifton I bet if would be on the Local List, at least. From the sign on the gate, it's 95 Bedminster Down Road, I think. I like the way the gambrel roof to the big barn-looking thing in the garden echoes the main building.
I imagine the view was rather less industrial back then, though perhaps not: quite a lot of the scene from the front windows would have been open-cast collieries, thinking about it...
A Random New Year's Day Wander
01 Jan 2022
I picked a fairly arbitrary reason for a wander today. Really, I just wanted to do a New Year's Day wander just to get out of the house and to set a precedent for the year to come.
My ostensible reason was to investigate what looked like a road on my map that quartered the lawn in front of the Ashton Court mansion. As it turned out, this is just a muddy footpath/desire line similar to a half-dozen other tracks nearby, and must be some kind of bug or misclassification with the mapping system I'm using, but that's not important. What's important is that I went for a little walk on the first day of the year. As a bonus, I did happen to wander down a couple of sections of new footpath, so technically I broke some new ground too, which is nice.
Which seems a bit odd, given that it's not in Hotwells wouldn't really lead there in either direction. Looks like a fairly modern development; maybe it's just one of those roads where the developers picked a roughly local name of out a hat.
Near and Far
05 Jan 2022
I took advantage of a rare recent day where it wasn't tipping down with rain to get away from my desk on a lunchtime workday and head up to Clifton Village. I'd hoped to snap a reproduction of historical photo which I'd worked out had been taken from the Suspension Bridge, but the gods were not smiling on me. Still, taking only a nice long lens with me worked out very well as the lovely haze of the day made more distant views quite dramatic...
The Nova Scotia pub bottom right, then behind it the chimney of the previously coal-fired pump house at Underfall Yard. In the background behind that and to the right is the Tobacco Factory, with what looks like a little red shed on its roof that I presume is actually a stairwell exit to the roof. On the left-hand side at about the same distance away is the large council block of Little Cross House. It always seems quite calm and tidy when I pass it, which is very regularly, but the Bristol Post painted a different picture in 2019 in their story headlined "Residents of 'forgotten' tower block demand council action over 'nightmare' living conditions":
People living in Little Cross House, a 13-storey council tower block in Southville, said their lives are plagued by poor living conditions, damp and mould, and neighbours from hell, drug dealers, discarded needles, vandalism and anti-social behaviour.
In the far distance, across the Southville rooftops, are the green hills of the Knowle West Health Park, I think.
Damn it. That's the bit I wanted to take my photo from. Still, at least on the way here I got some nice pics that I probably wouldn't have tried if I hadn't taken long lens out specially.
Quick Clifton Jaunt Finishing with Southville
09 Jan 2022
It's been pretty dismal recently, weather-wise, so when Sarah called up to say that she and Vik had just left the swimming pool at the student union building up in Clifton, and would I like to join them for a trip to the Last Bookshop, also known as The £3 Bookshop, for reasons you can probably deduce, I leapt at the chance.
Not many photos on this walk, but I did manage to get down a little road I'd never been to before, basically just the access road to a car park at a block of flats, but it was on the map looking all tempting, so I figured I'd knock it off the list as we were passing.
By complete coincidence, I took a photo of this block last week from a great distance (well, a mile, anyway) and then noticed that I hadn't actually walked along its access road and back. So here it is, rather closer up.
After this Sarah and Vik and I nipped to the Tobacco Factory Market where I managed to resist buying a copy of the Cowboy Junkies' The Trinity Session in great condition on the original vinyl. After resisting buying any books in the £3 bookstore earlier this pretty much depleted my reserves of energy for the day, so I headed back home without snapping any more pictures :)
Lunchtime Reproduction (of an old photo...)
17 Jan 2022
This was basically the quick lunchtime jaunt I tried to do at the beginning of January, only this time I actually managed to get to roughly the viewpoint I'd been hoping for to recreate a historical photo of the Bristol International Exhibition.
I did this walk about a month ago, but I've been a bit poorly and not really up to doing much in my spare time, and it's taken me this long to even face processing even these few photos. Hopefully normal service will be resumed at some point and I can carry on trying to walk any roads and paths that I need to do to make this project feel complete...
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.
Or a bit of it, anyway. Getting back into the spirit of this project a bit by knocking off the odd end of a road that I'd noticed wasn't filled in on the map yet.
As modern flats go, these seem pleasant enough, and some of them will have amazing views. The don't seem terribly inspiring inside, from what I've seen of Rightmove pictures, but they certainly could be worse.
We've popped down here before, on the site of the Clifton National School that didn't survive bombing in the war.
Today, the modern flats look to me as I imagine their original models would have done back when they were still just an idea on an architect's table (or more likely computer monitor, I suppose.)
I've always really liked the big mansard-roofed houses along this stretch. There's something big and dignified about them.
And that's the end of another lunchtime jaunt. I don't know if there's any trips left in the backlog. Hopefully at some point the weather will let up a bit (we've just been through Storm Eunice and there's more heavy weather on the way, apparently) and I'll feel like heading out for a wander again.
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 seemed to be taking a while to lock back into place, and I don't recall seeing one of the life-jacketed operators wandering up and down it before. I did wonder if something had gone wrong, but it closed eventually.
Here's a first glimpse of something I'm interested in seeing even though it's just outside my mile radius.
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.
Apparently it's the offices of a shopfitters. According to the listing, which is so laden with architectural words I found it quite heavy to copy from Historic England's website:
Zion House and attached railings and gateways. Congregational chapel, now offices. 1830. For John Hare. Pennant stone rubble and limestone ashlar, slate roof. Open plan. Classical style. 2 storeys and basement; 5-window range. Portico of tetrastyle-in-antis cast-iron Tuscan columns, with a deep entablature returning at the ends; the pediment contains a louvred oculus supported by a wide blank panel with relief palmettes
Apparently the antae are the bits supporting the sides of the entranceway, and stylos is a column, so the supporting ends with the four columns in between are a tetrastyle-in-antis. I will now forget that before it appears in a Times cryptic.
I'm fairly sure I saw Louvred Oculus playing a gig at the Louisiana once.
On the left, B Bond, in the middle, A Bond, and on this side of the New Cut, the C Bond warehouse.
In Which We Begin and End with Love
05 Mar 2022
I had a lot to get done around the house, so as soon as I heard there might be a shiny new piece of street art near me, under the Cumberland Basin flyovers, I immediately decided that was all the excuse I needed to set off on a round-the-harbour lunchtime walk to get some fresh air and see if I could spot it. So, here's a circular wander that takes in graffiti, boats, wildlife and graffiti again...
A Coffee and a Curve
27 Mar 2022
I wanted to have a wander along to the Tobacco Factory Market for some shopping, and checking the map for any leftover nearby streets I noticed a tiny curve of road on the way into the modern flats at Paxton Drive that it didn't look like I'd walked down before. I wouldn't take me too far out of my way, so I decided to head there first and then across to North Street to get my groceries and a coffee...
It's better than no daffodils, but they're still rather swamped by the rather industrial setting.
Which then becomes North Street, my destination. I need a coffee and some lunch and some veg.
I headed here for a take-away flat white for the walk home. I may have to come here for brunch one day soon; I saw a pair of amazing looking brunch plates being delivered as I was waiting for my coffee. Looking at the brunch menu it could have been the Bubble and Bacon, and the Turkish Tagine.
At some point, the Council say that the Chocolate path will finally be repaired and I can at last add one of my favourite paths in Bristol to my One Mile Matt project.
Here's hoping.
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.
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.
Not much to be seen in this direction except the crane on the site where they're busily filling a gap with new flats. We'll see the front in a little while.