03 Dec 2021
On my last wander, to Bower Ashton, I was intending to knock Blackmoors Lane off my list "to-do" list, but got a bit diverted. I also took a little look into the history of the Gridiron, once a cheaper alternative to dry dock that was nestled just south of North Entrance Lock.
Today I had to go to send a parcel off somewhere, so I decided on going to the North Street Post Office via Blackmoors Lane. I didn't have much intention of anything else, but as luck would have it I walked out both at low tide and also as some lockkeepers seemed to be having a bit of a training session, and one of the more senior people was (a) happy to answer a few random questions on the Gridiron and (b) actually knew a lot about it, as Gridiron maintenance had been one of his jobs, more than twenty years ago...
So I might have missed the deadline a bit, then. Just as well I don't own any land around here...
Tags: Bristol Places UK onemilematt united kingdom sign railway Bower Ashton notice
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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.
Here's the BBC report. This was posted on a telephone junction box in the "Daveside" area, the little strip of Festival Way that's used as a skate park in between the old railway depot and the White City allotments.
Tags: Bristol Places UK onemilematt united kingdom Daveside Festival Way skater Rownham RIP poster shooting skater boy
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Text Recognition Tags: RiP SKATER- BOY Speer Astrworth wes shot dd on the pontiy troli oursida poroed on a parmbar 217, fo ot hum panpiag randa n ha car ecnde, Ashwent had stchn r pist at peple in te M Whes otde pertbary Sandred the copa vabully engged ith him & te id the sir pial in duar a amade, al dhe afficeatfaruda vapeifical ary m t igh efis teg Aalwedia does dieeda lantal illing Spee sd wa 29 ywars ol asato alested at dowing. te sffint win dprnmte det aliemal hth-sad on a at copoerad (PC) W t r j amed repose won aweof tis& he porta holstd i letal s t padori alhiy, they'e pafeial whe was the radt why na wait t o, atwodk ad or allad avass gat 20 rchis ft dowaon& seeettinng afar milm ikrwn ths road in pa el, btitapoevs iss aterchn don's lon hi bundie arm ef snk, nak yu thik tht people luallpere fer elationte ee ndaal sls hatir awe e on wha nie dity lo e tg lse Se waa shelebar uM onl fard koe lesk wtut t e d n I& th d adal Owturid ptn k da taerthatte ahin buar Boh RiP SKATER- BOY Speer Astrworth wes shot dd on the pontiy troli oursida poroed on a parmbar 217, fo ot hum panpiag randa n ha car ecnde, Ashwent had stchn r pist at peple in te M Whes otde pertbary Sandred the copa vabully engged ith him & te id the sir pial in duar a amade, al dhe afficeatfaruda vapeifical ary m t igh efis teg Aalwedia does dieeda lantal illing Spee sd wa 29 ywars ol asato alested at dowing. te sffint win dprnmte det aliemal hth-sad on a at copoerad (PC) W t r j amed repose won aweof tis& he porta holstd i letal s t padori alhiy, they'e pafeial whe was the radt why na wait t o, atwodk ad or allad avass gat 20 rchis ft dowaon& seeettinng afar milm ikrwn ths road in pa el, btitapoevs iss aterchn don's lon hi bundie arm ef snk, nak yu thik tht people luallpere fer elationte ee ndaal sls hatir awe e on wha nie dity lo e tg lse Se waa shelebar uM onl fard koe lesk wtut t e d n I& th d adal Owturid ptn k da taerthatte ahin buar Boh