Tagged: s
I'm afraid that this is a bit of a badly-curated wander, where I mostly just popped out to find out a little of the history of Underfall Yard and poke around the various open workshops, and, in hindsight, really didn't take pictures in any kind of coherent order. So there's a lot of pictures, but they don't really tell the story that, in hindsight, I seem to have been trying to tell, of the unusual electrical substation in Avon Crescent, the Bristol Electricity that predates the National Grid but is still in use, the history of the hydraulic power house... It's a bit of a mess.
But I suppose sometimes these wanders—always chronologically presented in the order I walked and took photos—simply will sometimes be a bit of a mess. Let's hope you still get something out of it, anyway...
I went out simply wanting to knock off the very last little unwalked section of Clanage Road, over by Bower Ashton, which has been annoying me for a while as it's quite close by and I've walked the other bits of it several times. So, my plan was to nip over to Greville Smyth Park via a slightly unusual route to wander Clanage Road and tick it off.
Along the way, though, I inevitably got a bit distracted. I took a few photos of Stork House, a grand Hotwell Road building that's recently been done up a bit (I imagine it's student lets, though I'm not sure) and which I found a reference to in a book about the Port Railway and Pier the other week, and also tried to match up a historical photo of Hotwells before the Cumberland Basin Flyover System laid it waste, which included some interesting markers I'll have to do a bit more digging into...
I found this image on Pinterest and as usual for that site it was annoyingly uncredited, but it seems to be from the book Hotwells, Spa to Pantomime, which I've just ordered direct from Bristol Books. Hopefully I'll be able to update the credit a bit when it arrives.
There's quite a lot in here that I didn't know about and will be researching a bit more, especially the Spa Assembly Rooms, which I think later turned into a school before being demolished for the flyover system, and also Anderson's workshop, a last vestige of the figurehead-carving industry.
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.
Here's a working office that I'd heard of: V Cars are one of Bristol's biggest cab firms, and the only one whose phone number I have memorised. On my first trip in one, back in 1999 (in a differently-named, earlier incarnation, I think), the driver said to remember the number as "Christmas Day, Boxing Day, Boxing Day". Most (all?) central Bristol phone numbers were prefixed with a 9 back then, so you just needed to add 25, 26, 26...
There was even a cab dispatcher at work behind the window, from what I could see. It reminded me of my childhood, when my mum worked as a dispatcher at Radio Cars in Ilford.
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.
Easter Monday Gardens and Flowers
18 Apr 2022
I didn't really set out with a theme of flowers and gardens in mind for this walk. I just fancied heading up to Clifton Village to get lunch. As it turned out, though, Spring was springing, so a minor theme emerged as I started off with the graveyard flowers of Hope Chapel and wandered up to see the beginnings of the new wildflower garden at Clifton Hill Meadow.
Where fly tipping happens, more like. This scrap of land (with a public bench hidden on the far end, against the back fence behind the red bins) has been a bit of an eyesore for years. I've never been a fan of public billboards.
Recently, though, a property developer has applied for planning permission for a block of flats here, and apparently fenced off the bit where the main entrance will be, even though it's fenced in this little corner of land that everyone assumed was public, council bench and all. And now it's attracted fly tippers, it seems.
I've tweeted at the councillor for the area, Alex Hartley, and he's said he's alerted the council and will try to investigate it/get it cleaned up, so here's hoping...
In the long run, maybe there will be some new flats instead of an ugly billboard and some dull fencing, and I'm all for that.
There's been some commotion on Nextdoor about the recent appearance of this sign. Lots of people who have been letting their dogs off their leads in the churchyard for decades have been rather up in arms. I'm not sure there's actually much danger of the rozzers issuing ASBOs or fines to the locals for that kind of infraction, though.
Boyce's Avenue, named for Thomas Boyce, according to Veronica Smith's excellent The Street Names of Bristol (I'm borrowing the Clifton Library copy at the mo):
In 1763, Thomas Boyce, a wig-maker, kept lodging houses here for visitors to the Spa. Within ten years he was bankrupt.
I wonder if the building of nearer lodgings down in Hotwells might have been part of the cause? The street I live in was one of those!
As you can see, it's fair bustling these days, especially on a bank holiday with the cafes doing a good trade. Despite the giant SUV in the picture, which was presumably doing a shop delivery, the street is pedestrianised and mostly car-free these days, at least at certain hours.
This has led to a spreading of pavement cafe culture in Clifton Village, with Princess Victoria Street being the latest (somewhat controversial) experiment.
I've been pretty awful at reading so far this year, apparently averaging about one book per month. That's a far cry from 2019, say, where I got through 41 books in the year. Today's wander was prompted by my rubbish reading, as I needed to go hand back some books to the library, because I'd managed to renew them so many times that I hit the limit on renewals. Oops. Several of them were still unread.
So, off to the Central Library for me, tail between my legs. On the way there I did my best to recreate a historical photo of Dowry Square; while I was in the area I walked under the adjacent Norman arch and poked around behind the Cathedral, and I also had a little diversion to the city centre and came back along the south side of the river, hitting some trouble with the lock gates as I finally crossed the harbour back towards home.
I got interested in Bristol's medieval water supplies after poking around near Jacobs Wells Road and Brandon Hill. It was during that research I found out about a pipe that's still there today, and, as far as I know, still actually functioning, that was originally commissioned by Carmelite monks in the 13th century. They wanted a supply of spring water from Brandon Hill to their priory on the site of what's now the Bristol Beacon—Colston Hall, as-was. It was created around 1267, and later, in 1376, extended generously with an extra "feather" pipe to St John's On The Wall, giving the pipework its modern name of "St John's Conduit".
St John's on the Wall is still there, guarding the remaining city gate at the end of Broad Street, and the outlet tap area was recently refurbished. It doesn't run continuously now, like it did when I first moved to Bristol and worked at the end of Broad Street, in the Everard Building, but I believe the pipe still functions. One day I'd like to see that tap running...
There are a few links on the web about the pipe, but by far the best thing to do is to watch this short and fascinating 1970s TV documentary called The Hidden Source, which has some footage of the actual pipe and also lots of fantastic general footage of Bristol in the seventies.
On my walk today I was actually just going to the building society in town, but I decided to trace some of the route of the Carmelite pipe, including visiting streets it runs under, like Park Street, Christmas Street, and, of course, Pipe Lane. I also went a bit out of my way to check out St James' Priory, the oldest building in Bristol, seeing as it was just around the corner from the building society.
There are far too many pictures from this walk, and my feet are now quite sore, because it was a long one. But I enjoyed it.
It's the home of the Avon Wildlife Trust now, but back in the day it was Brandon Hill Police Station. It's marked on maps as recent as the 1950s Bristol Town Plans. An interesting tidbit from Bristol Then and Now on Facebook:
One of the first police stations in Bristol, it was opened in 1836 - policemen from the station used the building housing the Jacob's Well as a bicycle store and many old bicycle lamp batteries were found in excavating the small entrance to the mikveh. The Police Station closed in 1967 and it is now the base of Avon Wildlife Trust.
It's been restored since then, quite recently. It was very shabby before.
20th Century Flicks were an established video rental shop up in Clifton, conveniently next to the University of Bristol Student Union, when I moved to Hotwells in 1999. They moved to Christmas Steps a few years back, and are still, amazingly, in business.
I'd guess they survive by having an immense stock of films (20,000 available for hire), great expertise, and a high-density local student population.
I bumped into my friend Lisa in town during yesterday's wander, and we decided to have a wander today, too. We managed quite a long ramble, starting up through Clifton and nipping down Park Row to investigate the two tower blocks I'd noticed popping up behind Park Street yesterday, then took in a few roads I'd not managed to get to before, including cutting through the grounds of Bristol Grammar School.
Coffee Run
31 Mar 2021
Not a literal run, but I didn't hang about, as I had a job interview to get to (I was an interviewer, not the interviewee, but you still have to be there on time...) Along the way to pick up a lunchtime coffee I mostly seemed to take photos of the high tide, though I also came across a bit of outreach work for small spiny mammals...
A London Wander in Southville
10 Apr 2021
There's a bit of Southville that I've been meaning to get to for some time, where the streets seem to take some strong inspiration from London. There's a Camden Road that crosses with an Islington Road, and a Dalston Road, even an Edgeware Road. For me these names are more evocative than the rather more exotic names I passed by to get there—Sydney Row or Hanover Place, say, because I've actually been to the places in London. The last time I was in Islington I saw Monkey Swallows the Universe play at The Angel, and I can't think of Camden without remembering a gondola trip with my friend Tara where a cheery youth played Beatles music for us on a saz...
I really liked this little area, with its mostly well-kept pretty houses and hints here and there of the creative side of the residents. It's arty and down-to-earth at the same time, and I wouldn't mind living there, I think.
On the way there I got the chance to walk through Underfall Yard for the first time in a while, and on the way back I had my first take-away hot food for many months, grabbing some crispy fried squid from the excellent Woky Ko at Wapping Wharf.
25 E F. It's either two flats or a very strange bra size.
Walter Jack Studio are apparently "makers of things", so that clears that up.
Audre Lorde (/ˈɔːdri lɔːrd/; born Audrey Geraldine Lorde; February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an American writer, feminist, womanist, librarian, and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," who dedicated both her life and her creative talent to confronting and addressing injustices of racism, sexism, classism, capitalism, heterosexism, and homophobia.