Tagged: sash-window
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.
Uncredited apart from "from our archives" and undated, this photo appeared in this article on Hotwells in the Evening Post and made me want to re-create the same view today.
The pub had a few changes of name over time—in the Bristol Then and Now Facebook group people recall this being the Spring Gardens in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Someone remembers it turning into Durty Nelly's in 1995, but I swear it was back to being the Spring Gardens again by the time I moved to the area in 1999. Then it spent some time as La Demi Lune, which you can see on Street View in 2008, and then by 2009 it's back to The Spring Garden (without the "s").
So, from what I can work out, this snap was probably taken in the 1990s, most likely between 1995 and 1999.
This pub—which did good food, and had an extensive garden at the back, from what I remember, when it was the Spring Gardens in the early 2000s—is rather more bland in looks today, as we'll see in the next picture.
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.
I managed to go for a wander a while ago that was meant to finish off a little tangle of paths in Leigh Woods, or at the very least finish off my wandering of the Purple Path there. And I managed to miss doing either of those things through some kind of navigational incompetence.
Today I woke up with a bit of a headache, feeling a bit knackered as soon as I dragged myself out of bed, but at least with the energy to realise that I'd be better off (a) going for a walk in what looked likely to be the last of the Jubilee weekend sunshine than (b) moping around the flat until it started raining, at which point I could mope more thoroughly.
I had a look at my map, considered going to Ashton Court, but remembered that there was a music festival there today, and instead found these little leftovers of Leigh Woods and decided to have one more try at walking them.
Having started in the woods, this is the first hint of the Jubilee celebrations I've seen, on the alpine chalet-style house near the Suspension Bridge.
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.
A fairly wrong clock, given that I took this at about 12:40. This used to be the Midland Bank.
I'm in the habit of going over to the Tobacco Factory Market on a Sunday. I think I've walked all the routes around that way, but as a Plimsoll Bridge swing let me cross the road to the far side of Brunel Way on my return journey and I took a couple of photos of the brownfield development at the old Ashton Gate Depot site I thought I'd call it a Wander and pop some photos up.
The Clean Air Zone is being introduced later this year (currently they say 28 November 2022, but I think it's already been delayed twice.)
The scheme will see charges instituted for certain vehicles entering parts of the city, especially older diesel cars. This is to encourage people to change these older cars or find alternative routes or modes of transport. Apparently there are grants and loans available for upgrades on offer to private citizens and businesses.
This should only have positive effects for me, as I live just inside the zone, and I drive a recentish petrol car with an efficient and not-so-pollutey engine. In a perfect world, therefore, this scheme means my area might eventually start meeting the government's standards for air quality. This Bristol 24/7 article has some good info, including an estimate that there are currently 300 premature deaths per year from traffic-related air pollution in the proposed Bristol zone.
An enormous walk today, or at least it felt enormous. My feet are sore, anyway. I started off recreating a couple of local historical photos in Hotwells, but then headed for my traditional walk along the towpath in the Avon Gorge to the far extreme of Leigh Woods, up and through the woods to the height of the Suspension Bridge, finally crossing into Clifton Village for a well-deserved vanilla latte.
I say "traditional" because this used to be a very regular route for me, first walking, years and years ago, and later jogging—this route combined with a circuit of the Downs on the other side used to be my way of making sure I was fit to do a half-marathon (I did six of them in total, between 2010 and 2014).
I miss the routine of this walk, even though it's a long way and it used to pretty much wipe me out when I did it—I'd come back home and collapse and do very little for the rest of the day. But perhaps that's what Sundays are for, and I should try to remember that.
Doing this walk regularly was quite a meditative experience. Not so much of that today, but once I got to the further extreme of the towpath, where the roar of the Portway traffic on the other side of the river dwindles and I turned into Leigh Woods to climb ever closer to birdsong and further from rushing cars, I did seem to recapture a little of the feeling of previous walks. (I would say my mind cleared, but I was mentally singing along to Life Without Buildings' The Leanover for most of the wander. There are worse songs to have stuck in one's head, though; it's a great track...)
Anyway. Apparently the walk made me more likely to ramble in words, too. I'll stop now :)
Amusingly, I think this technically fits some definitions of the word "bungalow", given that the upper half is a giant mansard roof with dormer windows.
