Tagged: signage
Bank Holiday Street Art
31 May 2021
A nice warm Bank Holiday Monday saw me walk back over to Bedminster to do justice to something we glimpsed on my last wander. Along the way I spotted a couple of new pieces of street art tucked away on the south side of the Cumberland Basin Flyover system, so this turned into a micro-graffiti walk.
A Longer-than-it-looks Walk With Lisa
06 Jun 2021
The track on the map doesn't tell the whole story of this walk with Lisa around and about Clifton, Berkeley Square, Brandon Hill and the harbourside, because the batteries on my GPS ran out while we were on the roof of Trenchard Street car park, it seems. Oh well. I think I did most of the area I was interested in finishing off around the University; there were only a few new bits around Brandon Hill that won't be on the track, and I can easily do them again.
Still, technology woes aside it was a nice walk, albeit a bit warm for climbing all those hills, and sat on the harbourside watching the world go by for a while, too. It was good to see the Bristol Ferry Boats carrying people around again, especially.
We've actually seen the house he lived in in Clifton on a previous wander. Didn't know he had a gert big building named after him, though. His photography techniques for studying nuclear processes led to the discovery of the pion, and a Nobel Prize.
We popped to Rod & Ruby's so I could introduce Lisa to these amazing purveyors of Italian treats. We only got a few each, but goodness they were good.
Leigh Woods Solo
19 Jun 2021
I hadn't really planned to go out for a wander yesterday; I just got the urge and thought "why not?" (Well, the weather forecast was one possible reason, but I managed to avoid the rain, luckily.)
I wanted to finish off the A369—as it turns out I may still have a small section to go, but I've now walked the bulk of it out to my one-mile radius—and also a few random tracks in Leigh Woods. I'm still not really sure that I'm going to walk them all, especially after discovering today that "the map is not the territory" applies even more in the woods, where one of the marked tracks on the map wasn't really that recognisable as a track in real life... I'm glad I'd programmed the route into the GPS in advance!
Anyway. A pleasant enough walk, oddly bookended, photographically at least, by unusual vehicles. Leigh Woods was fairly busy, especially the section I'd chosen, which was positively dripping with teenage schoolkids with rah accents muttering opprobrium about the Duke of Edinburgh. I'm presuming the harsh remarks were more about taking part in his award scheme than the late Consort himself, but I didn't eavesdrop enough to be certain...
But plenty of people seemed to be cutting through, so I imagine the sign is more intended to stop it turning into a car park. I think the Forstry Commission and the National Trust (who each own different bits of Leigh Woods, if I remember correctly) have been experimenting with charging for parking at their previously-free car parks in the woods. That and the fact that Covid-19 restrictions seem to be upping visitor numbers (I guess because people are staying local and there's little else to do) has led to something of a parking problem in the Leigh Woods area.
Bedminster
31 Oct 2020
Starting up close in Hotwells with a few bits around the Cumberland Basin flyover system, I walked to Bedminster and back on Hallowe'en, including finding some excellent decoration work.
Royal York Crescent
02 Nov 2020
I've taken a lot of photos of Royal York Crescent over the years. This time I walked right to the dead-end bit at the far west corner and found a plaque to the Empress of the French. Call me hard to impress, but among the scientists, novelists, architects and artists whose plaques litter the rest of the area, that seems quite minor claim to fame.
Local
03 Nov 2020
A very local exploration today, but there are still bits of the near field that I never need to walk down, so it didn't take me long to find somewhere I haven't been in a decade or more, the little enclave of smaller Victorian houses around Oldfield Road and Sandford Road. I'd really like to live in one of those houses, but I doubt I could afford it.
This Charity was
FOUNDED BY
Dame Sarah Haberfield
In Affectionate Remembrance
OF HER HUSBAND,
Sir Jobn
Kerle Fabertied
KNIGHT
SIX TIMES MAYOR OF BRISTOL,
Who Died on the 27th December, 1857
HAVING BEEN
FOR MANY YEARS AN INHABITANT OF THE
PARISH OF ST. MARY REDCHEFE AND
OF THE PARISH OF CLIFTON
Little Clifton Village Details
09 Nov 2020
I like The Paragon as a terrace, especially the bowed porches. On the other side of the road, a house attic has a stone lion surrounded by rocaille leaves, according to its listing.
I also love the detail of the arrows in the wrought iron of The Mall's balconies. Today I discovered Westfield place, a road I'd never encountered that runs up to the rear of the Coronation Tap. (It's a famous local cider pub, but I've only been in a couple of times. I'm more of a beer man.)
I'm not entirely clear how a Bristolian called Marjorie Watson-Williams ends up moving to Paris, changing her name to Paule Vézelay, and becoming a famous painter of the abstract school, but it must have been quite a fun ride, surely...
She returned to Bristol when war broke out and apparently spent the first few years in Rodney Place.
Doors and walls, closed paths and chalk
11 Nov 2020
I'd love to walk the Chocolate Path again at some point, but it's been closed since it started falling into the river. Still, on this wander to get a coffee I walked down a road I'd not normally use and found a door dressed up as a wall and another door that had been bricked up for real. Odd.
I also found a lovely bit of art on one of the Cumberland Piazza pillars on my way home.
Clifton Village: Jesus and the Tympanum
12 Nov 2020
My goal is walk down every public road within a mile of me; sometimes it's not easy to tell what's public. I've passed the turning for Cornwallis Grove a thousand times, but never had a reason to venture down it, and although the street signs at the end seem to be council-deployed and I didn't spot any "private" signs, it's a gated road and definitely feels private.
Gathering all the white middle-class privilege I could muster, I wandered down and was rewarded with the sight of a Victorian pump, a statue of Jesus, and from the end of the road, a view of a private garden that once belonged to a private girls' school.
The Cornwallis House history page says:
In the early 20th century the house, together with Grove House, became a Catholic school, St Joseph’s High School for Girls.
The Congregation of La Retraite took over the school in 1924, with the nuns living in Grove House while the schoolrooms were
in Cornwallis House. The headmistress was Mother St Paul de la Croix (Sister Paula Yerby). By the 1970s La Retraite High
School had around 700 pupils.It closed in 1982 and the building was bought by Pearce Homes Ltd (now part of Crest Nicholson) who developed it into 21
flats. Grove House next door was bought by the Bristol Cancer Help Centre, and was later converted into flats in 2007.
Inspired by this plaque, I'm now (a couple of months later) about a third of the way through EH Young's Chatterton Square, set in a fictionalised Clifton called Upper Radstowe, whose eponymous square is based on Canynge Square.
A formidably beardy cricketer of yore, widely considered one of the greatest players in history.
These swimming ladies look quite Beryl Cook, which is appropriate, given that I took a picture of a plaque to her up in more northern Clifton recently.
Rabbits, bad pedestrian signage and good coffee
13 Nov 2020
A quick trip with the aim of finding a better way to Greville Smyth park and a good coffee. Sadly I was stymied yet again with the former—it turns out that you do apparently have to take a strange loop around the houses (or at least around the roads) to get to Greville Smyth any way other than my normal route, unless you're prepared to vault some railings. It may be that the disused steps from where the skater kids hang out to the flyover above might once have led to a shorter route, but it's hard to tell. The geography in the area has always confused me.
On the plus side, Rich, who runs Hopper Coffee from a Piaggio Ape does a great flat white and often has a good sign. (I collect cafe signs...)
