Tagged: spike-island
A Long Wander Of Miscellany and Magick
08 Aug 2021
This was a wide-ranging wander. I started off crossing the river to Bedminster, to walk a single little cul-de-sac, Hardy Avenue, that I'd managed to miss on at least one previous walk. Then, pausing only to explore a few back alleyways, I headed for a few destinations related mostly by the Hughes family, who I've been researching a little as part of background for a possible novel, as several of them were involved in the Stella Matutina.
However, mostly it's the artistic side of the family I wanted to explore today, as that's where most of their public history lies (as you might expect, there's often not much in the public record about the workings of an occult organisation.) First I visited College Green, where the façade of the Catch 22 Fish & Chip shop still bears the work of Catherine Edith Hughes. Then I wandered up to the top of Park Street to pop into the Clifton Arts Club's annual exhibition, as Catherine, her half-brother Donald, his wife Hope and at least two other Hugheses were members. Donald was chairman for 40 solid years; Hope was Secretary for eight, and Ellard and Margaret Hughes, two more Hughes siblings, were members along with Catherine.
Finally I walked home with a small diversion to Berkeley Square, to confirm the location of Donald Hughes's house by checking for a particular plaque by the front door.
I must admit I'm not entirely sure where all this research is really leading me, but I'm finding it quite interesting to bump across the faint lines of history that link the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, founded in 1888, to modern, quotidian Bristol.
A Morning of Research and a Cafe in a Castle
25 Sep 2021
I needed to pop to the library, as they'd kindly dug a book out of the reserve store at the B Bond warehouse for me and emailed me to let me know it was ready. So, I took a little trip to town, straight down the Hotwell Road, and spent a few hours reading before stretching my legs with a walk to a new cafe in the actual castle (or remnants thereof, anyway) of Castle Park, before heading back home down the other side of the harbour. As well as books and coffee, I bumped into a remote-controlled pirate ship, which isn't something you see every day, even in Bristol.
On the site of the old warehouse next to Albion Dock, whose canopy you can see top right. It will, inevitably, be some more posh flats.
According to Sustainable Hive, it's a "remote control litter munching pirate ship". I didn't see it actually munch, but they were giving enthusiastic children a go on the remote controls as I wandered past. Interesting little thing. It seems to be part of the Treasure Your River campaign.
I recently indulged myself by buying a little piece of history. I've mentioned Samuel Loxton and featured and linked to his drawings before, often in the eminently browsable Loxton Collection albums that Bristol Libraries has on Flickr. So when I saw a Loxton drawing of Hotwells pop up on eBay, I decided to get myself a little treat.
I don't think there's any Loxton drawing that features the road I actually live in—it's not very visible from anywhere else, not being one of these Clifton terraces that's perched at the top of a hill, or anything like that, and it's invisible in most views of the area. However, this Loxton drawing, Hotwells, Looking across the river from near the Clifton Bridge station, is probably the closest near-miss I've seen.
I decided to wander out one morning and see if I could reproduce the picture, and also take a photo or two of what's now become of the Clifton Bridge Station, which is still just about discernible in places.
(Then on an even stranger whim I decided to check out a possible little cut-through from Cumberland Road to the harbourside I'd been eyeing up on my commute to work, so walked to Wapping Wharf for a croissant via this potential new route, but that bit's not quite as interesting...)
This is my more usual view of the modern flats in question. I have to say, I do rather like these flats. If I had a spare million quid, I might even buy one...
Docks Heritage Weekend Day One
09 Oct 2021
I could spend a lot of time at the Docks Heritage Weekend, poking my nose into industrial places along the harbourside that are usually closed off, but throw open their doors once a year to show off a bit of the backstage area of Bristol's floating harbour. In fact, I warn you: the next wander is a long one, and will have quite a few photos.
However, for today's wander, on the Saturday, my friend Lisa needed a shorter walk than our usual long rambles, as she's recovering from an operation and still a little under the weather, so we just wandered into town for some food and back, with me making mental notes of the places I wanted to come back to on the Sunday... We walked through Underfall Yard, along to the L Shed (this is the warehouse next to the M Shed museum, where they still have the kind of fun old industrial stuff that used to be crammed into the M Shed's predecessor, the old Industrial Museum), through the street food market in town to Ahh Toots for cake and then back home. So, still quite a walk, but no hills and not so much of Lisa having to hang around waiting for me to fool around taking photos as usual, at least...
The Patent Slip is actually a grade II listed building. Personally I live in a II*-graded building myself; not sure I'd want to slum it down here.
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...
It's very hard to get a decent look at this building. This is the top half of the back of it.
This building is, or was, an electrical substation. I heard an unconfirmed rumour that the building itself is now actually empty, and that the entire substation guts are now in these boxes. I have no idea whether that's true or not.
You can see this once apparently bright and airy building has had every window bricked up.
I understand that something in or around this building still supplies the odd electrical requirements (specifically, 360V "Bristol voltage") for some bits of Underfall Yard, which is our next stop, so more about that when we get there.
While it's not a listed building, is is notable: it's one of the earliest reinforced concrete buildings in the UK, apparently, construction starting in 1905. I assume it was up by 1907, as that's when Undefall Yard installed their electric pumps.
This oddity of history predates the National Grid and was originally fed from Feeder Road power station (well, Avonbank, on Feeder Road, to be precise. We've seen a bit of that history before, as a line marker for the line from Portishead to Feeder Road.) It was connected to Feeder Road by 1906, with a 6,600V line.
I've added a couple of historic views of the building as the next two photos in the wander, but I'll also pop this link to a Loxton drawing of the Avonbank electricity works, 1908 here.
Via this Tweet and taken from KYP Bristol, showing the interior with a couple of Westinghouse rotary converters and a Peebles-La Cour motor converter, assuming this picture ties up roughly with this 1908 Institute of Mechanical Engineers' visit to works.
You can see a picture of similar Westinghouse converters to the two at the back in the Wikipedia rotary converter page and a Peebles converter that looks very similar to the one in the foreground on the cover of the Peebles motor converter catalogue in the sidebar of their entry in Grace's Guide. I'm guessing the additions on the ends of the Westinghouse converters were for different voltages? A rotary converter is basically a motor connected to a dynamo, so extra dynamos with different windings would give you different voltage outputs, I suppose, but I know very little about power generation.
And here's the Loxton picture of the exterior, from the Bristol Libraries collection. Seems such a shame to have bricked up those lovely windows.
Fresh Fields
17 Oct 2021
For the first time in a while, I had the time and energy to go further afield and knock off some new roads from my "to do" list. I headed through the first Hotwells Festival to Ashton and Bedminster to cross off a few of the suburban roads south of North Street.
First, though, I decided to try to reproduce an old photo of the now-demolished Rownham Hotel just around the corner from where I live...
Apparently the repair of the Chocolate Path itself is now underway here. I won't hold my breath. Shame, as it's within my mile and one of my favourite walks and I've had no chance to walk down it since long before I started this little project.
To give you an idea of what it's like down on the path, here's a photo from 2017 from behind where I'm standing on Vauxhaull Bridge here.
Ticking Off a Few Streets in Bedminster
31 Oct 2021
There were only a few streets left to wander in the more residential bit of Bedminster, so I thought I should target those today. The streets themselves weren't that notable, though Balfour Road has a contrasting mix of old and new housing. I tried to snap a few more interesting things along the way there and back, snapping all three of the familiar bond warehouses, nipping onto North Street to find some new street art, and finding a few pumpkins for good measure. It is hallowe'en, after all...
It wasn't that long ago that there were trains running down here, and pedestrians enjoying the chocolate path to the right of the line. One day, hopefully, they'll both be back...
Just as well there wasn't a steam train running over it when half the path fell into the river, I suppose.
It's a much sought-after caravan park. In fact I passed a caravan trying to get to it on the way home down Avon Crescent, where—because of the temporary road closure on Cumberland Road—you often at the moment see arguing couples trying to reverse a caravan out of the no-through-way street to try to find the diversion they should have been using in the first place. It must be quite entertaining for the whole terrace.
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...
It's surprising how much I forget is packed into this little area. There's the old station, the vast allotments, the cricket ground, the former police horse and dog unit, all the other stuff... Looking at Google Maps there may also be a day nursery and an escape room. It's a busy little area.
Former site of the Rownham Ferry, or one of them, at least. The ferry was there for centuries before being rendered obsolete by the Ashton Avenue Bridge, among others. King Charles allegedly crossed it in 1651, on his way to Leigh Court, but it was there for a long time before and after, closing in the 1930s.
A Water-Based Wander
11 Dec 2021
I woke up on this Saturday with a headache, feeling like I'd not slept at all. As well as that, I'm still in some pain from the wisdom tooth extraction I had a few weeks ago. I moped about the flat for a while and then decided that the best thing to do was to force myself out on at least a small walk to get some fresh air and coffee.
Was there anywhere I could walk locally that I'd never been? Actually, yes! Although it's not a road, and I didn't walk it, there is actually one route that I've not travelled so far in my wanders. And it even had coffee near its far end...
So, that was my first (and probably only) wander that involved a boat. I suppose there's a chance I could get out on a round-the-harbour trip with my old friends, the Bristol Ferry Boat Company, but I don't know what their schedule is like in these Covid-stricken times. I imagine the Omicron variant won't help, either...
As recently as September this building site was just a big flat block of mud.
This was McArthur's warehouse; it will become McArthur's Yard
Built in the 19th century as a malt house, the McArthur’s Yard site includes several warehouse buildings and structures which have been empty for 20 years. Originally the headquarters of Bristol-based metal merchant McArthur’s Group, the site is in a prominent position surrounding Bristol’s floating harbour, adjacent to the SS Great Britain.
So I guess that's staying there. Good. I'd like to think that when the building work is finished, this narrow little alley will have been replaced with a nicer, more accessible path alongside the shiny new flats. I still miss the derelict McArthur's warehouse that was knocked down here, and the humming of the bees that thronged among its thick coating of ivy.
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.
