Tagged: thoroughfare
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...
I think it was at this point I decided not to bother walking alongside the road up Rownham Hill and instead divert into Dead Badger's Bottom, which is a prettier alternative. That could be a slogan for this rather mundane strech: "The road up Rownham Hill: less attractive than a dead badger's bottom".
This might explain why I've put off this bit of the A369 for so long. It's mostly just a boring road, desgined for cars.
I guess it's more to reduce road noise than privacy, but it seems a shame these lovely-looking houses are all just peeping over giant hedges and walls.
This looks like a road on the map; I just took a photo to remind myself that it's actually someone's driveway so I don't need to go back and walk it :D
Greville Smyth
28 Oct 2020
Popped out for a coffee in Greville Smyth park, and got a view of the Andy Council work on the side of the Ashton Avenue sewage pumping station on the way back.
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.
The spike of land with the dockkeepers' cottage on it has been cordoned off for the last couple months as I write this (on 4 Jan 2021; I'm processing my backlog.) Back in October you could wander up to the end unimpeded.
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.
The Rose of Denmark, there, trying their best to ply some kind of trade during the lockdown.
Baltic Wharf and Marina
04 Nov 2020
You never know what you'll find when you go for a walk in Bristol. This gorgeous Mustang was in the Marina car park. Nice. I also surprised myself by getting a good photo of The Hand (to give it its full title, Green Hand of a River God, by Vincent Woropay. Thanks, @mfimage!)
Morning Mist
05 Nov 2020
I spotted the fog and decided to go for a morning walk rather than a lunchtime walk today. It was cold on the Portway, but it was worth it. Most of my One Mile Matt photos are "record shots", but it's nice to get the chance to do something a bit more artistic.
Very Local
06 Nov 2020
It's surprisingly easy to overlook the giant Wesleyan Grenville Chapel—now converted into flats—if you've lived here a while. Other sights that seem to slip from my memory include the modest Ashton Avenue, a tidy terrace of little houses on a road that presumably gave its name to the Ashton Avenue bridge.
Plimsoll Bridge Swing
10 Nov 2020
I went to grab a coffee from Imagine That's little horsebox by the marina, completely forgetting that they don't open on Monday or Tuesday. On the plus side, on the way back I was in time to watch the Plimsoll Bridge swinging for a tidy little yacht.
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.
I can't imagine the under-underpass business units are all that pleasant to work in, but who knows? I've never been inside one, unless you count the Lockside restaurant, which is actually very nice. One of the upsides of being under the underpass is that you don't have to look at it.
I understand that Guy de Maupassant ate lunch at the Eiffel Tower every day because it was the only place in Paris where the Eiffel Tower didn't spoil his view.
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.
Some days I barely notice this view, but if the light's right when I'm coming home I find it stunning.
Know Your Place recently posted a 200-year-old painting from a not dissimilar viewpoint (KYP map link), though I think that one's from further up the hill. I think the wall in the foreground of that picture is likely the curve of the Paragon garden, now fringed with tall bushes that would mean you can't get the same view these days.