Tagged: tree
A Coffee and a Curve
27 Mar 2022
I wanted to have a wander along to the Tobacco Factory Market for some shopping, and checking the map for any leftover nearby streets I noticed a tiny curve of road on the way into the modern flats at Paxton Drive that it didn't look like I'd walked down before. I wouldn't take me too far out of my way, so I decided to head there first and then across to North Street to get my groceries and a coffee...
Here we are at the tiny loop of road that looked like it hadn't been walked. It has very little to recommend itself in any other capacity.
Paxton Drive always reminds me of Blake's 7, but in fact in the episode Stardrive it's actually Doctor Plaxton's drive that's the MacGuffin.
Which then becomes North Street, my destination. I need a coffee and some lunch and some veg.
Work on the New Cut, this man-made diversion of the river to allow the harbour to float free of the tide, was officially started on 1st May 1804 and finished on 1st May 1809, with something of a party:
On 1 May 1809 the docks project was certified as complete and a celebratory dinner was held on Spike Island for a thousand of the navvies, navigational engineers who had worked on the construction, at which "two oxen, roasted whole, a proportionate weight of potatoes, and six hundredweight of plum pudding" were consumed, along with a gallon of strong beer for each man. When the beer ran out a mass brawl between English and Irish labourers turned into a riot which had to be suppressed by the press gang.
At some point, the Council say that the Chocolate path will finally be repaired and I can at last add one of my favourite paths in Bristol to my One Mile Matt project.
Here's hoping.
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.
I can only guess that the Raj Bari restaurant has been trying to grow their own herbs and spices. Doesn't look that successful at the moment, to be honest, but maybe I'm looking at things that aren't in season...
Here's the entrance to Pembroke Place on the Hotwell Road. Looking at old maps, before it was Pembroke Place it was Blackhorse Lane.
And again—imagine it without all the rampant shrubbery and tree blossom. Great job, landscapers.
And we'll end on a high note, as Holy Trinity's belfry was looking particularly eye-catching today. The clock's right, too, which is rare in a public clock these days. The bell is back to ringing during the daytime at the moment. It was turned off temporarily during the pandemic as some locals were complaining of losing sleep to it, as it used to ring all night, but the church did some work after running a small campaign for donations to make the timing mechanism more flexible, and now it rings on the hour during the day but is silent during the small hours, at least. It sometimes reminds me that it's time for me to jump on a Teams call when I'm working from home. I find its regular bonging a reassuring Hotwells presence.
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.
There will be a minor theme of flowers and gardens for this little trip. We'll start at Hope Chapel, though this is more a graveyard than a garden.
A lovely garden. Sadly a little lacking in facilities at the moment, after some scrote (or presumably a team thereof) had it away with their cast iron table and chair set at the end of March. This is why we can't have nice things, etc. etc.
I've taken plenty of snaps looking at Holy Trinity from the road, but I think this may be my first looking at the road from Holy Trinity.
There was a somewhat precarious path in the road protected by those yellow plastic barriers to get around some holes being dug in the pavement. I chose the safer route through the church garden and thought I might as well take a pic from the main entrance.
On a previous wander I posted a historical photo of the church including this tree, and one from the modern day.
It's grown up quite a lot in the last hundred years...
This is the south end of Camden Terrace's little private garden, seeing as I seem to be on a bit of a garden and flower theme at the mo.
Strategically-placed grit box, because this tight blind (hence the mirror) zig-zag is hard enough work without a sheet of ice on the corner on a winter morning.
Well, I think it's a California Lilac, Ceanothus. I could be wrong. Whatever it is, it's pretty.
I thought I'd come and see how the wildflower garden was getting along. It's its first year, after a crowdfunder last year raised nearly £2000 to buy seeds, plug plants and signage.
A Swing of the Plimsoll Bridge
24 Apr 2022
I was originally going to head over to the Ashton area to see if I'd missed any bits around the football stadium—and also to grab some lunch from the Tobacco Factory Market—but in the end I got a little distracted by having accidentally chosen exactly the right time to see the Plimsoll Bridge swing on one of the first busy days of Spring, where a lot of pleasure trips tend to head out down the Avon (and possibly the New Cut) from Hotwells.
In the end I mostly snapped that, and just a couple of photos from the Ashton area where I grabbed some lunch but didn't do any new exploring.
My first hint that there might be something interesting to look at was that the lock gates that I was planning on walking over were open rather than closed. Then I spotted the pleasure boat in the lock, just behind the descending steps from the footbridge there.
The Plimsoll Bridge is definitely not the oldest swinger in town. In fact, it may be the youngest swinger in town. I think the only other functioning swing bridges on the floating harbour (side-to-side rather than up-down like Redcliffe Bascule) are Junction Bridge (hidden in this picture, it's on the far side of the Cumberland Basin, carrying Merchants Road) and Prince Street Bridge, built in 1925 and 1879 respectively. The Plimsoll Bridge is mid-1960s.
You don't often see this view of the brutalist bridge abutment, because the bridge itself is normally blocking and overshadowing the view here. Excuse me while I take far too many photos of it to be healthy.
I've always particularly liked the spiral staircases and the control tower, which looks like it's escaped from a prison camp.
You can see the man whose job it is to work the rather complicated-looking controls in the control tower has come out onto his balcony now the opening procedure is done.
...as I look hopefully down the river to see if there's a single sign of the Chocolate Path re-opening, as I have done dozens, possibly hundreds of times over the last several years...
Ticking Off a Pocket of Paths in Leigh Woods
03 Jun 2022
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.
It's quite the commentary. But then if someone believes they can have their life turned around by a fly-posting stranger, perhaps a warning is a reasonable addendum.
At this point I'd just walked up the steep bit of Rownham Hill and was already too hot and a bit knackered. Still, at least it's levelling out.
This is a sentiment that I've often shared, I confess, but never been motivated to express in the form of paint.
I imagine the delighted customer who emplaced the previous missive on the end of the shelter had stood here for a significant portion of their life. Well, that's often how I end up feeling while waiting for a bus in Bristol.
Sidcot School, advertised at the end there, is one of only seven Quaker-run schools in England, founded 1699, situated in the Mendips. A fee-charging school, they do of course have a network of their own minibus services—ten routes in total—to ferry the kids there and back, so they probably don't have to wait for First to turn up.
While my main target is Leigh Woods, I do also want to nip into Ashton Court and walk a little path I missed last time I was in the field with the little steam railway in it, so to the gatehouse we cross...
There was actually a gatekeeper today, as it's the weekend of the Love Saves the Day festival, being held at Ashton Court for the first time this year, I think. Happily, as long as you just want to walk a stretch of the grounds away from the festival site, they just wave you in. I wanted to walk a footpath behind the railway track I walked past back in...gosh! November 2020. I've been doing this a while, haven't I?
Guessing this is a polite hint from the golf club. In my mind's eye I can see an irate greenkeeper chasing a couple of mountain bikers in his golf buggy.
To the left is the edge of the golf course. I'm looking to wander along the edge and the behind the railway, which is behind those trees.
I think I'm pretty much a mile away from my house right here. Nice of someone to erect a marker.
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.
The same view these days is a lot less romantic, especially with the temporary crate from some roadworks sitting at the corner of the square.
I don't blame anyone who lives this close to the Hotwell Road (and can't get double glazing fitted because it wouldn't be in keeping with the character) for wanting a lot of trees and bushes in between them and the roar of the traffic, but I think it's objectively a lot less appealing to the eye with so much shrubbery in the way. Probably good for the local wildlife, though.
It's less obstructive in winter, as you can see from this earlier photo taken from the back of the square looking back toward me.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey both spent time in the garden of the square, apparently—I wonder what they'd make of it today?
Off to the side of the photo we've just seen is the pub frontage on the Hotwell Road, apparently a later addition. The listing says
The right-hand return has a late C19 ashlar public house front with 5 panelled pilasters and foliate capitals to left-hand and central doorways, 2 windows with tripartite frames and semicircular-arched panes below, panelled aprons and dentil cornice.
The Bristol Cathedral School has seen some controversy over the years, especially after it was given permission in 2013 for the Primary School to take over some of the Central Library. They turfed out some of the archives, which is presumably why I need to wait a week when I order an old book from the library, as someone now has to hoof it down to the B Bond warehouse to fetch it for me, rather than just downstairs.
Founded in 1140, dissolved and then re-founded by Henry VIII in 1542 after he dissolved the monastery, it's only very recently become a City Academy. It is allegedly non-selective these days, but my guess would be that its pupils' parents are significantly posher and richer than others in the local catchment area.
The Mother's Ruin and Seamus O'Donnell's, just to the left here, are both good pubs. Sandwiched in between them at the moment is Shall Not Fade, who sell plants, vinyl records and clothes. The also, apparently, run a record label and a festival. I was tempted by a calathea, but I didn't want to be carrying it around for the next couple of hours. I'll have to come back another day.
According to the website this is "a research site and artwork to help us think about the future" by Ella Good & Nicki Kent. I'll be interested to go back for another look...
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.
"STEEP DROP INTO MUD AND FAST FLOWING WATER".
This sign has been mildly annoying photographers since it was put up, getting a bit in the way of several alternative views from this bit of land. I presume it was installed in response to some kind of accident, but I'd hazard a guess that whatever difficulties someone got into probably wouldn't have been prevented by a sign that stated the completely bloody obvious.
We start the day wandering around the periphery of the Cumberland Basin flyover system. Across Entrance Lock and then around the edge of Spike Island is my preferred route to get to Asthon Avenue Bridge and cross the river.
I've recently been playing the computer game Life Is Strange, and it's inspired me to get a bit more snappy. The heroine is a photography student, and part of the game is to go around snapping artistic pics with her Polaroid camera. I don't have a polaroid, but the game did inspire me to stick the simple 50mm prime lens on the camera and to trust my instincts on things to snap. This was probably the best result of the day.
Veg from the Tobacco Factory farm shop in my Idler tote and a market croissant to go with my Coffee #1 iced latte, I feel only the need to sit on a bench and read a Saul Bellow novel to fully sink into my Southville hipster character. I should probably have ridden a penny farthing here and bought some chia seeds.
But, of course, no Metrobuses, as they don't do anything as useful as running on a Sunday.
This small tribute caught my eye from the far side of the road. Sadly there are fatalities on Brunel Way most years. It's not the kind of accident black spot you find elsewhere in Bristol, but I suppose any 40mph dual carriageway with a lot of traffic will, sadly, have a death toll.
This drew my eye beyond to the new building going on on the old railway depot/tile merchant/etc. I wanted to cross to have a look, but the road seemed too busy.
Odd fact: Here I'm technically standing in Southville and taking a picture of Bedminster, as the dividing line between the two Bristol wards runs down the middle of Brunel Way at this point. Of course, everything in the distance isn't in any Bristol ward, as we're also looking at the Somerset border, which runs along the far side of the UWE Bower Ashton Campus.
Ah, but it seems like the bridge is closing, which might make it nice and safe to cross over and have more of a look from the other side. First, though, we'll nip down and have a look at what's causing the swing.
Nipping Up the Zig Zag to the Shops
19 Aug 2023
It's been a long while since I did one of these walks.
I'm thinking of finishing up the project by walking one or two last bits of road, thus being able to declare with all honesty that I've done my best to walk every public road within my mile (and quite a few alleyways besides.) As a prelude, and just because I felt like it, I decided to drag out the camera and GPS on this little wander to the local shops.
I may not personally be a fan of evangelical Christianity, but at least they keep the place looking nice. It's still very tidy since the recent renovation, installaltion of solar panels on the roof and repainting of the HOPE CHAPEL sign.
My exercise for the day is to be a short sharp shock: first we descend down Hinton Lane to the Hotwell Road, then I'm going to ascend the Zig Zag, and possibly die in the process. My fitness has suffered recently because although I've been keeping my step count up it's mostly been on the fairly flat commute to work and back, so hills are coming as a bit of a shock to the system at the moment.
I would absolutely love to have lived in this area before World War II, before the widening of the road knocked down so many interesting things and replaced them with a few busy lanes of traffic, before the tramways were bombed into oblivion, and while you could still wander down to these moorings and catch a White Funnel boat out to Ilfracombe, or at least wander down to Hotwells Station and catch a steam train out to Shirehampton, Sea Mills or Avonmouth. Pre-1934 I could even have skipped the arduous walk up the Zig Zag and taken the 40-second ride up the funicular railway to Clifton Village...
The Hotwell Road really needs more facilities for pedestrians. I spotted plenty of other walkers just on my brief trip along this short section, but all of us were being forced out to share the road with the busy traffic or prevented from crossing to the safer side and back as we made our way.
Thin pavements and a lack of crossings really show how much the car is king in this bit of Bristol, despite the gorgeous landscape.
I did take a couple of other pictures of zigs and zags in the Zig Zag, but they didn't turn out too well; possibly my hands were shaking too much from the exertion of climbing this violently steep old track.
From near the top of the Zig Zag you can look down a couple of levels and see how vertiginous it is.
The reward at the top is the viewing platform of the Suspension Bridge, always busy with tourists.
I was actually planning to take an unexpected short-cut through a pub as an interesting little diversion on this wander, but sadly the pub was closed—I suppose before midday it's a bit of a reach to expect any pub to be open, even on a Saturday—so I headed for the shops instead. I'll have to do the short-cut trip one afternoon...
First I browsed the books at Rachel's & Michael's Antiques on Princess Victoria Street, where I bought CFW Dening's Old Pubs of Bristol as it mentions Hotwells a few times, then I grabbed my lunch from Parsons Bakery. There didn't seem to be anything new or interesting to snap along the way, so we'll now skip to the last couple of photos I took on my way home...
Mardyke then and Now
18 Mar 2021
Reproducing historical photos seems to be a developing interest for me. On today's wander I just went for my normal coffee at Imagine That, but along the way I stopped at Baltic Wharf (the modern housing estate; historically-speaking, I was probably in between Canada Wharf and Gefle Wharf—about here, in fact) to reproduce a 1930s photo of the Mardyke area from the Tarring collection.
Mardyke, from what I can work out, means "a ditch along the margins". Before my researches, I only really knew the name from the Mardyke pub, a big place on the Hotwell Road. Everyone knows the Mardyke, partly because of its size and signage, but I've only been in once or twice, too long ago to remember much of what it was like. However, the wharf there used to be known as Mardyke Wharf, and the area in general as Mardyke. (I just found an 1826 painting by Thomas Leeson Rowbotham of "Mardyke seen from near Hilhouse's Dock, showing the 'Clifton Ark' floating chapel" that shows the area before much development had happened, incidentally, and now I feel like I need to find out a bit more about the floating chapel...)
I enjoyed snapping the "after" photo; the process involved moving a group of swans out of the place I needed to stand to get the photo; luckily I've started carrying waterfowl food along with my on my harbourside jaunts, so I could use bribery rather than a more confrontational approach. Not sure I'd fancy my chances against a swan, though I did once team up with another passerby to shoo a recalcitrant one off the Redcliffe bascule bridge so a busful of commuters could continue their journey to work...
The colourful modern flats stand on School Road, presumably the last hint that the Clifton National Schools building was there before. It's nice to see both the Mardyke Pub and some of the ordinary houses from the terrace dead centre still there and looking much the same.
Quick Around-the-Harbour Wander with Lisa
20 Mar 2021
My friend Lisa was meeting another friend for a walk near the suspension bridge, so we fitted in a quick harbourside loop from my place first. We discussed gardening (we're both envious of the gardening skills of the Pooles Wharf residents; we can just about keep herbs alive, whereas they're growing heartily-fruiting lemon trees outdoors in England along with everything from bonsai to magnolias), cafes, work and architecture, among other things.
Well, they're a gang, and they're bikers. I don't think it was the Hell's Angel's, though.
I lived near here when I first moved to Bristol in the mid-1990s. I never had to say the name of the street out loud, but it always reminded me of "GELF" back then—the Genetically Engineered Life Form that was a monster-of-the-week in a couple of Red Dwarf Episodes.
Having just done the tiniest bit of research after noticing while looking at maps that a section of harbourside here used to be Gefle Close, I found out a couple of things that make me feel a bit dim now: It's pronounced, as near as I can work out, "Yev-leh", not "geffel", and it's a port in Sweden, more properly spelled "Gävle", apparently.
Which makes a lot of sense, given that this street is on the Baltic Wharf housing estate, on the site of the wharves where apparently a lot of things from that area were imported and unloaded, especially timber, though Gävle seems to be more well known copper and iron.
It seems Gävle is pleasantly green and widely-spaced these days, having had major fires rip through it three times in the last three hundred years, and finally rebuilit itself with big espanades and a larger grid system with firebreaks. Sounds nice.