Tagged: uk
Coffee, Pirates and a Spitfire
15 Apr 2021
Just a quick trip to Imagine That for a flat white and a date ball (they're really nice), snapping the general sights along the way. No new roads, as has rapidly become the default on my lunchtime wanders, but as I'm in the routine of this project it almost seems strange not to pop my wanders up on the site.
...swan of those things.
I bought some duck food from Amazon a while back and now carry around a zip-lock bag of the stuff on my more waterside wanders.
Apparenlty it's owned by the same man who owns the Mustang I've snapped here before. I was told this by a lady who I imagine was his long-suffering wife. "At least it started this morning. He spends all his money on these, you know; none on the house..."
I've not had one yet this year. It's still a bit chilly for me to indulge in iced drinks.
Better Look at an Extension
14 Apr 2021
Apart from a lovely coffee and a slice of Victoria sponge from Twelve, there weren't any new sights on this little lunchtime jaunt except for a slightly better look at the long raised extension at the back of the St Vincent's Rocks Hotel, where I at least got to see the arches it's raised up on. I also got a fair bit of exercise by walking up the Zig Zag to get there, and saw far more people out than I have in months, what with the lockdown having just been significantly lifted. As I walked past The Mall pub they were turning people away from their already-full garden, and the (outdoor) cafe tables were pretty full up.
I'll know I'm fit—if it ever happens—when I can get up the Zig Zag without having to stop for a breather. In my defence, it is built up the side of a literal cliff.
I only found out that this was a raised extension when I read the listing after snapping the last photo. Today I ventured as close as I could and got to glimpse a bit of the rather nice support arches.
I'm guessing there used to be a grand front door, but then later the hotel annexed the building and didn't need it any more? But it's only surmise.
These aren't listed per se, but they're on the "local list" and named as 8-14 St Vincents Rocks, so I think that confirms that it used to be part of the hotel.
Maybe I'm starting a knocker fixation after last weekend's walk. Interesting that it's mounted on a Maltese cross. I wonder if it was a holiday souvenir?
Surely if you want to mark the passing of the Royal Consort you'd move your dangling flag to the lower window...
Long Bemmie Wander with Lisa
11 Apr 2021
My friend Lisa joined me again, this time for a long wander through "Bemmie". In fact, I tweeted recently using "Bedmo" as my abbreviation for Bedminster, and apparently there's something of a culture war going on. From what I can glean, the longer-term residents call it "Bemmie" and consider "Bedmo" a name made up by hipster gentrifiers.
I had no idea, but then I didn't grow up around here, and I don't live in Bedminster, and I'm not a hipster. I'm not sure I've ever gentrified anywhere, either; Hotwells was already quite gentrified by the time I arrived. I probably just lowered the tone a bit.
Anyway. Lisa and I entered Bemmie by the traditional toll gate (though actually you'd only have paid if you were coming from the Long Ashton direction, not merely nipping across from Hotwells) and then almost literally combed the streets to knock several new roads off my list of targets. Along the way we saw lots of street art, as you'd expect, and admired the area's panoply of gorgeous knockers.
The reason Ashton Gate is called Ashon Gate is because it's the site of the former turnpike gate between Bristol and Ashton (now known as Long Ashton.) This is the actual toll house, still standing. "The Toll House closed in 1866 and was incorporated c1980 with Toll House Court", says the listing.
Toll House Court is now used by Second Step, a mental health charity, as part of their High Support Accommodation programme to combat homelessness.
The new development on the site of the old brewery (which I visited once for a behind-the-scenes peek with some food- and beer-blogger friends) isn't going down that well with the neighbours.
A piece by Dale Grimshaw. There's a great little piece on this here at Diff Graff, including some details of the migrating swarm of bees that interrupted the painting...
Work continues on the Six Sisters project, the "UK's largest female-led street art project".
I love the Masonic's typography. Not been in myself, that I recall. I have the impression that it's more for locals than for visitors; more of a Merchants Arms than a Grain Barge, in Hotwells terms. The far side of the pub used to be a popular wall for street art until the new flats were built there. I remember one of Dan Kitchener's pieces most fondly.
An Evening Wander to the Gallows
06 Apr 2021
I'd originally intended just to pop up to the area around Alma Road, where I'd missed a few streets on earlier wanders. It was such a nice evening, though, I decided to extend my walk up to the very top of Pembroke Road, just outside my one mile radius, to take a few snaps of something intriguing I'd found in my researches.
I've driven, walked and jogged past the little triangle of land at the top of Pembroke road a great deal in my time in Bristol, but I didn't know that it used to be the site of a gibbet, in fact that the road itself there used to be called Gallows Acre Lane. According to the Durdham Down history trail, by Francis Greenacre (an excellent name for a Downs researcher!) among other sources:
...it was below this quarry near the top of Pembroke Road, once called Gallows Acre Lane, that a gibbet stood. It was sometimes occupied by those who had committed robberies on the Downs and was last used in 1783 to hang Shenkin Protheroe for the murder of a drover. Stories quickly spread that he descended from the gibbet at midnight every night and stalked through Clifton. Such was the alarm that his body was cut down and buried.
Also very close to this little triangle of land was one of the gates of the extensive turnpike system...
Anyway. Along the way I encountered a wooden tortoise and a real squirrel, among other things. It was a good walk, and more light in the evenings means I can move my wanders out of the ticking countdown clock of work lunch-hours and be a bit more leisurely.
I came across this photo of 5 Wellington Terrace back when it was the Gaping Goose, two doors down from the Portcullis, and decided to snap the site as it is today. Interesting comparison!
There's a lot of outdoor trails of one kind or other going on, what with the current cicumstances.
The late, great Maggie Shapland was a familiar feature to anyone interested in historical industry in Bristol.
I think the first time I saw her was on an Open Doors Day for the Clifton Rocks railway, the disused funicular from the Avon Gorge Hotel down to near the landing stage in Hotwells, and the last time was when she was helping to restore Brunel's Other Bridge at Howard's Lock.
Both times I think she'd driven there in one or other of the classic cars she maintained. Sometimes when the garage door here was open on the way past you could sneak a look at the collection.
The last thing I saw her drive was this Moss kit car.
An amazing person by all accounts, I never knew that we shared the profession of "Database Consultant"...
I knew I'd missed a street! This wasn't my destination tonight, though, and there was a children's party going on in the street, by the sound of it, so I decided to come back here another day.
A great fish restaurant, clearly gearing up for some al fresco dining once the lockdown eases up a bit.
I noticed I'd missed a bit of Circular Road and Ladies Mile, and it was a nice evening for a sunset wander up to Clifton. There was something I recorded along the way, not photographically but in video.
Bristol Zoo, the world's oldest provincial zoo, has recently decided to close its Clifton site after 185 years of occupation, which means that the sounds of wild animals will no longer drift incongruously through this leafy Georgian area. They're moving everything up to their existing second site, The Wild Place Project near Cribbs Causeway. As I was wandering the Downs, I heard some fierce roaring noises, so I decided to see if I could get a little closer while they were still going on and record a sound that's soon to disappear.
I don't have a way yet to put video directly on this site, so here's a link to the video of my attempt to catch a bit of the zoo noises that I just popped on YouTube. It's sad that this might be the last time I hear such noises in Clifton.
Is it still a potsherd if it's from a plate? (I just checked the dictionary, and apparently it is...) This one's embedded in a wall on Windsor Place.
I was trying to take a photo of the Portcullis and what I thought was also a disused pub next door, assuming it was big building on the right, but according to this discussion on Flickr, the Gaping Goose was actually next-door-but-one. I'll have to see if I can reproduce that photo of the sign...
I thought this was a fairly short shortcut to Bridge Valley road that I was tryihg to knock off my list. I was wrong, and I retreated. There's a big network of paths all through this (literal) neck of the woods.
So named because they're often extracted from whipped cream cans.
Nitrous oxide is a common recreational drug. It was Thomas Beddoes and Humphrey Davy who pioneered its use, at the Pneumatic Institute on Dowry Square, coining the name "laughing gas" and inviting friends like Samuel Taylor Coleridge to give it a go, so I don't suppose we can criticise the local youth too much...
I wonder how many generations of mildly disreputable youth have got up to no good on this rock?
Swinging By Sydney Row
01 Apr 2021
Another workday, another quick coffee excursion. This time I decided to swing past Sydney Row on the way back from the marina car park where Imagine That have their horsebox. I didn't know until recently that the terrace was built for workers at the adjacent dockyard.
I've also gradually come to the conclusion that I don't really think very two-dimensionally when it comes to finding my way around or associating one place with another. I only realised in the last few days that the odd industrial building that takes up the other half of Syndey Row, the one that's always covered with graffiti, is the back of the dockyard works. In my defence, as it's tucked away in a corner of the little industrial estate that I've never ventured into (I rarely find I have a need for the products of safety valve manufacturers), I don't think I've ever seen the front of the building...
I don't think I ever put two and two together before and worked out that this was the back of one of the industrial buldings on the Albion Dockyard. I'm not sure you can see it from the front, or at least not without wandering into the fairly private-looking works area.
Coffee Run
31 Mar 2021
Not a literal run, but I didn't hang about, as I had a job interview to get to (I was an interviewer, not the interviewee, but you still have to be there on time...) Along the way to pick up a lunchtime coffee I mostly seemed to take photos of the high tide, though I also came across a bit of outreach work for small spiny mammals...
The enclosure seems to be there to keep some daffodils safe, but that sounds too much like overkill to be true.
"...struggle with dehydration, especially when it's hot or very dry. Leaving out a shallow bowl of water can make all the difference. Can park uses keep this bowl topped up to help wildlife?"
Hotwells Evening
29 Mar 2021
Just a little potter around Hotwells with Sarah and Vik. I didn't visit any new streets, but I liked a couple of the photos a lot.
I bumped into my friend Lisa in town during yesterday's wander, and we decided to have a wander today, too. We managed quite a long ramble, starting up through Clifton and nipping down Park Row to investigate the two tower blocks I'd noticed popping up behind Park Street yesterday, then took in a few roads I'd not managed to get to before, including cutting through the grounds of Bristol Grammar School.
I have snapped this plaque before, but apparently I didn't look up the name. He designed the Wills Memorial Tower, one of Bristol's most significant landmarks, and one I snapped just yesterday.
I've mentioned before how this apparently continuous road contains York Place, Tottenham Place, Dover Place, Meridian Place, Bruton Place and Park Place—unsurprisingly it's confusing the delivery drivers. Some of the terraces re-start the numbering, so it can't be easy to figure out where you're meant to drop the pizzas off.
This is apparently Jim from Friday Night Dinner. Lisa had to identify him for me.
The best-known artist of the Bristol School, apparently. We have something in common: we've both seen Bristol harbour frozen over, though I never saw anyone brave enough to ice skate on it.
A Journey to the Far East
25 Jul 2021
The far east of the intersection of my one-mile radius and Bedminster, anyway. I was feeling a bit tired this morning, so I motivated myself to get out of the door by imagining one of Mokoko's almond croissants. That got me on my way, and I wandered across to Bedminster, through Greville Smyth Park, along most of the length of North Street (looking out for new Upfest 75-pieces-in-75-days artwork as I went) and then onto some new roads at the far end.
I only wanted to knock a few streets off my "to do" list, but by the time I'd diverted here and there to check out various bits of graffiti and other attractions and come back via the aforementioned purveyors of Bristol's finest croissants, I'd walked 7.4km. Not bad for someone who woke up tired, and at least I've done something with my day. I'm very glad the weather broke (we had tremendous thunderstorms yesterday), even if some of the pictures might've looked better with a blue sky. I was getting fed up with walking around in 29°C heat...
I had no idea this was part of the Monarch's Way, a modern route that tries to trace, as best it can, the path of King Charles II's escape following his defeat by Cromwell in 1651.
