Tagged: vehicle
Museum of the Moon, and a Bit of Redland
21 Aug 2021
Lisa and I mostly went out to have a look at Luke Jerram's Museum of the Moon as its tour hit Bristol Cathedral—I missed it when it was previously in town, at Wills Hall, I think—but we also took a trek up to Redland. Lisa's kind enough to indulge my strange current fascination with the Edwardian eccentrics that made up the Stella Matutina, so we swung by a couple of places with a vague connection to the Bristol branch of the organisation. Well, it was good walking, anyway...
As a stunning bonus, one of the picture's descriptions has more information than you'd probably want on the Bristol Port Railway and Pier's Clifton Extension Railway line, but I did happen to coincidentally write up this wander after reading about the extension line during my lunch hour at work today. It's a thrilling life, I tell you...
Cotham House seems to make more architectural sense from the back. Maybe this was originally the front?
...and then noticed that it was actually a brace of Rollers. I think the rather more downtrodden one behind was probably bought for spares, but who knows? Maybe they just keep that one for country drives.
This little crop of cottages is on a little road called St Vincent's Hill. I was interested because I'm trying to track down Catherine Hughes's house, where the first Hermes Temple meetings were held. This was apparently "St Vincent's Studio, Grove Road, Redland", and I imagine it was very close to these cottages, if not actually one of them.
Apparently there is still something around here called The Studio, but I couldn't spot it. Maybe I'll come back at some point and have more of a look around.
There were a lovely little set of cottages, and very well-kept. According to Historic England, they're mid-18th century, but "Much restored c1990".
Short and Sweet
06 Sep 2021
As if to prove that I don't have to go on giant rambles, here's a quick four-photo trip up to Clifton Village for a bit of cake. No new streets, just a tiny slice of life.
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.
This may be a more interesting view than you'd think at first sight. Whitemead and Winterstoke House, with Southbow House out of sight on the far side, were finished in 1962, as the post-War housing crisis continued. There's a fascinating article in the Bristol Post about them, especially Whitemead House, the block on the left here, which was famously used for external scenes in Only Fools and Horses after filming moved to Bristol, standing in for the fictional Nelson Mandela House in Peckham where the Trotters lived.
Things must be getting back to normal if you can't cross a bridge in Bristol without a hen or stag do waving at you.
These days it's a fish and chip shop, but it started as the Cabot Cafe.
According to this description of an etching by Alexander Heaney:
Built in 1904 for an estate agent, Walter Hughes, to the design of Latrobe & Weston, architects well known for their cinemas. Above the word ‘Café’ can just be seen the Pomegranate mosaic with enamel insets by the client's daughter, Catherine Hughes, taken from Charles Rickett's bookbinding for Oscar Wilde's A House of Pomegranates, 1891.
Caroline's Miscellany tells us:
Less bright, but equally beautiful, are the copper panels to either side. These continue the pomegranate theme and are pure Art Nouveau. Other details, by contrast, are more baroque (a mixture of styles characteristic of LaTrobe and Weston's work).
Cabot Cafe suffered damage in the Second World War. We are fortunate, then, that this intriguing facade nevertheless survived to delight us today.
It's almost like I planned this in advance. This is the 111th annual open exhibition of the Clifton Arts Club, founded 1906.
The Clifton Arts Club featured several members of the Hughes family. The three I'm interested in are Catherine Huges, of the earlier pomegranates, her brother Donald Hughes, and his wife Hope Hughes. They were all at some point members of the Stella Matutina as well as various arts groups in the city. Donald was a member of the Bristol Savages—ahem, sorry, Bristol 1904 Arts, as they've recently rebranded—and apparently something of a leading light on the Bristol art scene.
Currently the University of Bristol's Beacon House, it was originally the Queens Hotel, built by William Bateman Reed, who also built a stretch of Victoria Square, among other things. Every Bristolian older than thirty probably still thinks of it as "the old Habitat building", though. I've got curtains in this very room that were bought there...
Continuing with my magical/Hughes related theme: the last time I was in Berkeley Square, I was trying to figure out where the vault of the Hermes Temple might have been destroyed; a passing mention of its destruction in Ithell Colquhoun's Sword of Wisdom says it was stored in Berkeley Square and destroyed in 1964.
The Vault would have been a septagonal wooden room with esoteric symbols painted on every surface. The Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle have a picture of one towards the bottom of this page. That one, in Havelock North, New Zealand, would have looked very similar to the Bristol Hermes vault, I think, as they were contemporary Stella Matutina vaults and they were probably each at least partly designed by Robert Felkin, who emigrated from Bristol to New Zealand to form the Smaragdum Thalasses temple there.
This is the site of a proposed wildflower meadow, suggested for rewilding by West Bristol Climate Action. It's normally host to quite a few daffodils in spring, but mostly it's just lawn. (These paths curving up to the churchyard would have made rather more sense when St Andrews was still standing there.)
Not sure what progress the proposal has made, but I think a splash of wild colour would go quite well here.
Green Squares and Secret Gardens
31 Jul 2021
At the end of July I went to have a look around some of the private gardens opened up by the annual Green Squares and Secret Gardens event. Sadly it was compressed into a single day this year, for various Covid-related reasons, it seems, so I didn't get to poke around too many places. I went to:
- A talk by the oldest resident of Victoria Square
- The St Vincent's Rocks Hotel garden
- The Paragon garden
- Cornwallis Crescent gardens, both east and west
- The Polygon garden
And snapped a few things in between, too. It was a lovely day—a bit too hot, if anything—and it was interesting to get into a few places I'd only ever seen from the outside, especially The Paragon and Cornwallis gardens, which are the least visible to passing strangers of all of them.
This section of Victoria Square, the second side to be built (Lansdown Road is the oldest—Regency—bit) is called Royal Promenade, and it built to resemble a palace. William Batemen Reed built it, then went on to build the Queens Hotel opposite the Victoria Rooms, which every Bristolian I know would more likely recognise by the description "the old Habitat at the top of Park Street" :D
Apparently if the Royal Promenade were symmetrical, the windows of 7 and 8 would be the same size. As it is, 8 is clearly very slightly grander.
You can't see the join. Number 4 was obliterated when a bomb hit it in 1941, taking significant chunks of numbers 3 and 5 with it. Clearly they did a good job of the post-war restoration. There's a mention of the bombing on one of the BBC's People's War pages.
This is how the other half live—making sure that the Suspension Bridge is still there without having to leave one's boules court.
Here's the listing. This bit's described thus:
To the rear a late C19 long brick extension raised on open arches
I've been trying to get a decent picture of this for a while.
Freshly painted, with the scaffolding only recently removed, and looking rather lovely. To its right is the old entrance to the earlier Hotwell pump house that used to stand down on the Hotwell Road, and just to the right of that is the entrance to the Clfiton Rocks Railway. Behind all that is the site of the original Clifton Spa pump room, a grand "long room" that was later used as a cinema and then a ball room. I wonder if there are any plans to renovate it? It was still disused, last I heard, but that was a long time ago, when I peeped through from a Rocks Railway open day....
Man on a Mission
17 Apr 2021
I went rather outside my area today, as I went to pick something up from the Warhammer shop on Wine Street (Games Workshop as-was, and before that I think perhaps a rare retail outlet for Her Majesty's Stationery Office? I may be mis-remembering...) Anyway, a friend of mine wanted something picking up and posting to him, so I figured I'd knock some streets off my list along the way.
I first headed for the St George's Road area, walking down the narrow Brandon Steps and finding some strange wall art on Brandon Steep, then headed to the Old City via Zed Alley. The Warhammer shop visit was friendly and efficient, and, mission accomplished, I treated myself to a sausage roll and a flat white from Spicer + Cole, to take away and eat in Queen Square with its current decoration of hearts. I finished off with a detour up Park Street, looking out for St John's Conduit markers, before finally crossing Brandon Hill on the way home.
Quite a long wander, all told, and I'm a bit knackered today...
When you think you're a free spirit who needs a convertible when actually you'd have been better off with the Volvo estate.
Who was it that decided that petrol stations had to be ugly? It's not like oil companies don't have money...
Apparently they're a "Cloud and Cyber Security Specialist". Let's not let them near this website, please; I wrote a lot of the code in a hurry when I was tired...
It's unsurprising I've not visited this area in my travels -- it's one of those areas of a city that's basically just a car park.
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 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.
Avoiding the Accounts
26 Nov 2020
I took the day off my day job to do my accounts—or at least do enough bookkeeping to send them to my accountant. I hate doing the books. I woke up late, tired and with a headache and decided to bunk off for a walk around Cliftonwood, Clifton Village and Clifton instead, taking in a couple of good coffees along the way. Thanks, Foliage Café, and Twelve for the flat whites.
One Albermarle Row, Granby Green and... People
12 Mar 2021
I was browsing some historical photos the other day, and came across "Rear of Unspecified House" in the Bristol Archives' John Trelawny Ross collection, and immediately recognised it as being the back of 1 Albermarle Row, just around the corner from me. I've not had much time to research the history of this odd little addition to Albermarle Row, or what happened to 1-4 Cumberland Place, number 4 of which used to be attached to the side of 1 Albermarle Row, but it was interesting to look at old maps for a few minutes and work out what used to be where.
That all connects with the little local bit of land at Granby Green, too, as it used to be numbers 1-3 Cumberland Place. There was something of a planning battle over Granby Green, and I've included an old edition of Hotwells & Cliftonwood News that I found online, a copy of which would have been popped through my letterbox at the time.
I was also inspired by some old pictures of Hotwell Road to try to put a few more people in my pictures, though I set my pre-focus a couple of extra metres out from normal to make sure I didn't get too close to anyone!
This modern block has appeared since I've lived in the area, so it must be newer than 1999, I think.
It's the school in the back of the council photo that relly confirms that the picture is of Albermarle Row.
One Albermarle Row. The entire terrace is Grade II* listed apart from number 1, which is clearly a later addition, and merely Grade II listed. It might have looked less of the odd one out when it was hugged by 4 Cumberland Place on the end, but it seems strange to have chosen such a different architectural style, and that big bay window in the middle is odd.
2-9 Albermarle Row were built in 1763 (there's a big plaque in the pediment of number 5 that bears the date, which I've already snapped). The listing for Number 1 says:
Attached house. 1812 on deeds. Brick with limestone dressings, party wall stack and pantile mansard roof. Originally single-depth plan, since extended behind. Late Georgian style.
I think the thing I'm most curious about—and which will presumably remain a mystery—is the renumbering that must have happened. Was Albermarle Row numbered 1-8 from 1763, and then when this parvenu pitched up in 1812, everyone moved their door numbers down one to make room? I'd've expected this to have been dubbed 1B, or something like that...
More Cliftonwood
05 Dec 2020
Back to Cliftonwood for a wander that included some of the belle views of Bellevue Crescent and other bits of the easternmost part. Highlights included watching someone bump-starting an elderly Nissan Micra in the narrow confines of Bellevue Crescent.
A "bright and airy self contained single storey Freehold studio / workshop (277 Sq Ft)". The floorplan shows that it's basically just a single room with tiny room with a loo and a sink inset, and nothing else. I suppose an enterprising hairdresser or nail technician might be able to make something of it.
Cliftonwood and a Secret Garden
03 Dec 2020
I love the isolation of Cliftonwood -- the geography of it, with its solid boundary of Clifton Vale to the west and Jacob's Wells Road to the east mean that you tend not to be in Cliftonwood unless you've got a reason to be there. It's not a cut-through to anywhere, at least not from side-to-side, and you can only really exit to the south on foot.
I sense that I'd be happy living in Cliftonwood -- like my bit of Hotwells, it's a quiet little area with a sort of quirky feel to it. Plus it contributes the colourful houses that are the backdrop of about half of all Bristol postcards ever made :)
I found the "secret" garden especially interesting, just for the fact that it really does feel quite secret, despite the obvious name on the gate. I've lived a half-mile from it for twenty years and I don't think I've ever noticed it before, despite exploring the area a few times.
I got curious about Bioinduction's sign down on the Hotwell Road once. According to the company's website theire mission is to "develop a precisely targetted brain pacemaker that offers new hope for the millions of sufferers... To revolutionise the treatment of cerebrovascular and neurodegenerative diseases where there is no effective drug therapy available today."
Apparently Gnodal "was a computer networking company headquartered in Bristol, UK. The company designed and sold network switches for datacenter, high-performance computing and high-frequency trading environments"
It's a great pub. Friendly, welcoming, family-run, extremely good food. Only been a few times. I hope it weathers the Covid storm.