Tagged: vent
I went to get my first dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine today. Handily, the vaccination centre was Clifton College Prep School in Northcote road, next to Bristol Zoo, a road that's just within my 1-mile range that I hadn't visited before.
I parked up near Ladies Mile and tried to find a few of the tracks marked on the map I'm using, but couldn't see most of them. Whether that's just because they've disappeared over time, or with the recent lack of use or waterlogging from the 24 hours of rain we just had, I'm not sure. It was a pretty fruitless search, anyway.
The vaccine shot was virtually the same setup as when I got my winter flu jab back in November, except for the venue. I snapped a couple of pictures of the school while I was there, but I was in and out in five minutes, and you probably don't want to linger around a vaccination centre, I suppose.
Instead I wandered around the compact block of the Zoo, now sadly scheduled for closure. By coincidence I finished E H Young's Chatterton Square this morning: set in Clifton (fictionalised as "Upper Radstowe") near the Zoo, the occasional roars of the lions that can be heard by the residents of the square (Canynge Square in real life) form part of the background of the novel. The book's set in 1938 (though written and published post-war, in 1947). It seems a shame that the incongruous sounds of the jungle will no longer be heard from 2022. All I heard today were some exotic birds and, I think, some monkeys.
I was told not to drive for fifteen minutes following the jab, so I wandered out of my area up to the top of Upper Belgrave Road to check out an interesting factoid I'd read while looking into the history of the reservoir at Oakfield Road, that the site of 46 Upper Belgrave Road was a bungalow, shorter than the adjacent houses, and owned by Bristol Water, kept specifically low so that the pump man at Oakfield Road could see the standpipe for the Downs Reservoir (presumably by or on the water tower on the Downs) and turn the pump off when it started overflowing. Sadly I couldn't confirm it. There is one particularly low house on that stretch, but it's number 44, and though small, it's two-storey, not a bungalow, so nothing really seems to quite fit in with the tale.
I'm writing this about nine hours after getting the jab, by the way, and haven't noticed any ill effects at all. My arm's not even sore, as it usually would be after the normal flu jab. In twelve weeks I should get an appointment to get the second dose.
This is a ventilation shaft for the Clifton Down Tunnel. The railway tunnel was opened in 1877, and is still in use. According to this page (which might've been put together by my friend Rob, by the looks of it!): this ventilation shaft used to be topped with crenellations, and also:
Clifton Down Tunnel is 1751 yards long. Halfway along its length there is an opening into a cave that exits half way up the cliffside of the Avon Gorge.
...so that's quite fascinating. I think it also used to connect to the Bristol Port Railway and Pier tunnel that I found in the Avon Gorge on another wander.
EDIT TO ADD (14 Oct 2021): I'm just reading Colin Maggs' The Bristol Port Railway and Pier (Oakwood Press, 1975) and the tunnel was indeed built for the Clifton Extension Railway, which linked the Bristol Port Railway line with the rest of the national network. It sounds like quite a feat of engineering, including the use of a diamond boring machine invented by Major Beaumont, MP: "Cutting facets of black diamonds were fixed round the end of a steel tube to form a kind of auger. This tube was rapidly revolved by compressed air and advanced so that its diamond points came into contact with the rock and water forced through the tube washed away grit and kept the tube cool."
The more I research it, the more I find that Hotwells had far better transport links back in Victorian and Edwardian times than it has today. Along with buses that went to more useful places than the City Centre, there were trams, the funicular up to Clifton, the landing stage for paddle steamer services and two railway stations all within easy walking distance of me.
Today I took a day off work as preparation for doing the bookkeeping for my tax return1, and took a wander along to the site of what would have been my nearest station, Hotwells (or Clifton, as it started out in life), nestled in the shadow of the suspension bridge, the Bristol terminus of the Bristol Port Railway and Pier.
From there I wandered down the Portway, following the original line, until I got to the area around Sneyd Park Junction, where the tunnel from the slightly later Clifton Extension Railway joined up with this originally-isolated BPR line. Then I headed up to Clifton through the "goat gully" at Walcombe Slade, seeing the few above-ground bits of evidence of the tunnel (which is still in regular use) along the way.
It was a lovely day, and a good walk, and it was interesting to daydream of the times when I could have walked a few minutes from my flat down to Dowry Parade, caught a short tram ride to Hotwells Stations, and then headed from there to Avonmouth, perhaps even to board a transatlantic passenger service. The completion of the Clifton Extension Railway that linked the Avonmouth station with Temple Meads made relatively direct transatlantic travel from London via Bristol possible, with passengers travelling up from Paddington to Temple Meads, on to Avonmouth on the Clifton Extension Railway and Port Railway and Pier line, then perhaps catching a Cambpell's paddle steamer—which sometimes acted as tenders for large steamers—to a larger ship that was headed out for Canada, say.
1 I've learned that the best approach is to take two days off and deliberately do something that's not my bookkeeping on the first day, as otherwise I just inevitably end up procrastinating and feeling guilty on the first day no matter what. I have an odd brain, but at least I'm learning strategies for dealing with its strange ways as I get older...
2 Information mostly gleaned from Colin Maggs' The Bristol Port Railway & Pier and the Clifton Extension Railway, The Oakwood Press, 1975.
Of course there's graffiti in there. This was, apparently, used as a stable!
Further to improve the ventilation provided by the two vertical shafts, in 1950 an old shaft leading out to the face of the gorge was re-opened after having been blocked for many years. Originally it had been used as a stable for ponies employed in tunnel construction. A ganger's cabin is hewn out of the side of the tunnel and is on the down side approximately midway.
— Colin Maggs, The Bristol Port Railway & Pier and the Clifton Extension Railway, The Oakwood Press, 1975
From To Keep Open and Unenclosed, the Management of the Durdham Down Since 1861, Bristol Branch of the Historical Association, 2005:
On the Avonmouth side of the Pembroke Road shaft two further shafts were made (one vertical to a ventilation turret in the Gulley and the other horizontal to an opening in the face of the Black Rock Quarry.
So, bearing in mind that this is Black Rock Quarry, I'd say there's a good chance this is the third, and least photogenic, ventilation shaft for the Clifton Extension Railway Tunnel. Later on in this wander we'll see the other two, which are rather prettier.
So, along with the horizontal shaft that comes out rather unattractively in the side of the quarry below, there are two other air shafts for the tunnel. This one marks the spot where this path up Walcombe Slade crosses directly above the dead-straight Clifton Extension Railway tunnel running from left to right in the depths of the rock below.
It doesn't look quite contemporary to the 1870s railway tunnel, does it? That's because it was rebuilt with concrete blocks in 1950. I do like the top cover, though. I'm sure it could've been just a boring flat grille.
This is the Pembroke Road ventilation tower, sometimes known as the "pound tower", as it's next to the pound the Downs maintenance people use for equipment storage.
From To Keep Open and Unenclosed, the Management of the Durdham Down Since 1861, Bristol Branch of the Historical Association, 2005:
...construction of the tunnel began immediately at Cooks Folly Wood, the top of Pembroke Road and two other points. The Pembroke Road shaft was subsequently retained to ventilate the tunnel. The sinking of this shaft had reached rail level by May 1872 when Captain Beaumont's compressed air diamond drilling machine came into use. Most of the machinery associated with the diamond drilling machine was on the surface: the machine had a 4" diameter compressed air service from a 50 hp steam engine at the surface. By comparison, the engine to lift spoil and water from the tunnel was only 20 hp. The drill had to be cooled by water which was run into trucks and presumably wound to the surface. Dynamite charges were set in the holes after the dynamite had been softened by steam before use! On 10th May 1872 four pounds of dynamite exploded while being 'softened' at 2.30 a.m. blowing off the engine-house roof and smashing windows in the three houses facing the Downs at the top of Pembroke Road. Fortunately no-one was injured and when the glazier called at one house he found that the occupant had slept through the whole episode!
