Tagged: wall
Prince's Lane
06 Jan 2021
The International Grotto Directory website says:
Prince’s Lane might have been one of the original ancient tracks from Hotwells to Clifton, in the Avon Gorge. The site later formed part of Rownham Woods which comprised some thirteen acres. By the end of the 18th century and the early 19th century, the Society of Merchant Venturers granted to Samuel Powell a building lease, for The Colonnade (1786), St. Vincent’s Parade (1790), Prince’s Buildings (1796), and Rock House. Rock House is generally considered to be the oldest surviving building associated with the Hotwell (see Chapter 20). John Power conveyed part of the woods to William Watts for the construction of Windsor Terrace (1790-1808).
The above development of the Avon Gorge cleared Rownham Woods, and created a triangle of land on the north side of the gorge, that became enclosed as a result, by Mansion Houses, whose garden walls all entered on to Prince’s Lane. The Lane started at the bottom of the gorge, at the base rock of Windsor Terrace, and came out half way up Sion Hill. It is clearly shown as a public footpath, dotted with trees, in Ashmead’s map of 1828. Some of the gardens were quite steep in parts and therefore, had to be terraced, because of the gradient of the gorge.
I've passed Prince's Lane literally thousands of times in my life, every time I've walked past the Avon Gorge Hotel, which itself started (in 1898) as the Grand Clifton Spa and Hydropathic Institution and pumped water up from the Hot Well for its hydropathic treatments. I've never actually ventured down it until today, or at least nothing like as far down it as I did this afternoon—I may have poked my head around the back of the hotel to see the original pump rooms at some point in the past.
This was a great wander, though it does very much feel like a private road, and frankly I may have been pushing my luck a bit by winding my way between the astoundingly big back gardens of the houses of some presumably very wealthy Cliftonites, but I felt vaguely justified in exploring the history of one of the oldest footpaths in my part of Bristol...
This was a pretty astounding space, by all accounts, in the style of a Georgian "long room" or assembly room, with the added bonus of a fountain of the Hot Well water being pumped up from the spring below. There are some pictures here of the interior.
It seems someone ignominious for it to end up boarded over with cars and portaloos scattered around it.
"Built 1894, designed by Philip Monro for Sir George Newnes, the promoter of the scheme", hence the GN in the pediment. He also funded the Clifton Rocks Railway, apparently.
A Little Local Wander
07 Jan 2021
Which included a literal "local", the Pump House, to try out their shop/deli/cafe. A flat white, some apples and a New York Deli toastie. Eleven quid, mind, but the Pump House was never a cheap pub...
I enjoyed the fog, and wandering down a few more out-of-the-way back alleys and what-have-you on the Hotwell Road.
I'm thinking of getting up early and going for a morning walk tomorrow, weather-depending, but at the moment my motivation to do things like this seems to be much strong in the evenings when I'm just thinking about it rather than in the morning when I actually have to do it. But it's going to be cold, and low tide is quite early, so there's always a chance of getting some footage of the hot well actually being visibly hot; you never know...
And, inevitably, a load of tagging. The Spar is a pretty awful example of the kind of chain shop that's not good at the best of times. It survives, I imagine, because there aren't any other shops.
Morning Walk
08 Jan 2021
Tempted by a hopeful repeat of yesterday's weather, I got up early this morning and went for a short walk up into Clifton Village, around Observatory Hill, back down the Zig Zag and home. Instead of beautiful and mysterious fog and crisp freezing brightness I got some murk and slight dampness which included witnessing a road-raging van driver and finding that it still wasn't cold enough for the hot well to be even gently steaming when I got down there. I've still never seen it steaming, but I've been told it does, on colder days.
Mirror Maze
10 Jan 2021
Went for a wander with my friend Lisa—the current lockdown rules seem to be that one local walk for exercise per day with a maximum of one person not in one's "bubble" is fine—up to the University of Bristol area right at the edge of my one-mile perimeter to see the Jeppe Hein Mirror Maze, among other things. On the way we mused about Merchant Venturers, the slave and tobacco trades, and dating in the time of Covid.
I just liked the filigree(?) edging of the.. Er... balcony? Portico? Can you tell I don't know much about architecture?
The pillar vents next to double-doored pavement covers are a dead giveaway. Many of Bristol's electrical substations are hidden underground like this. If you're brave enough to put your nose near the vent and inhale you'll get a whiff of hot, dry air with the metallic taint of a large electric transformer.
It's good to see that the most specific street sign in Bristol is still there. I'm actually a little surprised that they haven't added GPS co-ordinates yet...
Northern Clifton
16 Jan 2021
A raggedy wander with my friend Lisa, picking up a few stray streets and venturing only briefly onto Whiteladies Road, where it was too damn busy, given the current pandemic. We retreated fairly quickly. Found a couple of interesting back alleys, and got a very pointed "can I help you?" from a man who was working in his garage in one of the rather run-down garage areas behind some posh houses, and clearly didn't want us just wandering around there.
Oddly, this is a little crescent that two-thirds Coddrington Place and one-third Belgrave Place, it seems
There apparently is a permanent address of Haddy House, Pembroke Grove in Clifton, despite the makeshift-looking sign.
I used to look out for this porch on Alexandra Road on my walk home from the office I worked at at the top of Whiteladies Road.
Coffee and Graff
22 Jan 2021
Took myself around the harbour to Imagine That's horsebox cafe and treated myself to a flat white and a sourdough cheese toastie. On the way there and back I encountered some local flooding and various bit of graffiti, from some ugly tagging on someone's front windows to a large new piece being added to Cumberland Piazza in the ongoing attempts to cheer the place up.
Snowy Leigh Wander
24 Jan 2021
I started this wander with my "support bubble" Sarah and Vik, after Sarah texted me to say "SNOW!" We parted ways on the towpath and I headed up into the bit of Leigh Woods that's not actually the woods—the village-like part in between Leigh Woods and Ashton Court, where I'd noticed on a map a church I'd not seen before. I found St Mary the Virgin and quite a few other things I'd never experienced, despite having walked nearby them many, many times over many years, including a castellated Victorian water tower that's been turned into a house...
Seems to lead onto a field below the posh houses on Rownham Hill, which I have a couple of snaps of in a mo.
And next to Chakas Kraal is Malmsy House. It sounds like a vaguely insulting epithet from a Bertie Wooster story to me. "Just get on with it, you malmsy fool!"
For whom the bridge tolls? Not for me, that's for sure, though I think the first time I walked across it, probably in the 1990s, I did wonder if someone would pop out of a tollbooth and ask me for 20p, as I didn't know it was free for pedestrians.
Another Lunchtime, Another Quick Coffee Trip
28 Jan 2021
With very little photography, and no new streets. Still, I did manage to buy milk at the "Simple Cow" vending machine—and "simple" is very definitely false advertising; it took me bloody ages to work out how to use the thing—and snap the new ACER/SEPR piece down in Cumberland Piazza.
Unexpected Snow
31 Jan 2021
I just nipped out to post a blood test (not Covid-related) and check that my car was okay, because I've not driven it for weeks. I was just going to walk up to Clifton Village, but I spotted the opportunity to re-park the car on my street rather than up the hill around the corner where it was, so instead I got in, intending just to move a hundred metres, but it turned over slowly before it started, and then warned me that the battery was very low and I should go for a long drive to recharge it.
So, I did my best, zipping up the A4018 to the motorway junction and back again, dropping off my blood at a postbox along the way, and while I did that, it started snowing. I noticed it was low tide, too, so when I got back home I headed back out again, this time on foot and with a camera so I could see if I could find any evidence of the Hot Well steaming.
I saw not a single sign of the Hot Well steaming, but it was quite a nice quick outing and I enjoyed my brief walk in the snow. Iike Hinton Lane, too, and while it's all old ground I was re-treading, I did at least get a picture or two with a bit of snow and some of the cold winter atmosphere of the trip, I think.
Jacob's Well Wander
01 Feb 2021
I just wanted to get some exercise, really, so I set out to knock off the lower bit of Jacobs Wells Road that I'd not managed to walk up yet. I set the new signboard that the community association had had erected as my destination, after reading about it on their blog.
As it turned out, I couldn't even read it, as the building that houses the actual Jacob's Well had water flooding out onto the pavement. I wonder if it was actual Jacob's Well water? Have the soles of my walking shoes been mystically blessed now?
You can't see much of the flood in the photos I snapped, but I did shoot a little video, too. Ed on Twitter said:
I spoke to the seller at the time with a view to buying it - I mentioned an old friend who grew up nearby remembers it flooding regularly. He swore blind my friend was wrong.
