stuff Archives - Page 6 of 13

August 3, 2016

Up, up and away…

From the 11th to the 14th August this year is the annual Bristol Balloon Festival.

The Bristol International Balloon Fiesta is Europe’s largest annual meeting of hot air balloons, attracting over 150 Hot Air Balloons from across the globe. The Fiesta truly is a sight that can only be seen in Bristol. Held over four days in August at Ashton Court Estate, the event is completely free with charges made for parking on the event site. Tickets can be purchased here. Alongside the fantastic site of hot air balloons filling the skies, we have a large number of great trade stands, fairground rides and entertainment.

We went last year and had a really nice time watching the mass ascent of the numerous hot air balloons.

For me the real highlight of this festival are the mass ascents. You can get really quite close to the balloons as they rise.

Of course if you aren’t interested in hot air balloons, then there is a bundle of other stuff you can do, from stalls to fairground rides.

It should be noted that if you don’t like crowds then this probably isn’t the event for you, though you could always go to the early morning ascents.

I know a lot of people like the night glow on the Thursday night, my previous experience was that the whole thing was incredible, but ruined by the constantly moving crowds, so I now watch it on the telly.

June 9, 2016December 31, 2019

Bristol Harbourside in the 1990s Part Six

Back in the 1990s when I was teaching at a college in Bristol, I use to undertake regular field trips to the Bristol Harbourside as part of a unit on urban regeneration. There was at the time to much happening down there after years of inaction that it was an ideal place to demonstrate the impact of investment and change of use. Bristol had been an important port for hundreds of years, this all came to a halt in the 1970s and regeneration plans were developed. Not much happened for twenty years, but in the last twenty years we have seen major regeneration of the area, massive building of offices, business, residential and entertainment, as well as visitor attractions such as at-Bristol (where incidentally I worked for a while when it opened).

During one of those field trips, I took my SLR camera with me, and digging around a box in the garage I found the prints, which I have since scanned in. This is the final post on these images, you can find part one, part two, part three, part four and part five.

Before the advent of North Sea gas most towns and cities had gasworks that turned coal into gas which was then used for heating and cooking. Down in the harbourside were the Bristol Gasworks. Back in the 1990s these were no longher used for making gas and were in a state of decay, but they were still used for storing North Sea gas. Since then the gas storage has been removed. The buildings were listed and due to the contamination on the site it took many years before they could be used for something else.

You can see from this 2005 image that not much had changed in the preceding ten years to the gasworks building, but around it there was a lot of building and regeneration.

On the other side of the harbour this view is now dramatically different as a range of houses and apartments have been built.

Even in the 1990s we already had a fair bit of development already done.

A view up the harbour looking towards the SS Great Britain on the right.

At this point the SS Great Britain had been back in Bristol for twenty years and was looking splendid. She didn’t have the fake water glass thingy representing water as she does now, but she was in pretty good condition and the team restoring her had done an excellent job.

One aspect of the harbour which doesn’t change is the need for dredging.

If you were here today you could turn around and walk over Pero’s Bridge, back then you needed to walk around. Over on the left is the Watershed.

Overall it was interesting to see what had changed in the last twenty years and also what hadn’t.

May 6, 2016January 24, 2022

Bristol Harbourside in the 1990s Part Five

During one of those field trips, I took my SLR camera with me, and digging around a box in the garage I found the prints, which I have since scanned in. This is the fifth post on these images, you can find part one, part two, part three and part four.

Prince Street Bridge was originally a two way bridge when this photograph was taken. At some point in the last ten years I think, half was pedestrianised. Currently it is closed to all traffic.

One of the earliest developments in the Bristol harbourside was the Lloyds bank development which was built and opened in the 1980s. Here is the view of the amphitheatre which is often used for events.

Then the next lot of photographs are taken from the ferry, which still steams around the harbour.

The MV Balmoral is moored up next to the sadly missed Industrial Museum (the M Shed is no replacement)

Slightly different view of the previous shot.

The Arnolfini is just out of shot to the left in the final photograph of Prince Street Bridge.

May 2, 2016January 1, 2020

Bristol Harbourside in the 1990s Part Four

During one of those field trips, I took my SLR camera with me, and digging around a box in the garage I found the prints, which I have since scanned in. This is the fourth post on these images, you can find part one here, part two here and part three here.

One part of the harbourside which is still around today are the many different pleasure craft moored there. Back when Bristol was a working port you would find ships and working boats, by the 1990s and today there are boats which are used for pleasure.

The numbers multiply when it comes to regatta time.

One of the earliest developments in the Bristol harbourside was the Lloyds bank development which was built and opened in the 1980s.

I remember when Lloyds merged with the TSB there was some fear that the head office would move from Bristol, in the end this did not happen.

There are still many signs of when Bristol was a working port.

January 10, 2016September 2, 2022

Bristol Harbourside in the 1990s Part Three

During one of those field trips, I took my SLR camera with me, and digging around a box in the garage I found the prints, which I have since scanned in. This is the third post on these images, you can find part one here, and part two here.

One of the earlier developments was down by Poole’s Wharf, this was during development of that area.

Since this image was taken (well it was nearly twenty years ago) a bridge has been built across this part of the harbourside.

Prince Street Bridge was open both ways to traffic back then, it was certainly dicing with death as you walked across with cars streaming through, whilst pedestrians walked along a very narrow pavement on the swinging bridge. It then went down to one side for cars and one for pedestrians, made it a lot safer, but you had the mind all the bikes. At the moment it is closed to traffic in both directions.

The bridge was put in place in 1809 by the Bristol Dock Company on the site of the ancient Gib ferry owned by the Dean and Chapter of Bristol Cathedral. is operated by water hydraulic power.

This view from just up from the Arnolfini, is not too much different today, well apart from Pero’s Bridge which connected the two sides of the dock. In the distance you can see what was the Industrial Museum.

The Old Gas Works had been derelict for many years and was a challenging area for development, mainly as the buildings were listed and also the ground was contaminated. It took many years after other development was undertaken before we saw this area get developed.

I do have some more pictures and will post them another time.

January 3, 2016

Stuff: Top Ten Blog Posts 2015

As with my other blogs I am looking at the ten most read postings over 2015.

The tenth most read post on this blog was posted in the last two weeks of 2015, and was about WHSmith. At WHSmith you can afford to give them anything but the ordinary this Christmas contained an old advert from the high street store.

I visited Legoland in 2013 and felt that it was A bit tired and this was the ninth post in this top ten. Certainly when we went this year in 2015 there were some new models in Mainland.

You have entered the Quiet Zone! was eighth most read post and I asked what’s the point of the Quiet Zone Carriage?

Back to Legoland for number seven, Legoland Miniland.

The sixth most read post was on Ten Incredible Sand Sculptures that have been on the beach at Weston-super-Mare over the last ten years.

The post at number 5 was from the Cinematic Advent Calendar which I posted back before Christmas in 2012. The post in question was #24 – Back to the Future and as 2015 was the year in which Marty McFly went to in the film series, it’s quite apt that it in this year’s top ten.

More Lego at number 4 with The Bat Cave in Lego.

The third most popular post was “the cafe on tv at weston super mare is it real” and the answer is, it isn’t!

Over 2015 there were seventy Shaun the Sheep sculptures places all across Bristol and the top two posts on the blog were about these Sheep. At number two was Ten out of Seventy and the most read post was about all seventy sheep, Shaun in the City.

Happy New Year for 2016.

December 11, 2015

Real or Flat?

Really quite like these anamorphic illusions.

The ones you find on streets also are quite impressive.

October 12, 2015

Out and about in the Lake District

Back in 1998 I made a visit the Lake District, after quite a few years of visiting the place on a regular basis. These photographs are from that trip, I posted some other photographs from this trip in an earlier blog post.

Click the images to see larger versions.

This is on the way down to Wasdale Head coming from the direction of Buttermere.

lake-district_21256666639_o

On the way down to Wasdale Head.

lake-district_21417305536_o

lake-district_21417358236_o

lake-district_21452016561_o

lake-district_21452109521_o

lake-district_21452128061_o

September 14, 2015

…and then some more

Though the Shauns have now left the centre of Bristol, I am still catching up posting my photographs of the ones I managed to capture with my camera.

We were passing by 40. On the Waterfront when I managed to find us a parking place, and over we went to get a photograph.

Reminding us of the waterfront with pictures of the docks, this Shaun was very much at home next to the water.

This was a very shiny sheep, 46. Shaun Bean was covered in chrome and was next to the Arnolfini.

Not sure of the connection with Sean Bean though.

Looking very much like Johnny Depp, 45. The Pirate Captain had a tricorne, flintlocks and a cutlass.

He was guarding the M Shed, or was he looking for buried treasure?

Over on the other side of the water, looking rather lonesome was 39. Air Fleece.

Very much a Red Arrows sheep, bright red and RAF symbols all over.

September 13, 2015

The ones that got away…

Out of the 70 Shauns across Bristol we managed to capture 62 of them.

These are the eight we missed. Luckily other people managed to capture them on film.

We did in fact find 12. Bumble but we were driving pass and decided it wasn’t safe to stop and we would go back at some point, we never did.

Over on Henleaze Road was 14. The Tale of Peter Rabbit™ a somewhat scary looking rabbit-sheep hybrid.

The very 1970s looking 15. Groovy Baby!

We had intended to visit Ashton Court to see 16. Buttercup and 17. Flora but it was pouring with rain on the two days we thought we might have time to do this. So both sheep were missed. Buttercup was in the courtyard next to the cafe.

17. Flora was also at Ashton Court, up by the Golf Club.

32. Sparkles the Unicorn was hiding away on Horfield Common, what stopped us was the sheer amount of traffic around Bristol, on what should have been a quiet day for vehicles.