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The other side of the Gorge

At the weekend we went for a walk around Leigh Woods. I went to Leigh Woods once, about twenty years ago, but have not been there since then. This I find quite surprising, as I do live in the area, and go regularly to Ashton Court, the Downs, which are all roughly in the same area.

Leigh Woods is quite small, a 2-square-kilometre (0.77 sq mi) area of woodland on the south-west side of the Avon Gorge, close to the Clifton Suspension Bridge. 

We parked the car and looked at the map and thought about which route to take. We walked through the woods and down to the Avon Gorge.

There were a couple of streams which feed into the River Avon.

With some modifications to stop flooding of the paths I assume.

We went under the viaduct on the Bristol Portishead railway line.

As it was Saturday and only carries freight now and then, we didn’t see any trains.

We then walked along the Avon Trail in the Gorge. It was really nice to see the Gorge from the other side of the river.  

Generally I either see the Gorge from the Clifton Suspension Bridge, on the Portway or from the Downs.

We walked along the River Avon Trail and then as we reached the Clifton Suspension Bridge we took a right back into Leigh Woods.

We passed some grazing cows which looked out of place on what was quite a steep rocky footpath. Once back at the top we walked back to the car. It was a little further than we planned but was a lovely walk.

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What’s the sculpture?

On a recent visit to Ashton Court I was reminded of this piece of bronze art that was on display at the front of the mansion building.

There wasn’t anything that I could see that said more about the art, so no idea about the title or the sculptor?

What’s the sculpture?

I quite like it though.

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Ashton Court

Back in December I posted a blog post in my Then and Now series on Ashton Court. I had over the years taken various photographs of Ashton Court from the basically the same location and perspective.

It probably wouldn’t surprise you that recently going through some old photograh prints (as in photographs taken with film and developed) I found this photograph of Ashton Court I had taken in the late 1990s

Though not quite the same perspective and location, it’s pretty close. Back then cars were allowed quite a way into the park to park (there were no meters back then either). You can also tell the age of this photograph from the age of the cars in the shot.

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Bristol from the air in 2005

In July 2005 we went up in the air on a tethered helium balloon in Castle Park in Bristol.




This was before Cabot Circus and the Quakers Friar redevelopment.

Broadmead was less tired than it is now.

Quakers Friar was a car park.

We now have the Castle Bridge crossing the water and much of the old brewery has now been developed.

Though John Lewis had gone to Cribbs, what is now Primark was House of Fraser back in 2005.

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Then and Now – Avon Gorge

This is a regular series of blogs about photographs of the same place taken years apart.

I quite like those Then and Now comparison photographs that you see in books or on the Twitter or Facebook.

I always think I should give them a go. However what I have started to notice is that I have been doing Then and Now photographs unintentionally over the years and have been taking photographs of the same thing or place from the same view or perspective years apart.  The first instance of this that came to my attention was last year in May when I went to Manchester.

It only really came to my attention that I was doing this a lot, when checking the Places function on the Apple Photos Mac App that I could see I had taken the same photograph of the same thing just years apart!

The Clifton Suspension Bridge is an iconic image of Bristol, however these photographs were taken from the southern end of the bridge looking down the Avon Gorge.

This was the shot I took back in August 2006.

This is the same view nine years later in August  2015

Then there is another shot of the same view, taken in August 2018.

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Bristol Pumpkins

Pumpkins

I did enjoy this pumpkin display in Quakers Friar in Bristol today. I thought it was very clever and colourful. Helped to brighten up an otherwise grey day. I liked the use of baskets and carts as well.