bristol Archives - Page 20 of 22

May 2, 2016January 1, 2020

Bristol Harbourside in the 1990s Part Four

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). Even today there is still ongoing development.

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 21, 2016

Trenchard Street, Bristol, circa 1970s

We have been going through some old papers recently and we found the following photographs of Trenchard Street and Lodge Street in Bristol. I have taken screen grabs from Google Street View of a more recent view.

This is the view looking down Trenchard Street towards the corner with Lodge Street. The buildings seem to be rather dilapidated with boarded up doors and windows. The render is peeling off the walls. Only the modern streetlamp and double yellow lines betray that this is quite a modern photograph.

More recently the buildings seem to have been refurbished, new doors, new windows, more glass, though sadly still some graffiti.

This is the view in the other direction says a similar story, the peeling render looks even worse from this view.

Today the view shows a cleaner, tidier look. There is new pavement, but we still have double yellow lines!

Similar to the Trenchard Street images, this view of Lodge Street has the buildings with peeling render, boarded up and bricked up doors and windows. In the foreground is a sign to Garage Parking and a Hertz Rent A Car dealership. There is a Ford Granada which betrays the age of the image (as do the flairs).

When I saw this photograph of Lodge Street I had no idea where this was in Bristol. It became obvious that part of the reason is the trees which now block that view.

I do like comparing old and new and it’s interesting to see what has changed and what hasn’t.

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.

December 4, 2015September 2, 2022

Bristol Harbourside in the 1990s Part Two

As mentioned previously, 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 now Za Za Bazaar, but has been many different establishments over the years.

Over on the other side of the river is Narrow Quay with The Architecture Centre and The Bristol hotel.

Longer view down the harbourside, in the distance is the old Bristol and West building, now the Radisson Blu Hotel.

Wet and muddy building site.

In this view (on the left) are the Old Leadworks, you can see the chimney. This initially became offices as part of Wildscreen-at-Bristol, and I worked in those offices when I worked at at-Bristol in 1999-2000. After Wildscreen became Wildwalk and then closed, the buildings were empty for a while, but now house the Bristol Aquarium.

Sometimes Bristol changes and sometimes it doesn’t.

October 4, 2015September 2, 2022

Bristol Harbourside in the 1990s Part One

Back 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.

They show a different harbourside to what you can see today, but also different to how the working docks were in the 1950s and 1960s. Above you can see the Watershed, which is still around. Here is another view of the Watershed, it hasn’t changed, but the bars and cafés underneath do seem to swap and change on a regular basis.

This view hasn’t changed much in the last twenty years.

Whereas on the other side, we can see major construction work underway, on what is now Za Za Bazaar, but has been many different establishments over the years.

At this time, there was no Pero’s Bridge either, so it was always a long walk from the LloydsTSB building amphitheatre to the Arnolfini round by the top of the harbourside. Another view, a bit further down the water.

Looking back over the photographs (and I may post more in a later blog post) shows how things have changed over the last twenty years (has it really been that long) and how somethings change and something remain the same.

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.

Looking very tasty is 33. Star Bake next to the Boston Tea Party on the Gloucester Road,

Another one where the amount of traffic contributed to missing them, this time it was 34. Primrose at St Werburgh’s City Farm.

Photographs by Mary Kelly on Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 who managed to capture all seventy.

September 1, 2015

In the end we ran out of time…

Yesterday saw the end of the great Shaun the Sheep hunt.

In the end we managed to find and photograph 62 out of 70.

A combination of weather and traffic in the end stopped us from completing the challenge. Thoiugh we did do it, it wasn’t that much fun to trudge through the rain and the mud finding Shauns. Also we had to go to Bristol to do it, and the M5 was too often a slow moving car park.

Over the next week or so I will post the photographs of the Shauns we did managed to capture.

There is an opportunity to see them all (with the London Shauns) in both Bristol and Covent Garden over September.

September 1, 2015

They’re everywhere…

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.

They seemed to get everywhere, outside the Bus Station was 53. Lamb Chop, a clever Shaun, similar to the diagrams you find in recipe books, but all the “cuts of meat” are named after areas of Bristol.