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The historic Underfall Yard OST Bristolians Then there was the are familiar ever-present, nagging fear of an has been essential to the enough with the age in which everything was smooth running of story of the made of wood – fire. Bristol’s floating harbour floating harFire among close-packed ships bour. Until its at low tide could spread very rapfor more than 200 years. construction, idly. SA T 13 Now there are ambitious OR talk of creshippingAnniversary in the city’s docks were There was serious • Celebrate 60th Coronation plans to secure •the yard’s at the mercy of the tides. At low ating a floating harbour – one 200 Royal Warranty Holders Exhibiting N permanently 14 JULYwith water – tide, ships would settle on mud or SU filled future – not just •as a Products availablegravel, to Picnic on theitLawn making difficult to unfrom the mid-1700s, and a bewilheritage attraction, but as • Specially Selectedload Restaurants Cafe’s to move them andand impossible dering number of plans were put a place where people will include: them. Food, Fashion, Country & Equestrian. forward by a succession of en• Goods available idle ship is a ship that is not gineers. still work with boats and etc etc -An • Perfumiers Adult £59.95, 60Plus £57.95 making money. Not only that, but But as is so often the case with shipping. Eugene Byrne some vessels could also be damofficial Bristol, the city fathers ALSO AUG/SEPT A VARIED SELECTION OF BUCKINGHAM PALACE STATEROOMS, looks at the past and aged by lying at the bottom of the dithered and baulked at the cost. haQUEEN’S rbour. GALLERY & ROYAL MEWS VISITS. Even the activities of John the future of the yard.
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Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Future looking bright again for Underfall Yard
Decline, fall and rise of Victorian engineer’s docks masterpiece From page 1
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Bristol’s docks. Fortunately the fire failed to spread – but at the time his actions struck absolute terror among all classes of Bristolians, who feared, rightly, not only the possible destruction of shipping but the spread of fire across the wooden buildings of the city. There has never been a Great Fire of Bristol – but that is purely down to good luck. Finally, though, the city acted, and the great engineer William Jessop (1745-1814) was engaged to create a floating harbour. The work lasted from 1804 to 1809. It was hugely expensive and in its time was one of the most complex and ambitious engineering projects in the world. Jessop created a 70-acre area of water in the middle of the city – more, as is often pointed out, than Venice has. No Bristolian nowadays would say that it was money wasted, though in its time it was encumbered with huge debts which the docks company tried to recoup by charging higher harbour dues than its competitors. So despite this new state-of-the-art port facility, Bristol lost trade, especially to its great Atlantic rival, Liverpool. Still, the city docks would remain an important working port for 150 years to come. Even after the opening of docks at Avonmouth and Portishead, plenty of trade still came up the Avon. It was really only the revolution in seaborne trade brought about by containerisation in the late 1960s that ended the trade coming into the middle of Bristol. The docks could not be equipped to deal with the new shipping containers, and the ever-larger ships carrying those containers would have problems getting up and down the river. To create his floating harbour, Jessop dammed the Avon to the east and west of the city, while an artificial channel – the New Cut – was dug by an army of navvies to divert the river. When the work was completed the
navvies were treated to a slap-up celebration meal, along with plenty of ale. Not unexpectedly, proceedings ended with a huge brawl between the English workers and their Irish counterparts. When the floating harbour was complete, water levels were maintained, when needed, by supply from the Feeder Canal. Vessels could enter and leave via locks at the Cumberland and Bathurst basins. Jessop knew that his work was far from finished in 1809. The harbour would always need to be maintained, and the biggest problem was mud. It still is today. It was much worse in the 19th century because the Avon was also a sewer. It was a convenient place for dumping all manner of other garbage too. But now that the harbour was an expanse of still water, it had lost the scouring effect of tides and currents flushing mud and effluent down river. Jessop knew this would be a problem, and had incorporated a weir into the western dam. This was the overfall and it was equipped with sluices and culverts which, it was hoped, would prevent the build-up of muck in the harbour. But it was not as effective as hoped. By the early 1830s young Isambard Kingdom Brunel had been called in to advise. Brunel modified the system as an underfall. Brunel, who was by now also working on the Great Western Railway, constructed a number of sluices between the harbour and the New Cut. He also designed a dredger which would scrape silt from the quay walls; when the sluices opened at low tide, the silt was sucked into the river to be carried away. Brunel’s original system has been modified many times since the 1830s. But the basic principles are still in place today. So we have to count his system for keeping the floating harbour cleared among his greatest contributions to the city, along with the railway, Clifton Suspension Bridge and the ss Great Britain, When Jessop built the overfall, the land next to it was given over to
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It still has a working atmosphere, and all the smells and sights
Alf Perry
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● Left, a painting from 1837 by James Baker Pyne titled Clifton From The Overfall Dam showing clearly how the old overfall system worked. Copyright: Bristol Museums, Galleries and Archives maintenance workshops for the docks company. When Bristol’s corporation took control of the harbour in 1848 they took over the workshops, and in 1880 bought the adjoining Nova Scotia shipyard.
From about this time the whole area became known as the Underfall Yard. This was the place from which the city docks were managed and maintained. The yard as we know it today dates
mostly from the 1880s and 1890s and was largely the work of an energetic and visionary manager who is almost completely forgotten. Clifton-born John Ward Girdlestone (1840-1911) was Bristol’s docks
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● An aerial view of the Underfall Yard as it is today
● Watercolour by Thomas Rowbotham, 1827, showing the overfall dam. Much of the present day Underfall Yard was later built on land reclaimed from the river Copyright: Bristol Museums, Galleries and Archives engineer from 1882 to 1890. This was a time of huge technological change which some historians characterise as a second industrial revolution, when iron and steam were being supplanted by steel and electricity.
● The area of the Underfall Yard in the 1820s, when it was the Nova Scotia shipyard. Watercolour by Thomas Rowbotham Copyright: Bristol Museums, Galleries and Archives
Under Girdlestone’s management, most of the former buildings on the site were replaced. There were new offices, and new workshops for carpenters, joiners, blacksmiths and fitters, most of them
designed by Girdlestone. He also designed and installed all manner of buildings and equipment for the city docks. The biggest of these was a huge corporation-owned granary which would become a local land-
mark until destroyed by German bombing in the Blitz. The site is now occupied by the M shed museum and the adjoining L shed. With the aid of a 160-strong workforce, whose oldest member was 83, Girdlestone maintained the existing equipment and fabric of the docks, from roads and rails to dock gates. He installed electric power at the yard, designed a new dredger for the docks and installed a hydraulic engine to control the Cumberland Basin and the corporation granary over a mile away. The engine house, with its tall chimney, is one of the most recognisable features of the yard. It all ended badly for him. The all-powerful docks committee, in charge of all of Bristol’s docks, accused him of spending money on improvements without proper authorisation. He admitted as much, but defended himself saying: “The error on my part has … been due to over-zeal, to an intense love of my work and profession, to the unforeseen way in which one item of expenditure frequently leads up to or involves another, and to a deep conviction that all I did would eventually prove to be in the direct interest both of the committee and of the ratepayers.” He resigned. The yard continued to be the heart and muscle of the city docks. After the First World War, some of it was leased to P and A Campbell which used it as a maintenance yard for the famous White Funnel Line pleasure steamers. The firm remained there until 1958 and site was taken over by shipbuilders Charles Hill and Sons. As the city docks closed as a working port, the number of staff based at the remaining part of the yard went into steep decline, although to this day the harbour requires plenty of maintenance. In the early 1990s, with much of the yard in danger of becoming completely derelict, a trust was formed to restore and preserve the historic site and to ensure that it would remain in use as a workplace related to boats, shipping and maritime activity. With support from the council and volunteers and with Lottery money, it has been quite successful. Visit today and you will see a range of small workshops which are the bases for individuals and small businesses, all going about boat-related tasks. Some are involved in building old-style boats, others are making ropes. There is a blacksmith, but there is also high-tech business, such as a firm making fibre composite materials. The trust is now set to unveil ambitious plans for the future. At the moment, the trust and its tenants run about a quarter of the Underfall Yard. However, in the last couple of years improvements to the floating harbour and its lock systems mean that Bristol City Council now no longer needs much of the space it currently occupies. The old hydraulic
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system, for instance, is no longer required. The plan is now for the trust to take over the entire yard, though the council will remain a tenant on a small part of the site because the harbour will still need some engineers and it will always require a harbourmaster. Alf Perry, the engineer who manages the Underfall Yard for the trust, told Bristol Times: “The aim is to create more workspaces, primarily maritime-related businesses where we can, but in a couple of the buildings there will be some high-quality office space in order to provide a decent income stream to support the other things.” The trust’s plans go on show at the yard on Doors Open Day on Saturday, September 14. The trust is very keen to get comments and ideas from the public. After that, the planning applications go in, along with a fundraising appeal – about £500,000 is needed. With any luck, work will be under way by the middle of next year. Though the public can walk through the yard at any time, you can get to see a lot more on Doors Open
Factfile ● BRISTOL’S Doors Open Day takes place on September 14, when dozens of places across the city which don’t normally open to the public will be letting you in free of charge. Next week’s Bristol Times will be looking at some of the attractions on offer, as well as a new book being published to mark Doors Open Day’s 20th anniversary.
Day. Some of the various workshops will be open, along with the pump building. Mr Perry said: “The Victorian workshops are only going to be open on Doors Open Day. “They were built by Girdlestone for maintaining the various bits of dock equipment. Then there are the hydraulic pumps which used to power the lock gates, the cranes, bridges and so on. This is all in working order. “It is a really atmospheric engine room.” Mr Perry is adamant that the yard is not going to be gentrified. He said: “What most Bristolians like about the place is that they can walk through and they can see real work happening – they can see boats being built. It still has a working atmosphere, and all the smells and sights. “Everyone tells us not the tidy it up or sanitise it. They want it scruffy. They want it like it is.” Visit www.underfallboatyard.co.uk for more details.
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Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Clifton flat was base for spreading the word
How religious ‘gang’ left Keith Floyd incensed Members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, commonly known as the Hare Krishnas, were once a common sight in our cities. Writer and broadcaster Richard Hope-Hawkins recalls the time the Hare Krishnas came to his home – and how they outstayed their welcome.
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RISTOL Times recently published a photograph of three Hare Krishna devotees in Broadmead in 1971, which reminded me of how they first came to Bristol. At that time, I was working for chef and restaurateur Keith Floyd in his restaurant in Oakfield Road in Clifton. I was approached by Roy Chapman, a BBC television researcher who was setting up a discussions programme on various religions. He asked if I would become involved. At that time, I was interested in Bhuddism, having recently returned from a trip to India and Nepal. The programme was to be recorded live at the BBC in Bristol. I had a large flat above Keith's restaurant, and was asked if I could put up, overnight, a guest who was appearing on the programme. This I agreed to do – and when he arrived complete with flowing saffron robes, Shayam Sundra Das described himself as a devotee of the Hare Krishna movement. He was American and quite high up in the organisation as he was their UK financial director. He insisted that I called him by his English name, Michael. During the television programme, Michael invited me to meet, in London, Beatle George Harrison, who was very involved in the movement. Immediately I took up his offer. Some weeks later I found myself sitting opposite George in Hare Krishna headquarters called an ashram. George asked me if I could accommodate some of the devotees in Bristol as they wished to establish a new base in the West Country. Flattered and amazed at even meeting George, I agreed. He shook my hand, giving me a copy of a record that he had produced with the devotees of the London Temple which reached No 12 in the charts in 1969. In hindsight I should have asked
him to autograph the copy – it would have been worth a great deal today. Some weeks later, five members of the Hare Krishna movement arrived at Oakfield Road, having taken a taxi – which I found myself paying for – from Temple Meads station. Upon entering my flat, they immediately seemed to take over, saying that they would establish a vegetarian kitchen so that they could invite people they met to share not only food but music and spiritual enlightenment. Somehow, they managed to borrow, from a bemused Keith, a variety of catering pots and pans and soon began to create various delicious dishes. Within days, I was reduced to living in one room in my own flat while they walked through the streets of Bristol chanting and giving out invitations to attend meals offered free at my home. Soon, I got used to the smell of incense, the music accompanied by
● Left, the photo that prompted Richard Hope-Hawkins’ memories – a Bristol Post picture of Hare Krishna movement adherents in Broadmead, 1971. Above, Richard at the time of the story, and, right, on his travels in Kathmandu. The souvenirs of his visit would prove to have an unexpected usefulness. Bottom left, The Hare Krishna Mantra single presented to Richard by Beatle George Harrison drums and cymbals and the singing of “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Krishna”. It did not take long for the Bristol Post to cover their visit, made even more newsworthy because of the con-
nection to The Beatles. But after a few weeks, Keith, my neighbours and I were rather fed up with the situation – but it was difficult to say anything because my guests were so peaceful, spiritual and rather amicable. The main problem was that they arose early and, upon so, began chanting their mantra. To add to the inconvenience, they insisted that everyone tiptoe around the flat after they went to bed at 8pm which restricted me in my own home, and my neighbours too. They went out on to the streets of Bristol every day, visiting Broadmead sometimes but mainly walking the streets of Clifton, and always causing interest as the area was very bohemian during the early 1970s. The place was full of hippies and people who wanted an alternative, trendy lifestyle. My guests built up a following every day, with passing people chanting with them. Often you would see a group of young people following them Pied Piper-style. They became a familiar sight welcomed by, it seems, everyone. (If you visit London, Hare Krishna devotees can still be seen daily on Oxford Street near their headquar-
ters. They offer free lunches and dinners to anyone who wishes to join them.) One day, my friend Robbie Robertson – a lighthouse keeper who I knew while I spent time living on Lundy Island – came to stay. I explained that all of the bedrooms were occupied by the Hare Krishnas and he would have to sleep in the living room. His response was “Are they some sort of gang? The Krishna Boys!” I explained the situation and his expression upon meeting them was a picture. He was a great character rarely lost for words – but he was left speechless by their appearance. That night, we decided to go out for a drink in Clifton Village. On returning home, Keith, Robbie and a neighbour, a lawyer called Enoch Farrington Hunt, and I sat in my living room discussing how we could ask, politely, the devotees to leave as soon as possible. Robbie had an idea – we would all chant a Buddhist mantra. I had a Tibetan thigh-bone trumpet which Enoch began to blow while we chanted. I had brought various Tibetan artefacts back to the UK, including a lama’s robe – which Rob-
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5
Latimer’s Diary
H
ELLO, and welcome to the column, as St Simeon Stylites used to say. (I have been reading improving books on holiday and thought I would start with an intellectual joke. If you do not get it, you can always look up St Simeon on Wikipedia – but it is not worth the trouble.) Enough nonsense. Onwards!
A lifetime of guilt dept:
to start. The website tells you all about the society and its various publications, and has a lot of useful information and links. It is at www.bafhs.org.uk
TIME is a great healer, goes the cliche. But not, apparently, if you have a conscience. I recently came across this tale from the summer of 1969. The Western Daily Press received a letter containing a 10s note – that is 50p in your fancy Common-Market-style decimal money. And with the ten bob YOU know all that interesting stuff came a letter from a pensioner who they have on show at M shed? Well, had been bothered about something there is even more stuff that they do not have the space to display. for 58 years. The good news is that you can get a Back in 1911, he said, he was a tram ONE day Bristol Times conductor in Bristol. One night, a lady look at some of the city’s hidden treaswill get around to doing got on and asked for two 1d tick- ures with one of the behind-the-scenes a big article on Berni tours that they run at 11.30am every ets. Inns, a great and iconic It was dark, and both Tuesday, Thursday and, now, Friday, firm which started out must have assumed that and at 2.30pm every Wednesday and in Bristol. In its heythe small coin she handed Saturday. day the firm provided You can usually just sign up at the him was a sixpence, and so steak, chips, Black information desk on the day. But, to be he handed her 4d change. Forest gateaux and It was only later that he sure of a place, book in advance by schooners of sherry realised she had given him e-mailing info@mshed.org or calling to the world. a half-sovereign – a gold 0117 352 6600. Tours last about 45 But in the meancoin worth 10s, or half a minutes and are suitable for anyone time, someone else is aged 12 and upwards. M shed suggests pound sterling. doing something on They were common a £2 donation per person. Bernis first. Redenough before the First cliffe Press is about World War, and were only to publish a book, withdrawn from mass circuby local historian lation when Britain came off LAST week’s column looking at a few and author Sue the Gold Standard in the bizarre local news stories in honour of the journalistic Silly Season prompShephard, entitled 1930s. From Cod To CalThe pensioner wrote: ted some discussion in the pub. The laloo. “I have intended many assembled company voted the following the best Silly Season story Subtitled The times to make inever. Story Of Bristol quiries about It is not from Bristol. It Through Food And Wine, it the matter to ● Berni Inns menu is not very historical. But is nothing less than a culinreturn the from the 1970s it came from our sister ary history of the city. That money, but newspaper the Western sounds really good. We will owing to Daily Press, so that is have a feature on it when it comes financial embarrassgood enough for us. out. ment have not, until The paper reported In the meantime, though, the book is now, been in a position on August 9, 2001 that about to go to the printers and there to.” Scrumpy Jack, an Africare no decent Berni Inns pictures. The newspaper forwaran grey parrot, had esSo Redcliffe Press is in urgent need ded the money to the Bristol of some good photos. Omnibus Company’s fund for ● A half-sovereign. caped from the home of The publishers are looking for picwidows and orphans. Not to be confused its owner Beverley Williams in Stonehouse, tures of the Berni brothers, or the inwith a sixpence. Gloucestershire. teriors of the Rummer or Llandoger Scrumpy Jack’s cage Trow when they were both Berni was in the living room, near the teleInns. vision on which Beverley watched her The publishers are also keen on seeBRISTOL and Avon Family History favourite quiz show – as, evidently, did ing old Berni Inns menus. If you have Society was formed in 1975 and is very Scrumpy Jack. any of these, give Redcliffe a shout. well run. It produces a quarterly The bird’s last words before making Redcliffe Press boss John Sansom journal, holds regular meetings and its escape were “You are the weakest said: “The first person to offer what we events, and even has its own research link. Goodbye.” want will be thanked in the book, will room at the Bristol Record Office. Cheers then. have a free copy and will be invited to If you are thinking about research- Get in touch: E-mail the book launch,” ing your family tree and are reason- Bristol.Times@b-nm.co.uk, or write Do not contact us – go straight to ably confident your roots are round to Bristol Times, Bristol Post, Temple John, and do not delay! He is on 0117 these parts, the society is a good place Way, Bristol, BS2 0BY. 973 7207, or johnsansom@aol.com
Behind the scenes at M shed:
Berni Inns appeal:
Silly Season hangover:
bie wore – a Tibetan handbell which I rang, and some brightly-coloured Tibetan shoes. Within minutes, a devotee appeared asking us to keep the noise down. Robbie said “You have your religion and we have ours”' and the startled devotee left the room. The next morning, taxis were ordered and, in haste, the devotees left me to restore the flat and ponder on the whole experience. While in Bristol, they attracted a great deal of publicity and it took a while for me to get used to the solitude of my kitchen and flat after the hustle and bustle of strangers coming and going after having received free food and spiritual guidance. A week later, a delivery crate was left on my doorstep. It was full of Hare
Krishna incense – and I must admit that for weeks afterwards, I sold the contents. It at least paid for their impromptu stay in my flat. I was saddened to learn, as were millions of people, that on November 29, 2001, George Harrison passed away at Paul McCartney’s home in America. He was 58. I learned that George, surrounded by his family and with Ravi Shankar playing sitar music, had at his bedside two pictures of the Hindu gods Krishna and Rama. and there were two devotees chanting a mantra. One of those devotees was Shayam Sundra Das who I met originally at the BBC in Bristol. George’s ashes were flown to India and, in accordance with the Krishna faith, scattered into the Ganges river.
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Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Website will show who was paid to release their slaves
Mispronunciation makes hair stand on end
Bristol people do not say ‘Bristle’
● A West Indies sugar plantation around the time of Abolition
Hidden legacy of slave trade revealed Britain abolished slavery 180 years ago, but the legislation could only be passed with the promise of paying a vast amount of money to compensate slave owners. Eugene Byrne looks at a new online database that is trying to trace who the cash went to.
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UGUST 28 saw the 180th anniversary of the passing of the Abolition of Slavery Act. The campaigners who had been lobbying for decades to end slavery throughout British empire had finally got their way. Or most of it anyway; the Act did not apply to British India, which was at this time run by a private company. The slave trade had been made illegal some years previously, but now the entire institution was finally done away with. But for many Britons, this was nothing to do with an overnight change of heart. Many people stood to lose what they regarded as valuable property when the slaves working plantations in the West Indies were given their freedom. The pathway to the Abolition Act
had to be smoothed with money – and a huge amount of it. On Abolition, slave owners, many of whom were companies and individuals in Britain who might never have even set foot in the West Indies, were compensated for the loss of their investment. The total bill came to £20 million. It’s notoriously difficult to put modern values onto old monetary prices, but by any estimation this was a stupendous sum. It was the equivalent of almost half of the British gover nment’s entire spending in a single year. One estimate puts that £20 million at the equivalent of £16 billion nowadays. The pay-out went to some 47,000 owners, so it’s little surprise to find that their descendants are numerous. Modern day individuals who had slave-owning ancestors include Prime Minister David Cameron and scientist Richard Dawkins. If you know that your family has been reasonably well-off for several generations then it is fairly likely one of your forebears had a financial interest in sugar and slaves at some point. While thousands of people, from aristocrats and bishops all the way down to widows of modest means were sharing in this bonanza, the ex-slaves got absolutely nothing. This scandal was compounded by the fact that many slaves were now forced to work, unpaid, for their former masters, for some years as “apprentices.” Historians are still puzzling over the consequences of this massive in-
jection of cash into the British economy. Much of it was paid to institutions and individuals in Bristol. By the 1830s many well-to-do Bristolian families still had business interests, either directly in the West Indies as slave and plantation owners, or at second hand as sugar refiners, for example. Not all refiners were supporters of slavery. The father of Elizabeth Blackwell, who would later become famous as the world’s first qualified woman doctor, owned a refinery on Counterslip and was himself a passionate abolitionist. His daughter would later campaign against slavery in the USA. Those receiving compensation had to do something with the money, and while historians need to do more work, it is certainly the case that some of it was invested in the new railways, including Brunel’s Great Western. Some of it went towards founding banking and insurance companies, or was used for building country houses. Researchers based at University College London have been working for some years now to assemble a database of slave owners in the Caribbean at the time of Abolition, and to trace the fallout from slave ownership and its ending. The Legacies of British Slave-ownership website is at www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs and its use will go well beyond the usual groves of academe. Those researching their ancestors, for instance, will be interested to see whether their forebears benefited from slave ownership.
● Professor Colin Pillinger, a Kingswood boy who hasn’t lost his accent
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T’S wonderful that you published such an iconic article as the one about ‘Bristle’ (Bristol Times, July 16). It really was a sumptuous piece. The photo was brilliant, especially as it featured Professor Colin Pillinger, one of our very great Bristolians – and as you say ‘arguably Kingswood’s most famous son’. (And he still speaks like a native!) Unfortunately, there’s an elephant in the room. The word ‘Bristle’. Why oh why did Derek Robinson ever use it to convey the sound of our city’s name? And then, why oh why did all the
local media perpetuate the ‘myth’. I challenge you to name one person who has ever used that pronunciation for that meaning. I know very well it is meant to be funny, and Robson’s books themselves are funnier than funny, as are their successors. But they’ve spoiled everything with that word. I suppose ‘Robson’ was constrained by the difficulty of spelling such a sound, which can only be properly conveyed by the phonetic alphabet. And I suppose also that his successors felt obliged to keep the term for publicity reasons. As far as I’m concerned even when ‘blokes’ de-value the city name with that awful cockney rhyming slang, ‘Bristols’, it’s more amusing than the execrable ‘Bristle’. Now, all because of local literati who ought to know better, people from near and far have the idea that ‘Bristol’( spelt ‘Bristle’) is something that sticks out of a paint brush or an unshaven chin. It certainly makes me bristle! Brian Iles Hanham
PETER CAROL .... ASCENDERE OMNIS COLLIS
The Prestige Coaching Company
End of the pier show
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www.bristolpost.co.uk
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Picture of the Week
Train’s engine made in Bristol
● ONE for the end of summer … This was taken by a Post photographer on the prom at Weston-super-Mare on August Bank Holiday 1978, and if you look at it closely you’ll notice it contains an interesting social comment of sorts. Notice how loads of people in the picture are (as you do at the seaside on Bank Holidays) eating ice creams and burgers and hot dogs. And now notice how not one person in this picture is anything near obese, or even just a bit chubby. Any crowd pictured anywhere in Britain nowadays would include a few individuals who are a little on the stout side. But back in the Seventies a lot fewer of us were overweight. (The Bristol Times editor would here like to stress that he is not being in any way judgemental and could do with losing a few pounds himself. Well, quite a lot of pounds, actually.)
WITH reference to your article in Bristol Times, August 20, 2013 about the Know Your Place website. Around four years ago my wife and I were on holiday in the New Forest and decided to go shopping in Southampton via the Hythe Ferry. What a great choice that was. When you arrive at Hythe Pier, you board the World’s Oldest Pier Train (Guinness World Record) and after the short ride of 640 metres (2,100ft) you will have travelled along one of the ten longest piers in the British Isles. I inquired of the train driver the method of propulsion. He gave me a leaflet with some information and I found the train was driven by a large electric motor. The source of this motor was… Avonmouth in Bristol. It had once been used to produce poisonous gas for use during the First World War. Now it is still in use all day every day. Terry Belton
Beaufort Arms
The pub, not the off licence
Castle Street memories
● DO any Bristol Times readers have a photograph of the old pub, the Beaufort Arms, that was situated in Great Western Street? I need it for my family research. I believe it was demolished either in the late Fifties or early Sixties. I know there was an off licence of the same name in Henry Street but that’s not the one I’m interested in! I am looking for a picture of the public house itself. I would be grateful if anyone who does have a photo of the Beaufort Arms pub would contact the Bristol Times. Mr C P Elvins
MARIONS’ Memories in the Post of August 8 brought back all the happy memories I have of shopping in the big Co-op store in Castle Street with my mum and grandmother, especially at Christmas time when the whole of Castle Street was aglow with twinkling fairy lights. But the one memory that sticks in my mind is walking past the Co-op store and seeing, at the very top, statues of choirboys singing carols. Where we lived on Fishponds Road there was a little shop run by a lovely lady and her husband where you could buy nearly everything, from hair slides to stocks, etc.. But the one
Singing choirboys on the Co-op thing my family and I loved most of all was the lovely ham on the bone, which was sliced on a bacon-slicer. I have never tasted ham like that since. When I got married in 1963, my husband and I were out to work all day and we would write out a list of groceries and hand it in to our corner shop. When we came home in the evening, our groceries would be on our doorstep all wrapped up in paper bags, ready for us. No one ever took them from our doorstep – imagine doing that today! Also when I went shopping I always took a wicker basket with me,
● The Co-Op, Castle street in 1954 or my grandmother’s leather bag, as things were never wrapped in anything other than newspaper, greaseproof paper or brown paper
bags – not like today with all this plastic! Carol Dyer Barrs Court
George Hawkins; born about 1869 at Bitton. Scholar. (1871 census deaf and dumb from birth). Died June 1931. William Hawkins: born about 1869 at Bitton. Scholar. (1891 census, deaf and dumb from birth). Died September 1948. Lilly Hawkins: born about 1872 at Bitton. Scholar. Possibly died March 1935. In 1861 the family were living in Cock Road, Oldland, and by 1871 had moved to High Elm, Oldland. In the 1881 census they are shown as living
in Mount Hill Road. Sons George and William were still living there in 1901 along with their father. I suspect there are relatives of George Hawkins (born 1832) who still live in the area since both Eliza and Emily married into local, well-established families some of whom lived in and around Cock Road. Any information and/or photographs would be most welcome. Please email john.hawkins873@btinternet.com or call 01642 312053 after 6pm. John Hawkins
Descendants of George Hawkins, born 1832
Can anyone help me trace this Bitton family? I AM researching the family history of the Hawkins family who resided in and around the Bitton area from about the early 1800s and, through your paper, I am seeking any information your readers may have about any family members. The following members of the family are of particular interest. George Hawkins: born about 1832; christened January 6, 1833, at Holy Trinity, Bitton; lived at Mount Hill, Kingswood. He married Elizabeth Brain, born about 1830, on December 1, 1856 at St
George, Bristol. In the 1881 census the family were shown living at Mount Hill, Bitton, and with George Hawkins a labourer and his wife a cordwainer. He died in September 1922. Known children: Martha Hawkins: born about 1857 at Bitton (deaf and dumb from birth). Possibly died September 1880. Louisa Hawkins: born about 1859 at Bitton; christened February 6, 1859, at Holy Trinity, Kingswood. Shoe maker. Hannah Hawkins: christened September 2, 1860 at Holy Trinity,
Kingswood. (Married Samuel Lear September 1882. Died September 1896 possibly in childbirth – Bertie William Lear born September 1896) Harriet Hawkins: born about 1862 at Bitton. Shoe maker. (Deaf and dumb from birth). Possibly died September 1881 Eliza Hawkins: born about 1865 at Bitton; christened April 2, 1865, at Kingswood. Shoe maker. (Married a James Jenkins on May 22, 1882) Emily Hawkins: born June 1867 at Bitton. Shoe maker. (Married Samuel Brain September 1890.)
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