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GARDENING GREAT OUTDOORS
Bishopsworth Manor
Old town road It seems curious to Andrew Swift that, while lost railways and canals are well documented and recalled with affection, there is far less interest in lost roads. Yet it is still possible, with a bit of judicious map reading, to take a trip back in time along the old way to Wells, for example, and even to call into a few of its wayside hostelries
W
hile most Bristolians will be familiar with the New Wells Road, the Old Wells Road, which it superseded, is virtually forgotten, even though it was probably as old as the two cities it linked, if not older. Surprisingly, the old road was a good deal shorter than the new one – 16 miles as opposed to 20. The reason it was abandoned was because it was a switchback, crossing the hills en route instead of skirting them. This was fine when the only road users were teams of packhorses or travellers on horseback, but impractical when stagecoaches came along. Information on the old road comes mainly from old maps. The first national road atlas, produced by John Ogilby in 1675, reveals that it was not just the way to Wells. If you wanted to travel to Exeter or Weymouth from Bristol, you went this way as well. Other maps, such as one published in 1708 by Herman Moll, continued to show it as the only road heading south from Bristol. From around 1750, however, maps also showed the new Wells Road, running through Whitchurch, Pensford, Farrington Gurney and Chewton Mendip. By the 1780s the old road rarely featured on maps at all. When railways and canals are abandoned they tend to disappear, often completely. Abandoned roads, though, usually survive as country lanes or byways. It is still possible, with a bit of judicious map reading, to take a trip back in time along the old road to Wells, and even to call into a few of its wayside hostelries. Crossing Bristol Bridge, travellers bound for Wells turned right along Redcliff Street, continuing up Redcliff Hill and on through the village of Bedminster. With the exception of the pedestrianised part of East Street, you can still follow this route by car today. Then began the climb to Bedminster Down, a wild and lonely spot where solitary travellers risked being waylaid by footpads. The Wells road branched off the Bridgwater road at the Cross Hands Inn, to drop down to Bishopsworth – then known as Bishport – where an early-18th-century manor house and old farmhouses still bear witness to past prosperity. Beyond Bishopsworth lay little except Withywood Farm and a handful 70 THE BRISTOL MAGAZINE
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APRIL 2020
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No 190
of cottages, until you reached the foot of Broad Oak Hill, up which the narrow road still corkscrews as it did centuries ago. As you climb, the views back over Bristol are still as fantastic, although stopping to appreciate them is nigh impossible. As the road levels out, you pass a cluster of houses which once included the Maidenhead Inn, with seven bedrooms and large stables. It closed around 1820, when the Carpenter’s Arms – now Carpenter’s Tavern (BS41 8NE) – opened across the road. This area was also a haunt of footpads. On one June evening in 1814, a farmer from Chew Magna, returning from Bristol Market, was held up on this road. When he jumped down from his cart to confront his assailant, he was shot through the head. As the road starts descending, there is a superb view over Chew Valley Lake before the old road takes the right-hand fork to drop down Limeburn Hill to Portbridge Mill – now with a Bristol Gorilla in its garden. There follows another climb up Pagans Hill – its name derived from a local landowner called Pegnes – before dropping down into Chew Stoke, formerly known as Bishop’s Chew. The road into the village today is not the original one. That ran to the west, crossing a narrow packhorse bridge which still survives. The Stoke Inn (BS40 8XE) was first recorded in 1657, but sadly the thatched hostelry recorded in a mid-19th century painting has since been replaced by the current building. After climbing out of the village, the road starts descending, deviating from the course of the old road which now lies under the waters of Chew Valley Lake. As it crosses a causeway, there is a lay-by with a view over the lake. Popular with bird watchers, it also attracts crowds at times of drought, when the old road, along with the parapets of a little bridge, resurfaces. Soon, the diversion ends and the old road carries on to the Blue Bowl Inn (BS40 6HJ), once famous for the Bowl Revel held on the eve of Priddy Fair, when drinking – and a good deal else – went on through the night. Stratford Lane, which branches off here, follows the course of a Roman road along which lead was carried from the Mendip mineries.
