The Bristol Magazine April 2012

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£3.00 where sold

THE

ISSUE 94

I

APRIL 2012

BRISTOL THE MAGAZINE FOR THE CITY OF BRISTOL

MAGAZINE

www.thebristolmagazine.co.uk

DRIVING AMBITION Clifton’s racing driver on the fast track to success

RISING STAR

The George Inn Abbots Leigh wins its place on Bristol’s culinary map

ZEITGEIST A moment in time in April

EASTER FUN

A holiday guide to what’s on in Bristol this month

TITANIC TALES Bristolians who sailed on the ill-fated liner

ST YLE I NS ID E

Time for a home spring makeover

FA C E T H E MUSIC

with Loose Women’s Denise Welch

April Flowers TBM’s Spring fashion photoshoot – the new florals

The very best in local writing, what’s on, the arts, lifestyle, property and so much more in your guide to life and living in Bristol

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contents

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April2012 46 42

56 50

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ZEITGEIST

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Five things to do in Bristol this month

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BOOK OF THE MONTH BARTLEBY

32

FACE THE MUSIC

38

MR BRISTOW

40 42

SPRING FASHION WEEKEND BREAK Whatever the weather the west Wales city of St Davids is a great family holiday destination

28

www.thebristolmagazine.co.uk

What’s new on the beauty scene

THE WALK

72

Explore Bedminster and Southville

INTERIOR DESIGN

74

Seascape artist Jane Reeves at home

TITANIC TALES

CITY GARDENING

80

Jane Moore visits a west country open garden THE

BRISTOL MAGAZINE

TBM can be viewed with the online edition on

48

RESTAURANT REVIEW

www.thebristolmagazine.co.uk

The George Inn at Abbots Leigh wins its place on the city’s culinary map

50

FOOD & DRINK The diet that’s delivered to your door, plus chilli, chocolate and Easter egg hunts

FAMILY TRAVEL Planning a staycation with the children this summer? Our expert guides have some destinations in mind

FIT & FABULOUS

68

A century on from the disaster we examine the links with Bristol

Our shoot at Cabot Circus: the fuchsia’s looking bright

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ART & EXHIBITIONS For the latest spring shows and events

46

News from the classroom

CLIFTON ROCKS The past, and the future, of the old funicular railway in the cliffside

Facing middle age? Try making a list

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SINGING THERAPY How Bristol’s elderly and their carers are harnessing the power of music

Loose Women’s Denise Welch talks candidly about her public life and her long acting career

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WHAT’S ON Find out who’s taking to the stages of Bristol in April and let them entertain you

Talking rubbish: the careful recyclers vs the reckless chucker-outers

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EDUCATION

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Things to do with the kids in the holidays

Review of Bristol writer Helen Dunmore’s latest haunting novella

14

EASTER FUN

56

RISING STAR

ON THE COVER The Bristol Magazine spring fashion shoot at Cabot Circus.

Photography by Andre Regini.

See Page 25 for stockists

Clifton racing driver Dino Zamparelli April 2012

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The Bristol Magazine 3

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Knight Frank

Stoke Bishop A fabulous family house forming part of the original Parrys Lane Estate. Drawing room. Dining room.

Kitchen/family room. Snug. Utility room. Cloakroom. 4 double bedrooms. Bathroom, shower room, cloakroom. Bedroom 5/play room/self contained accommodation. Gardens. Gated drive. Integrated double garage.

Guide ÂŁ975,000 KnightFrank.co.uk/bristol bristol@knightfrank.com 0117 3171999

KnightFrank.co.uk/bristol bristol@knightfrank.com 0117 3171999

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Knight Frank

Alveston A stunningly refurbished home in over 5 acres, enjoying views of the Welsh Hills. 8 reception rooms, Chalon kitchen, 12m indoor swimming pool & facilities, 7 bedrooms, 4 bath/shower room (3 ensuite), gallery room, second kitchen, bar. Integral double garage, outbuildings, landscaped gardens, pond, stream, folly, paddock.

Guide ÂŁ2,150,000 KnightFrank.co.uk/bristol bristol@knightfrank.com 0117 3171999

KnightFrank.co.uk/bristol bristol@knightfrank.com 0117 3171999

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Knight Frank

Harbourside

Harbourside

A 1,311 sq ft modern apartment overlooking the floating harbour, with private balcony and parking. Stylish 27' open plan kitchen / reception room. Spacious master bedroom with dressing room and ensuite bath & shower room. Second double bedroom. Bathroom.

Excellent storage. Decked balcony, underground parking.

A superbly presented modern townhouse with water views. Full depth kitchen/dining/sitting room. 1st floor drawing room, balcony. 3 double bedrooms (1 ensuite shower room). Bathroom. Cloakroom. Detached single garage, OSP. Gated courtyard with harbour views. Nearby mooring & family day boat available by separate neg.

Guide £435,000

Guide £549,950

KnightFrank.co.uk/bristol bristol@knightfrank.com 0117 3171999

KnightFrank.co.uk/bristol bristol@knightfrank.com 0117 3171999

Harbourside

Harbourside

An incredibly light and spacious Penthouse apartment with superb harbour views and full width balcony. Double height dual aspect reception room, separate kitchen, master bedroom with en-suite shower room, second double bedroom, separate bathroom. Decked balcony with fabulous views. Single garage.

An exceptionally spacious apartment with harbour views. Drawing room.

Kitchen. Master bedroom with ensuite bath and shower room. Guest bedroom with ensuite shower room. Bedroom 3/study. Shower room.

Utility cupboard and storage. Allocated underground parking with lift access. Terrace overlooking the harbour.

Guide £380,000

Guide £435,000

KnightFrank.co.uk/bristol bristol@knightfrank.com 0117 3171999

KnightFrank.co.uk/bristol bristol@knightfrank.com 0117 3171999

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Knight Frank

Chew Magna

Iron Acton

This exclusive development is within the grounds of Chew Magna Manor, a Grade II* listed property. 2 of the 7 individual homes remain, both with 4 bedrooms, open plan living and views towards the manor house and open countryside to the rear. Private gardens and terraces, communal orchard, private parking and storage.

A Grade II listed village house with enclosed gardens of over 1 acre and arranged with a self contained wing. 4 reception rooms, cellar, kitchen, 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms (1 ensuite). Attached wing with sitting room, kitchen/dining room, 2 bedrooms, bathroom, cloakroom, ensuite shower room. Outbuildings, level gardens.

OIEO £725,000 - £825,000

Guide £950,000

KnightFrank.co.uk/bristol bristol@knightfrank.com 0117 3171999

KnightFrank.co.uk/bristol bristol@knightfrank.com 0117 3171999

Churchill

Badgworth

A delightful detached house with private grounds totalling 2.93 acres and views across the surrounding countryside. 2 reception rooms, kitchen/dining room, utility room, shower room. 5 bedrooms, bathroom, cloakroom, attached workshop. Double garage with attached study. Gardens, orchard/paddock, woodland.

Badgworth Court, a carefully restored and converted Grade II listed manor house has been converted into 8 homes, all with private gardens or courtyards and allocated parking spaces. Set within 11 acres of parkland, just south of the Mendip Hills, the 5 remaining properties range between 3 and 4 bedrooms and are ideal for family living or as second homes.

Guide £875,000

Guide £395,000 - £625,000

KnightFrank.co.uk/bristol bristol@knightfrank.com 0117 3171999

KnightFrank.co.uk/bristol bristol@knightfrank.com 0117 3171999

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Over 20 Years’ experience of designing and installing Kitchens, Bathrooms and Bedrooms including carpentry and joinery works.

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EDITOR’Sletter

I

t’s getting easier to spot the signs of spring bursting into life, even in the centre of the city. The trees that have been thoughtfully planted down the centre of Whiteladies Road are unfurling into leaf and on the streets we’re beginning to see people peeling off their winter layers, like onions, to reveal the bright new colours of the new season.

And if you’re in need of inspiration for your own spring wardrobe, take a look at the fashion shoot we worked on with Cabot Circus. Time to leave the drab shades in the back of the cupboard and choose instead the optimistic brights and florals that are around now.

I know we’re still facing tricky economic times, but Bristol isn’t a community that takes trouble lying down. Some of the city’s tops chefs have got together to create an event later this month (Page 10) which looks pretty exciting for foodies. Eat Drink Bristol Fashion will see tipis erected in Queen Square to form a pop-up gourmet restaurant and kitchens where visiting chefs will be cooking up a storm.

The Bristol Magazine has also taken a go-getting approach to April.

There’s a round-up of where to take the family at Easter, plus some ideas of where to take the children camping when the weather gets warmer.

Teenage racing driver, Dino Zamparelli from Clifton, talks about why he’s determined to get to the top in Formula One, and successful seascape artist Jane Reeves shows us round her studio home at St Andrews.

We’ve got walks and talks, exhibitions and theatre shows, good food and some jolly fine pieces of writing about Bristol past and present for you to enjoy.

GEORGETTE McCREADY All paper used to make this magazine is taken from good sustainable sources and we encourage our suppliers to join an accredited green scheme. Magazines are now fully recyclable. By recycling magazines, you can help to reduce waste and contribute to the six million tonnes of paper already recycled by the UK paper industry each year.

Please recycle this magazine, but if you are not able to participate in a recycling scheme, then why not pass your magazine on to a friend or colleague.

CONTACT THE BRISTOL MAGAZINE: Editor Tel: Email:

Georgette McCready 01225 424592 georgette@thebristolmagazine.co.uk

Deputy Editor Email:

Samantha Ewart sam@thebristolmagazine.co.uk

Editorial assistant Email:

Rosie Parry rosie@thebristolmagazine.co.uk

Contributors

Mick Ringham, Lindsey Harrad, James Russell, Andrew Swift, Jane Moore

Production Manager Email: Commercial Production Email:

Jeff Osborne production@thebristolmagazine.co.uk Catriona Stirling cat@thebristolmagazine.co.uk

Publisher Tel: Email:

Steve Miklos 0117 974 2800 stevem@thebristolmagazine.co.uk

Contact the Advertising Sales team on tel: 0117 974 2800 Advertising Sales Email:

Kathy Williams kathy@thebristolmagazine.co.uk

Advertising Sales Email:

Jodi Monelle jodi@thebristolmagazine.co.uk

Advertising Sales Email:

Sue Parker sue@thebristolmagazine.co.uk

The Bristol Magazine and The Bath Magazine are published by MC Publishing Ltd and are completely independent of all other local publications.

www.thebristolmagazine.co.uk

April 2012

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The Bristol Magazine 9

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ZEITGEIST

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THINGS TO DO IN APRIL

Taste Queen Square is to host what promises to be a visual as well as culinary feast as a tented village of tipis becomes a pop-up restaurant for the city’s top chefs to showcase their talents. Eat Drink Bristol Fashion runs from 25 April to 7 May and it will bring the chefs out of their respective kitchens for diners to sample their skills in one central venue. This foodie fest has been dreamed up by Josh Eggleton of The Pony and Trap and Luke Hasell of Tipi Events. On top of some top class food, there’ll be a Champagne and wine bar, music from bands and DJs and night-time art from Bristol’s own Arcadia festival events team. This promises to be a fabulous event. To find out more and book places, visit: www.eatdrinkbristolfashion.co.uk

Support This Easter holiday why not turn your thoughts to Christmas? The eight streets that collectively, and loosely call themselves the Christmas Steps Arts Quarter are hosting an Easter market on Saturday 7 April from 11am to 4pm. This is a chance for locals and visitors to take a break from the chain stores and go in search of Bristol’s craftsmen and women, artists and food producers. The bunting will be out and stalls will flow down the steps, offering all kinds of things from jewellery and clothing to homeware and food. Easter eggs will be hidden among the stalls just waiting to be discovered.

See People could be queuing down the street for this one, just as they did for Banksy a few years ago – the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition, which opens at the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery on 30 March. This is a rare chance to see da Vinci’s fine drawings up close. Just ten of them have been lent from the Royal Collection as part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Numbers will be limited into the galleries to avoid over-crowding and the lights will have to be dimmed to prevent damage to these priceless pieces. We have until 10 June to see Ten Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci. This will surely be a show that’s talked about long after it’s gone.

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April 2012

Newton Faulkner

Book The Bristol Folk Festival may have been absent for more than 30 years, but it was back with a vengeance last year and this year’s three-day eventer looks like being even more of a success. Headliners for the May festival, which runs from 5 – 7 May, include Cara Dillon, Show of Hands, Karine Polwart and Newton Faulkner. Day tickets are from £30 and are on sale now. Find out more, visit: www.bristolfolkfestival.com.

Celebrate You voted in legions to bring jelly artists Bompas and Parr to Bristol to create sweet and wobbly works of art at Brunel’s ss Great Britain as part of a national Museums at Night project which runs across the UK in May. Brunel’s ship was one of ten museums chosen to work with an artist on an installation. And while Bristol’s charms have been captured in paint, words and photos, this is the first time jelly has been used.

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TALKofthe TOWN

Book of the month The Greatcoat by Helen Dunmore Published by Hammer, hardback £9.99 Reviewed by Georgette McCready

F

or her legions of devotees, a new book from Bristol-based writer Helen Dunmore is like the best kind of present, as gratifying in the enjoying of it as the delicious anticipation of opening it.

Dunmore’s impressive track record of novels to date includes The Siege, set in snow-bound Stalingrad during the Second World War, its sequel, Betrayal, the heart-breaking tale of a mother in Mourning Ruby, and House of Orphans, set in a Finland on the edge of revolt.

Perhaps it is because she is a poet as well as a novelist that so many of her phrases paint pictures for our imagination that linger long after we’ve turned the page.

For her latest novella, The Greatcoat, Dunmore has turned her hand to a different genre from her previous work. The film-making Hammer House of Horror has cast itself now as a publisher of unsettling and spooky tales. The Hammer imprint is published through Random House.

The heroine, Isabel, is a vulnerable and lonely young bride, recently married to a country doctor who works long hours and is often called out to patients in the middle of the night, leaving his wife alone in their flat.

My cultural life She feels frozen out by the locals and her short-tempered landlady, and Isabel is cold in the flat. Then, one night, she pulls an old wartime RAF greatcoat out of the back of a cupboard and wraps it round her for warmth.

Soon after, an airman taps on her window.

Here is their first encounter through the window: “He spread his hand flat on the glass, all the while looking at Isabel. She clutched the coat to her. Her brain was still fogged with the noise of the engines. She shook her head, but the sound would not shake out. He was looking at her intently, waiting for something. All at once she understood what it was, and lifted her own left hand, to match his right, and laid it on the glass.”

The tension builds as Isabel grows closer to the stranger and further from her husband. As ever, Dunmore the consummate story teller, builds the characters with such detail that you believe in them, the plot unfolding slowly but inexorably.

Family fun on College Green

NEWS IN BRIEF

A

Music for spring

ll the Rotary Clubs in the Bristol and south west area are teaming up to host a free family day of entertainment on College Green on Sunday 22 April, to which all are invited to attend. The Festival of Rotary has been organised to showcase all the different kinds of good work and activities that the Rotary Clubs get up to throughout the year. There will be a stage with live performances and games for children, along with demonstrations and stalls. If you’ve ever idly wondered what sort of person makes a Rotary member and whether this would be a good way for you to meet new people, this is an ideal opportunity to find out. The day begins at 11am, with an official opening at 11.30am and goes on until 3pm.

A family matinee concert featuring music chosen with spring in mind is being staged in the delightful setting of St George’s on Sunday 29 April, from 1.45pm, to raise funds for the Alzheimer’s Society and its Singing for the Brain project. The compere is former That’s Life presenter Chris Serle.

Tickets are from £15 from tel: 0845 402 4001 or online: www.stgeorgesbristol.co.uk

Foodie festival The Bristol Magazine The Bristol Magazine 2 Princes Buildings George Street Bath BA1 2ED Telephone: 0117 974 2800 Fax: 01225 426677 editor@thebristolmagazine.co.uk sales@thebristolmagazine.co.uk © MC Publishing Ltd 2012 The Bristol Magazine is distributed free every month to over 24,000 homes and businesses throughout Bristol.

Published by MC Publishing Limited Disclaimer: Whilst every reasonable care is taken with all material submitted to The Bristol Magazine, the publisher cannot accept responsibility for loss or damage to such material. Opinions expressed in articles are strictly those of the authors. This publication is copyright and may not be reproduced in any form either in part or whole without written permission from the publishers.

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April 2012

The Love Food Festival, featuring all kinds of delicious produce to sample and to buy, is being staged at Brunel’s Old Station at Temple Meads over the weekend of 31 March/1 April. Find out more at: www.lovefoodfestival.com/spring.

A way with words A Bristol doctor has come second in a national competition to find the best maritime limerick, held in aid of the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society. Dr Bob Turvey’s limerick goes like this: A shipping forecaster called Gough, Found Forties and Forth made her cough; Her throat went quite tight, With Fastnet, German Bight; And Finisterre finished her off.

Nicky Owen, of White Rabbit Media location library and interiors PR service talks about what she’s doing this month What’s on your iPod? I write interiors features for national magazines and my habit is to pick a new tune every week to write to. Friends send me suggestions. Currently, I am loving The Civil Wars. I saw them at the O2 Academy in March and I’m hooked. And if I ever need a picker upper, LCD Soundsystem All My Friends, does the trick. Next week who knows?

Film or play? What will you be going to see this month?

I love going to the movies, especially at the Watershed. It is a pleasure to have a glass of wine and a plate of their delicious chilli nachos then see one of their great film choices. I’ll be going to see Marley, The Life, Music and Legacy of Bob Marley, for sure. It opens on 20 April.

Where will you be eating out over Easter?

I am excited about eating at the Montpelier Basement Supper Club. It is an underground restaurant held in a private home. If you like good food, meeting people and enjoy a nose in someone else’s home, then get yourself on the mailing list. http://supperclubfangroup.ning.com/profile/ TheMontpelierBasement. Oh and it is BYO! And we all love that.

What local outdoor activity/location will you be going to do or visit this month?

You will find me, every Monday and Wednesday morning, toughing it out at Jen Woolfson’s boot camp. It is a fantastically hard workout but the madness of it makes me giggle. All that charging about on the Downs is good for the soul I am sure. It makes me happy. And it is only a fiver.

Perfect.

To see your home on the pages of national magazines or register it as a location visit www.whiterabbitmedia.co.uk, or phone Nicky on tel: 0796 659 2203.

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HONING THE REFINED ART OF RECYCLING

B

lessed are the recyclers, and the people who drive the recycling trucks, for they are the most patient people in town. How do they do it?

Emptying wheelie bins I imagine is hard work and not necessarily the most pleasant, but it isn’t particularly complicated. You walk up to a bin, drag to the back of the truck and then replace it on the pavement (somewhere close to where you found it) after the contents have been consumed by the garbage grinding machinery.

Over and over, day in and day out, rain or shine, it’s the same thing. Not so with recycling. Recycling is to emptying bins what Mozart is to Motorhead. A bin is something you chuck things in. You fill it up and empty it. Job done.

Recycling by contrast is an art form. Some people devote hours of their time every week to the business of sorting the stuff you really have to chuck in the bin from the stuff you don’t. And the latter category gets bigger and wider every year.

First it was bottle banks. They were pretty straightforward, involving as they did the chucking of glass bottles into containers that were, to all intents and purposes, bins. Then came kerbside recycling, and the division of paper, tin cans and glass. That made sense too. Paper, tins and glass are good, sensible, easily defined things. Show a small child a can, a bottle and a newspaper and they will be able to tell them apart. These primal objects were the stuff of Cubist paintings, although a Cubist would really want a section for guitars too.

❝

The recyclers . . . have to assess the contents of each black bin. They risk being cut by broken glass and jagged cans

❞

Then came food waste, dealing with which seemed like the most repulsive thing imaginable – at first. What, you have a bin in your kitchen and you throw chicken skin and crusts and old hummus and all kinds other nastiness in it? And then put it out in the street? What will the neighbours think?

What about the smell? What about rats? When food waste collections were introduced – it isn’t really recycling, is it? At least I hope not – the newspapers were full of stories about rats. These proved to be nonsense, and now we all collect up our scraps and put them out without a thought.

I do feel sympathy for the people whose job it is to empty them, however.

It must be a nasty way to earn a living, especially in summer.

Still, emptying food bins is not so different from emptying wheelie bins. It doesn’t require finesse, as recycling proper does. The recyclers don’t just pick up, empty and replace over and over. They have to assess the contents of each black bin. They have to sort the unsorted and separate the unseparated. They risk being cut by broken glass and jagged cans. They have to endure the impatience of motorists who can’t understand why it takes so long for the yellow trucks to make their way down the street.

There are householders – some of whom I am proud to call friends – who separate their food, cans, paper, glass, weird things like shoes and batteries and even plastic. And there are many who chuck the whole lot, unwashed and festering into a single black bin and put it outside with never a thought.

As if it were an open-topped wheelie bin. People – think of the recyclers!

I did once, on holiday in California – where they take these things almost as seriously as people do in Germany – see a chap drive a garbage truck up to a recycling station and empty everything, from glass and cans to ordinary rubbish, into the back of his wagon. I was quite shocked, but can understand why he did it. It’s only rubbish after all, isn’t it? Does anyone really care? Let’s say it again: blessed are the recyclers…■ 14 The Bristol Magazine

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HER HEART ON HER SLEEVE Actress and queen of the tabloids, Denise Welch talks to Mick Ringham about fame, friendship and the important role music has played in her life

I

n many respects Denise Welch’s private life has eclipsed her career, with stories appearing in the tabloids on an almost daily basis detailing her drinking, alleged affairs and emotional meltdowns. And some of these very personal issues were played out on a very public stage, in front of millions of television viewers in one of the most watched Celebrity Big Brother episodes of recent times.

But the other side of Denise Welch is the successful actress who has been constantly performing since her teenage years and who is also an engaging personality when you meet her.

Denise’s career started out in repertory theatre and rapidly moved on to television with roles in Auf Wiedersehen Pet, Soldier Soldier, Coronation Street and Waterloo Road, to name but a few. She is also a regular contributor to Loose Women, ITV’s hugely successful daytime chat show, where she has been able to show her own personality and air her, often forthright, honest opinions.

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April 2012

Denise was born in County Durham in the late 1950’s and developed her penchant for acting at 14 after performing in the school play. She said: “The early years touring the country in rep helped shape many a young actor and I was no exception.

Times can be hard but you try and make the best of things. I enjoyed working in the business and had fun. It’s true to say, that friendship then as now, counted for everything.”

It was during her four years playing the landlady of the Rovers Return in Coronation Street, that the black dog of severe depression entered Denise’s life but, having a nononsense approach to life coupled with a strong personality, she managed to carry on, albeit with a few hitches along the way.

How does she react to the media’s fascination with her private life? “Well I can understand it – I’m the kind of person who doesn’t mince her words. As little as a decade ago breakdowns and depression really weren’t talked about

STELLAR CAST: left to right, Cheryl Campbell, Cherie Lunghi, Isla Blair, Sadie Pickering, Kasey Ainsworth and Denise Welch in Steel Magnolias

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EMOTIONAL MEMORIES: left to right, Yusuf, formerly known as Cat Stevens, Father and Son, Michael Jackson’s Ben, and Lee Marvin, I was Born Under a Wand’rin Star

especially in showbiz circles, they were a taboo subject so it’s good to get it out in the open and I genuinely believe this helps other sufferers to understand they are not alone.”

Talking about her experience on Celebrity Big Brother, she admits: “I hated the first two weeks and as you are not aware of what is being edited and shown to the TV audience, it can be quite scary. It was a huge shock to be voted the winner and believe me I am still getting over it.”

Denise is mum to two children, Matthew and Louis and has been married twice, but is now separated from her second husband actor Tim Healy, although she is at pains to point out that they are still the greatest of friends.

I had such a crush on Donny ❝ Osmond when I was a teenager so it came as a shock when, as an adult I had the chance along with 15 other ladies, to have dinner with him

❞

This month sees her appearing in Steel Magnolias at Bath’s Theatre Royal, where she plays Truvy, swapping the bar of the Rovers Return for a saloon in the deep south of America and exchanging that cheerful Geordie accent for a southern drawl.

She says of her time in Bath: “It’s great to be in the west country again, acting in a fabulous play, which tells of the lives of six remarkable southern belles.”

Rest assured, the presence of Miss Welch will ensure the audiences enjoy a lively time.

Denise’s top ten: ● The Real Thing – You to Me Are Everything When I tend to go out to nightclubs, which surprisingly is quite rare, I always ask the DJ to put on some dancing music rather than that dreadful boom boom boom that literally drives me crazy. When they do play some acceptable music, people do get up and dance. This record really does typify good dancing music, which we girls can appreciate. ● Diana Ross – Ain’t No Mountain High Enough I also admire singers such as Aretha Franklin and have constant battles in the car with my youngest son for what station to put in. I like Smooth Radio and he’s always changing the channel while I’m concentrating on the traffic – the little tinker! ● Van Morrison – Have I Told You Lately That I Love You? I heard he lives locally so it would be great to bump in to him when I’m in Bath. Although I am separated from my husband www.thebristolmagazine.co.uk

Tim, he is still my best friend and confidante, he also has an amazing voice, particularly when he sings his rendition of this song. ● Cat Stevens, now Yusuf Islam – Father and Son This reminds me of my first boyfriend, who was a vicar’s son.

I was 14 at the time and he was 16. We would sit in the Rectory and listen to all of Cat Stevens’ fabulous songs. He possessed an amazing talent and was a breath of fresh air on the music scene. ● Donny Osmond – Puppy Love I had such a crush on Donny Osmond when I was a teenager, so it came as a shock when, as an adult I had the chance along with 15 other ladies, to have dinner with him. We discussed all sorts of topics and he helped me come to terms with my own life, telling me about his depressions and panic attacks. It was a strange conversation but one I will never forget. ● Lee Marvin – I was Born under a Wand’rin Star This is for my mum. I can’t remember how many times she dragged me along to see the film Paint Your Wagon, where this track is taken from. She just loved it. She never did get to meet Lee Marvin but through a few connections, she has had a chance to speak to Howard Keel and a telephone conversation with Johnny Mathis which set her heart fluttering. ● Neil Sedaka – I Miss the Hungry Years It takes me back to those holiday journeys in the car, which seemed to take all day and most of the night to get to Cornwall. This is one of my dad’s favourite records and also reminds me of the freedom I enjoyed and good times I had as a young actress. I had hardly any money, crummy digs but great and long lasting friendships. ● Stevie Wonder – Signed, Sealed, Delivered Another boyfriend I had was Rob Taylor; he went off to teacher training college and left me still at school, pining after him. He had a huge collection of Stevie Wonder records and to this day I still love Tamla Motown. It really is the greatest dance music ever. ● Jackson Five – ABC One of the discos I used to go to as a teenager was called Zone 22. It was one of those ‘dancing round your handbag’ places but the music and atmosphere was just wonderful. I’ve been asked to present a video for a cancer charity featuring a terrific young band called New Bounce. They are influenced by the sound of Motown and they’re just fabulous! ● Michael Jackson – Ben My eldest son, who is 22, loved listening to Michael Jackson from a very early age and when Michael died, he genuinely felt he had lost a friend. Louis my 11-year-old still loves to listen to his records and although Michael Jackson had a strange upbringing and odd personal life, my goodness, he was a talented and gifted performer. ■ Steel Magnolias starring Cheryl Campbell, Isla Blair, Kasey Ainsworth, Cherie Lunghi, Denise Welch and Sadie Pickering is at the Theatre Royal, Bath, from 3 – 7 April.

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Mr Bristow I’VE GOT A LITTLE LIST . . .

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eons ago when Mr Bristow was at college (I’m talking mid 1960’s here) every student had a mentor who was supposed to guide them through the many problems that beset young people who have left home for the first time. Just in case one of us decided to jump off the roof.

Problems? What problems? Up from the sticks to the big city, cosy bedsit, no more nagging parents, down the pub every night with your mates, living on beans on toast, blimey, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven!

My mentor was Miss J, who seemed to suffer from a permanent cold.

As she sniffed her way through my tutorial I often felt it was me preventing her from jumping, not the other way round. In fact I felt so sorry for her, I used to make up problems just to cheer her up. I once mistakenly used the word ‘depressed’ when I meant ever-so-slightly-fed-up and ended up being sent to a counsellor. Still, at least it showed they cared.

I constantly forget why I have come ❝ into a room and I need to go through the alphabet to remember really famous film stars’ names

❞

Mind you, no matter what problem, real or pretend, that one came up with (and I compared notes on this with my fellow students) Miss J’s response was, without fail ‘Make a list!’ and actually, to this day I have followed that advice. There is absolutely nothing better to focus the mind than making a list: prioritising, colour coding, itemising and best of all, crossing off. Once written down, that nagging worry about an uncompleted task just disappears. In fact, a list is the perfect tool for the procrastinator with a tendency to worry ie. me.

I once participated in a tour of a musical show throughout Europe. We had a small cast and so one had to take on some of the stage management oneself. I had 101 little tasks to undertake before the performance: put shoes out ready for quick change, sharpen eyebrow pencil, check sightlines, suss out route for entrance through audience, make sure pin in place on cuff for bursting water balloon (it was a knockabout comedy) and so on.

I’m not remembering these things, for I have the list in front of me.

I couldn’t go through the pre-show routine without ticking off each item, even after 100 performances. In the end, there were so many different coloured ticks, crosses and asterisks on the dog-eared piece of faded paper it became almost unreadable. But I had to have it in my hand.

At the end of the tour, my colleagues declared it a work of art and now it hangs framed above my desk. I can just about make out two items: Nappy and spare nappy. I cannot for the life of me remember why these were required in a show about baroque composers.

And that’s the crux of the matter. It is absolutely true what they say about the decline of short term memory in middle age. I constantly forget why I have come into a room and I need to go through the alphabet to remember really famous film stars’ names. So I started to keep a pad of Post-it notes next to my bed. Not just for those brilliant ideas that suddenly come to one in the middle of the night, but to stop me tossing and turning and worrying in half-sleep about all the things I was going to do the next day by jotting them down.

And no kidding, dear readers, I awoke one morning recently to find I had written in big letters ‘Make a list’. ■ 18 The Bristol Magazine

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CITY CHIC Fashion has been taken over by prints, florals, bursts of colour and pretty country garden pastels which can only mean one thing – spring has arrived. TBM skipped along to Quakers Friars to search out the best pieces to create the ultra-chic and classic look that’s on trend this season

Kirsty (left) wears: D&G trench coat from Harvey Nichols, £960; Ted Baker floral print scarf from House of Fraser, £35; large clutch bag from Zara, £79.99; taupe and coral shoes from Zara, £49.99 Eve (right) wears: Therapy mint coat from House of Fraser, £80; Diane von Furstenberg twill shorts from Harvey Nichols, £265; sheer cream blouse from Zara, £29.99; white Nicole bag from LK Bennett, £395; necklace and shoes, stylist’s own

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SPRINGfashion

Get the look Clockwise from top left: Kirsty wears Vivienne Westwood Red Label mohair jacket, £435, and micro flower ruffle shirt, £275, both from Harvey Nichols; Alexander McQueen natural shorts from Harvey Nichols, £205; Gucci pump shoes from Harvey Nichols, £315; Linea Isabelle black handbag from House of Fraser, £55, and Eve wears black blouse from Zara, £29.99; floral print trousers from Zara, £39.99; Alberta necklace from Hobbs, £59; Linea Isabelle black clutch bag from House of Fraser, £50 Below, Graeme wears taped collar End on End shirt from Fred Perry, £80; grey blazer from Zara, £59.99; white tapered chinos, £85, and umbrella, £45, both from Fred Perry; brown satchel from Zara, £69.99 Below left, Eve wears sheer cream blouse, £29.99, and coral maxi skirt, £39.99, both from Zara; white Biba sunglasses from House of Fraser, £65

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SPRINGfashion

Kirsty wears D&G tweed flower sheath dress, £390; Alberta bracelet from Hobbs, £49, and Graeme wears blazer, £59.99, and blue shirt, £29.99, both from Zara; Howick light grey jumper from House of Fraser, £45; black jean trousers, £25.99, and black loafer shoes, £49.99, both from Zara

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SPRINGfashion

FASHION WEEKENDER ashionistas from Bristol and beyond will be heading to Cabot Circus this month for a series of free fashion shows presenting the hottest trends for spring and summer. Taking place under the Cabot Circus glass roof on Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 April, the Spring Summer 2012 Fashion Show will feature the latest looks from the new collections available from stores in the centre. And, with outfits from highstreet to high-end, the catwalk will showcase something for every budget and taste – whether you want to indulge your feminine side with pretty florals, grab attention with this season’s acid brights or spice it up a bit with the latest Miami trends.

As the weekend of free fashion shows begins, you can enjoy some fantastic discounts and offers at many of Cabot Circus’ stores and restaurants, and indulge in free treatments at the pamper lounges, where experts from House of Fraser, Harvey Nichols, Sanctuary Spa, Seanhanna and the Body Shop will be on hand to talk through the latest hair and beauty trends.

You can also get inspiration from fabulous clothes and beauty buys that will be showcased in glass display cases dotted around Cabot

F

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Circus and Quakers Friars.

Retailers that will be featured in the fashion shows include House of Fraser, French Connection, Ted Baker, Fred Perry, Next, River Island, Bank, New Look, Reiss, Warehouse – and many more.

The shows are being presented by JP, one of London's hottest stylists, who will give even the most fashion reluctant a nudge in the right direction to fulfil their style potential. ■

SHOWTIMES SATURDAY 21 APRIL: Cabot Circus (level 1, outside House of Fraser) 11.30am / 12.30pm / 1.30pm / 2.30pm / 3.30pm / 4.30pm Children’s Fashion Show: 5pm SUNDAY 22 APRIL: Cabot Circus (level 1, outside House of Fraser) 12pm / 1pm / 2pm / 3pm / 4pm For more information on the Cabot Circus spring/summer 2012 fashion shows visit: www.cabotcircus.com. Shops throughout Cabot Circus and Quakers Friars are open from 10am to 8pm, with restaurants open late

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SPRINGfashion

With thanks to...

Photography by Andre Regini, www.kingbridge.co.uk Shoot stylist: Daniella Case Models from Shoot DHS, www.shootdhs.co.uk Hair by Adam Vincent at Sean Hanna, Quakers Friars, tel: 0117 934 9393 Makeup by Shu Uemura in Harvey Nichols, tel: 0117 916 8863

Location: Quakers Friars, Cabot Circus, Bristol Retailers: Fred Perry, Harvey Nichols, Hobbs, House of Fraser, LK Bennett, and Zara Organised by: Megan Dacey, Grayling and Samantha Ewart, The Bristol Magazine

OPPOSITE PAGE: Kirsty wears pleated mint patterned dress from Zara, £39.99; brown crocus bag, £245, and Roxbury sandals, £185, both from LK Bennett; large brown Biba sunglasses from House of Fraser, £65; Eve wears sheer cream blouse, £29.99, and coral maxi skirt, £39.99, both from Zara; white Biba sunglasses from House of Fraser, £65, and Graeme wears candy stripe shirt from Fred Perry, £75; navy blazer, £59.99, and cream trousers, £29.99, both from Zara; vintage twill navy satchel from Fred Perry, £80; navy boater shoes from Zara, £49.99 THIS PAGE: Kirsty wears floral blouse, £25.99, and white trousers, £29.99, both from Zara; Ballina taupe clutch bag, £175, and sledge court shoes, £185, both from LK Bennett, and Eve wears white peplum top, £29.99, and mint skirt, £29.99, both from Zara; D&G trench coat from Harvey Nichols, £960; and treebark scarf, £45, Cleo snake bag, £239, and Alberta bracelet, £49, all from Hobbs

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WEEKENDgetaway

A CITY BREAK WITH A TWIST St Davids may be the smallest cathedral city in the UK, but it punches above its weight as a family holiday destination reckons Georgette McCready

W

hen we first started taking family holidays in St Davids, Pembrokeshire – about 20 years ago – frankly it was because we couldn’t afford a holiday abroad. So every summer we’d pack the car to the gunnels, wedge the kids in, their faces pressed against the window under the piles of pillows, toys and sleeping bags and we’d head west along the M4 to the very tip of West Wales.

We’ve been going ever since, noticing over the years that the place has become much more popular with the affluent English middle classes. But, even into young adulthood our children and their friends still return on camping trips.

There’s always the excitement of the first person to see the sea of St Bride’s Bay as we take the swooping road down to Newgale sands and past the pretty haven of Solva, before arriving at St Davids, the smallest cathedral city in the UK. We’ve always camped, but you can rent cottages in the area.

There are several campsites and in Caerfai Bay you are near enough for even the littlest children to walk with you to the beach or into town for supplies or ice cream.

St Davids is very popular with English families who call their children Jemima and Henry. Three generations are often to be found descending on the beaches, with dog in tow, carrying body boards, the younger members with buckets and spades, older folk with folding stools and copies of the latest Booker prizewinning novel. We joke that these families always have a Lytton Strachey look-a-like with them, a greybeard in Panama hat and little round glasses, whose lanky frame can be seen helping launch a canoe on to the waves, or enjoying a Welshcake while sitting on a rock.

And because the chattering classes are in the area en masse, there has been an increase in the number of art galleries and shops where you can buy beautiful objects to take home, or even clothes. Cultural types will enjoy a wander round the ancient St Davids cathedral and the ruins of the Bishop’s Palace, where alfresco Shakespeare is performed in the summer.

You are also spoilt for places to go for really good food. We particularly like The Refectory, an airy light café that’s been opened next to the cathedral, and the Cwtch restaurant (it means cuddle in Welsh) in the city centre. The children’s favourites include The Sloop Inn at Porth Gain, which is an energetic bike 26 The Bristol Magazine

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ride from St Davids, where they’d opt for an Angry Dog burger, or The Bench, a delightful Italian pizzeria which also makes delicious ice cream.

The area is a playground for all tastes. As well as the numerous beaches, for sandcastle building and damning streams, there are fine walks along the coast path and the chance to catch some great waves, either bodyboarding or surfing. You can hire bikes in St Davids by the day, or head out to St Justinians lifeboat station and take a boat trip out to Ramsey Island. There’s always a chance you’ll see seals and, maybe, porpoises or dolphins. Take the Aquaphobia trip and you’ll have the added pleasure of bouncing on the rough surfaces of the water as you approach the notorious Bitches tidal race between Ramsey and the mainland.

My favourite way to spend a day is to walk from Caerfai Bay round to the beach beyond crowded Whitesands beach. It’s about eight or nine miles of spectacular cliff path walking and there’s always a sheltered spot where you can eat your picnic lunch, or watch the puffins fooling about on the cliff edge. Take your swimming costume with you for a dip at the end, then catch the minibus service from Whitesands back into St Davids.

It’s a great place to come with other families who have children of the same age. When the weather’s bad – a summer sea fret can render the other side of the camping field invisible – they will entertain each other. Our lot used to play endless games of cards huddled in their tents while the rain lashed down. And in the evenings, a barbeque would bring everyone together, the younger children settled down to sleep while the adults sat round enjoying a few glasses of wine.

If you’re going to West Wales in August you may be lucky enough to catch some clear nights when the Perseid meteor showers can be seen. Lie on a rug and adjust your eyes to the vast sky, and then wait unblinking, until you glimpse your first shooting star and wish.

It doesn’t matter how old or young you are, St Davids is the uncrowned capital of good times for family holidays. ■

WELSH PLAYGROUND: main picture, the azure sea at Caerfai Bay, top, The Bench Italian pizzeria in St Davids, below, the ancient cathedral, and, inset Victorian writer Lytton Strachey, whose doppelganger can often be glimpsed on the beaches of West Wales

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FAMILYgetaways

HIT THE ROAD Matt Hunt, founder of the Brislington based Family Travel Centre, likes nothing more than to get out and about with his family and enjoy all that the south west has to offer. With those lovely long weekends on the horizon, it’s the perfect time to start planning your staycation. Here are some of Matt’s favourite tried and tested destinations...

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t Family Travel Centre we offer families and friends a way to make the most of their leisure time, through the freedom and fun of getting on the road and discovering the great outdoors together.

Whether it’s sea views, children-friendly campsites or outdoor activities, we’ve got the perfect family holiday covered. Forget the last minute rush to the airport, the long waits and fidgety children, for a stress-free vacation, stay local.

A long journey can put a dampener on a holiday before it’s even started, so stay close to home at Brokerswood Country Park in Westbury, which has been awarded the David Bellamy Gold Conservation Award for six years running and provides a perfect tranquil setting in beautiful West Wiltshire. Set in 80 acres, it’s a great location especially for the kids as it has all the ingredients needed for a fun family weekend away – a forest, a lake, a train and several playgrounds. The kids can explore safely on their own leaving the adults to relax with a BBQ and a glass of wine or beer, making it ideal for everyone. Visit: www.ukcampsite.co.uk/sites/details.asp?revid=4210.

If you like to be beside the seaside, there’s nowhere better than Berrow Beach in North Somerset. There is a six mile length of sand – reportedly the second longest stretch of sand in Europe – and sand dunes which are perfect for kite flying and beach games. The beach is open all year round and is free of charge out of the summer season. In season, it’s only a few pounds to get a vehicle on the sands. Perfect for days out as well as weekends away, there are a number of very family friendly campsites around Berrow Beach and Burnham-On-Sea. Visit : 28 The Bristol Magazine

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www.completesomerset.co.uk/where-to-go/beaches/43-berrowbeach.

If beautiful sea views are on your list of location must-haves they don’t come better than Sea View International Park near St Austell. This family-friendly site has breathtaking views across the ocean, along with a heated outdoor swimming pool, big playground area, tennis courts, volleyball and badminton to keep everyone amused. The park is ideally located for visiting the Eden Project and the Lost Gardens of Heligan, as well as hidden away harbour villages such as Mevagissey and all that beautiful south Cornwall has to offer. Visit: www.seaviewinternational.com.

In north Cornwall, Wooda Farm Holiday Park is set in 40 acres of tranquil parkland – overlooking Bude Bay. This family-run park has its own well-stocked fishing lake. For the children there is an adventure playground, tractor and trailer rides, along with tame farm animals. There are also some great sports facilities including tennis, badminton, golf and a gym. We stayed here as a group and really enjoyed it. You can easily cycle into Bude from this park too. Visit: www.wooda.co.uk.

To get away from the stresses and strains of city life, head to

A LEISURELY BREAK: main picture, the south west is your oyster with a VW campervan – take it to a beauty spot of your choice

When we last visited, our children ❝ took part in a fantastic miniature fairy trail which was all set up among the trees they loved it

❞

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FAMILYgetaways

SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE: left to right, get back to nature and enjoy family-friendly activities at one of the many campsites in the south west, and enjoy the great outdoors on foot or on two wheels – there are plenty of cycle routes to follow that take in some wonderful views

Hollands Wood Caravan Park and Campsite. Nestling in the New Forest National Park in between Brockenhurst and Lyndhurst, this site really allows you to enjoy the simple things in life and be at one with nature. You can camp anywhere within the woods but be aware that New Forest ponies are roaming free. When we last visited, our children took part in a fantastic miniature fairy trail which was all set up among the trees – they loved it. Brockenhurst is in easy walking distance from this really special campsite in the heart of the forest, which has also been awarded a Silver David Bellamy Conservation Award. Visit: www.new-forest-national-park.com/hollandswood-caravan-park-and-campsite.html.

If you have a family that gets bored easily Mill Farm Caravan and Camping Park has the most unbelievable number of on-site facilities to keep everyone entertained. Close to Bridgewater the

site is located between the foot of the Quantock Hills and the beautiful North Somerset coastline. There are indoor and outdoor heated swimming pools, a boating lake, pony rides, as well as a play area, trampoline and gym. The site also has its own shop, fish & chip bar, games room and evening entertainment. Visit: http://www.millfarm.biz/index.html Happy holidaying! ■ Run by families for families, Family Travel Centre’s showroom in Brislington, Bristol, has something for everyone, whether it’s a campervan for two, a family motorhome, a caravan, an American RV, or simply a day out on the water. With a play area to entertain the kids it’s the perfect time to pop in and start planning your next roadtrip. For further information visit: www.familytravelcentre.co.uk

Small Ship Cruise Expeditions

A bespoke portfolio of fascinating itineraries aboard comfortable, fine quality small ships.

Unique travel experiences for the curious and discerning.

SOUTH SEAS ODYSSEY - Celebrate Christmas on Pitcairn Island during an epic voyage from Easter Island to Fiji via the Gambier Islands, the Tuamotus, Tahiti, the Society Islands, the Cook Islands, Niue, Tonga and Wallis & Futuna Group.

Depart 16 December 2012 ex London via Santiago to Easter Island return 21 January 2013.

The portfolio has an enticing array of options from around coastal Britain, circumnavigation of Iceland, Norwegian Fjords to Murmansk and the White Sea, the intimate Mediterranean, the Levant and Black Sea, West to South Africa, South America and coastal New Zealand.

Explore in depth at :

www.johnkennedy-noblecaledonia.com or call John Kennedy on: 0117 946 6000

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EASTERevents Nene and family at Slimbridge Wetland Centre

Events Activities THE EASTER GUIDE

The words ‘I’m bored’ will not be heard this Easter as Rosie Parry hunts out the best events and activities to ensure fun for all the family

GO WILD Cotswold Wildlife Park and Gardens, Burford, South Gloucestershire. Tel: 01993 823006 www.cotswoldwildlifepark.co.uk

Eggs-stravaganza, Friday 6 – Monday 9 April Join in with an egg-themed trail in which youngsters must find the letters that spell out the word of an egg-related fact, to win an encounter with one of the park’s egg laying animals. There will be a number of egg-themed animal talks and the meerkats will have boiled eggs to eat as a special treat. The park has an explosion of spring bulbs and flowers to plant and enjoy.

Falconry Flying Displays, Friday 6 – Monday 9 April See a variety of birds of prey all of which are free flying. As they fly close by, you will witness their speed and grace, you will awe in their freedom but soon come to realise that life is never easy and they have to work to survive. You could have the chance to see vultures, owls, falcons and even eagles.

will be able to try on period costumes and take their own photographs against a backdrop of the ship. There is plenty for children of all ages to do, from dressing up to meeting Mr Brunel.

PARTY TIME DoubleTree by Hilton, Cadbury House, Frost Hill, Congresbury, Bristol. Tel: 01934 834 343 www.cadburyhotelbristol.co.uk

Kidz Easter Disco, Wednesday 4 April & Thursday 5 April A fun children’s disco with games, an Easter egg hunt and prizes for the best Easter bonnet – a guarenteed egg–cellent time! Tickets include a hot dog and a soft drink, and mums and dads go free.

Easter Lunch, Sunday 8 April Nestled in the beautiful North Somerset countryside this is the perfect venue for a family get-together. Hosted in the Great Room, guests will enjoy a delicious three-course lunch and coffee and children will be treated to an Easter egg. Reservations necessary.

FUN ON-BOARD ss Great Britain, Great Western Dockyard, Bristol. Tel: 0117 926 0680 www.ssgreatbritain.org

Sea Hear Tuesday 3 April, 11am Join professional storyteller Sarah Mooney for adventures of the high seas. Stories are tailored especially for pre-school children.

Flash, Bang, Wallop!

Easter Holidays The Baker gallery will be transformed into a Victorian photographer’s studio, with various backdrops bringing the studio to life. Visitors 30 The Bristol Magazine

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SPRING INTO ACTION Westonbirt Arboretum, Tetbury, Gloucestershire. Tel: 01666 880220 www.forestry.gov.uk/westonbirt

Easter Challenge, Tuesday 3 – Friday 6 April, 10.30am – 3.30pm Can you complete Westonbirt’s Easter challenge?

Follow a trail of clues around the arboretum, explore the early signs of spring and solve the spring riddle for a sweet reward. Create a spring mask, magic wool flowers and make an Easter or spring card for a family member or someone special.

Get into the spirit with the Easter challenge at Westonbirt Arboretum

Jurassic Plants and Other Ancients, Tuesday 10 – Thursday 12 April, 10.30am – 3.30pm See trees once nibbled by dinosaurs, some of the very first flowers and an ancient tree that inspired the samurai. Make your own leaf fossil and help us to create a giant picture of ancient plants with prehistoric paints.

ZOO EXPLORATION Bristol Zoo Gardens, Clifton, Bristol.

Tel: 0117 9747309 www.bristolzoo.org.uk

Golden Egg Hunt, Until Sunday 22 April Visitors can take part in Bristol Zoo’s free golden egg hunt. There will be 10 golden eggs hidden around the zoo for visitors to find. Children who complete the trail will receive a tasty treat. Over the Easter weekend visitors can also meet Bristol Zoo’s mascot, Larry the Lemur, who will be wandering around the zoo.

Spring Plants of the Avon Gorge, Sunday 1 April, 2pm – 4pm The Avon Gorge is internationally famous for its interesting plants. Take this walk and discover some of the rarities that grow on the Leigh Woods side of the gorge, with local botanist Libby Houston. Please note there are very steep slopes and uneven ground on this walk. Book with Avon Gorge & Downs Wildlife Project on tel: 0117 9030609.

Early Birds and Bacon Butties, Sunday 15 April, 6am – 8.30am An early morning walk with bird expert Michael Johnson, identify birds on the Downs and have breakfast (vegetarian option). Book with Avon Gorge & Downs Wildlife Project (telephone as above).

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EASTERevents Matthew Bourne’s Nutcracker! at Bristol Hippodrome

Take a trip to the stars with At-Bristol

Meerkats at Cotswold Wildlife Park and Gardens

SENSATIONAL SCIENCE At-Bristol, Harbourside, Bristol.

Tel: 0845 345 1235 www.at-bristol.org.uk

The Glow Show, Weekends and Easter Holiday Explore a whole spectrum of light-based phenomena in this family show. See the gleaming colours metals make under the At-Bristol flame gun and discover how scientists use colour to explore other planets. See what you and other substances look like under UV light, plus experiement with refraction to make the visible invisible.

Spring Night Sky, Daily Sit back and take a trip to the spring night sky.

Discover which stars, colourful planets and constellations are visible in the increasingly light evenings.

Spring Unearthed, Until 15 April Step into spring with a host of Easter activities exploring the wonders of growth and new life.

Explore ancient life and make amazing casts of fossils and rocks. Discover the secret life and age of trees and marvel at the wonders of new life by making your own cress-heads and see what fun hairstyles they sprout.

rings, DOB, how long they have been a couple and the number of goslings they have raised.

Enjoy wigwam building near the Rain Garden, arts and crafts and badge making. Trail around the grounds and see life size photos of each stage in the year in the life of a nene, learn about its behaviour, and watch a nene display. On Easter weekend there will also be a walk with Pheobe Young, and a talk and nene feed to watch.

FAMILY THEATRE Bristol Hippodrome, St. Augustines Parade Bristol. Tel: 0844 871 3012

Matthew Bourne’s Nutcracker!, Tuesday 17 – Saturday 21 April, 7.30pm; Matinees: Wednesday & Saturday, 2.30pm One of the most popular dance productions ever staged in the UK, Matthew Bourne’s Nutcracker! returns to celebrate its 20th anniversary. This delicious theatrical feast has family-sized helpings of Matthew Bourne's trademark wit, pathos and magical fantasy. It follows Clara’s bittersweet journey from a hilariously bleak Christmas Eve at Dr. Dross’s Orphanage, through a shimmering, ice-skating winter wonderland to the scrumptious candy kingdom of Sweetieland.

THE GREAT OUTDOORS Lacock Abbey, Lacock, Nr Chippenham.

Tel: 01249 730459 www.nationaltrust.org/lacock

BACK TO NATURE Slimbridge Wetland Centre, Slimbridge, Gloucestershire. Tel: 01453 891900

Easter Egg Trail, Sunday 8 & Monday 9 April, 10.30am – 4pm

Easter Holiday Activities, Daily

On your marks, get set and get going around the grounds on this Easter egg trail with a sporty twist. Can you find the record-breaking bunnies hidden around the grounds? If you can, you’ll win a chocolate suprise.

Meet the nenes outside the South Lake Observatory and look around the grounds for special nene couple labels including details of leg www.thebristolmagazine.co.uk

All aboard the ss Great Britain

GET DECORATING Carluccio’s, The Mall, Cribbs Causeway, Bristol.

Tel: 0117 950 8760

Kid’s Easter Biscuit Class, Thursday 5 April Italians get very excited about Easter so celebrate family time with children’s biscuit decorating.

This fun and interactive class will encourage kids to get creative and messy, while parents relax over a coffee, in the knowledge they won’t be doing the clearing up. Children will decorate Easter egg and bunny shaped biscuits with rainbow sprinkles and colourful icing, ahead of the all important taste test.

SAFARI ADVENTURE Longleat, Warminster, Wiltshire.

Tel: 01985 844400 www.longleat.co.uk

Longleat Safari and Adventure Park: Alice in Wonderland, until 9 April The park is being transformed into the magical world of Alice in Wonderland. Visitors will come face to face with a host of familiar characters from the much-loved children’s classic. Alice and the Mad Hatter invite guests to attend the craziest tea party ever in the spectacular surroundings of the Great Hall of Longleat House and there’s the opportunity to go through the looking glass and search for Alice’s golden crown in the mirror maze. Hop on the Easter Eggspress to discover White Rabbit as he rushes through the woods to meet the duchess, and help Humpty Dumpty track down his lost giant eggs in an Easter trail. The Queen of Hearts has turned the gardens into her own rose garden in time for a game of Wonderland croquet. As well as the Easter fun there are also new features including Cheetah Kingdom in the safari park.

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WHAT’Son THEATRE, DANCE & OPERA – listed by venue Desert Crossings at Circomedia

TORN BUT NOT FORGOTTEN Bristol Hippodrome St Augustine’s Parade, Bristol. Box office tel: 0844 847 2325 or visit: www.bristolhippodrome.org.uk

Grease, Monday 2 – Saturday 7 April, Monday – Thursday, 7.30pm; Friday, 5.30pm & 8.30pm; Saturday, 5pm & 8.30pm Grease is coming to the Bristol Hippodrome for one week only. Danny Bayne (winner of ITV’s Grease is the Word) stars as Danny with Carina Gillespie as Sandy. Dust off your leather jackets, pull on your bobby-socks and take a trip to a simpler time as Danny and Sandy fall in love all over again. It’s the original high school musical, featuring the unforgettable songs from the hit movie including You’re the One That I Want, Grease is the Word, Summer Nights, Hopelessly Devoted To You, Sandy, and Greased Lightnin’. So throw your mittens around your kittens and hand jive the night away to this electrifyin’ extravaganza.

Spamalot, Monday 23 – Saturday 29 April, Monday – Saturday, 7.30pm; Wednesday & Saturday, 2.30pm Monty Python’s Spamalot starring Marcus Brigstocke and Todd Carty tells the tale of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round 32 The Bristol Magazine

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Table. It features a bevy (or possibly a brace) of beautiful show girls, witch burnings (cancelled too expensive) not to mention cows, killer rabbits and French people. The show features the hilarious songs He Is Not Dead Yet, Knights of the Round Table, Find Your Grail and of course the Nation's Favourite Comedy Song (Reader’s Digest Poll 2009) Always Look On the Bright Side of Life.

Spamalot

Welsh National Opera, Tuesday 10 – Saturday 14 April, Tuesday & Friday, La traviata, 7.15pm; Wednesday, Beatrice & Benedict, 7.15pm; Thursday & Saturday, The Marraige of Figaro, 7pm In La traviata, Violetta Valéry, a courtesan in 19th century Paris, dreams of a better life.

Alfredo Germont may be the man to provide her with the happy ending her story deserves.

David McVicar’s detailed production evokes a world where Violetta’s aspirations are cruelly defeated by social convention, leaving her to make the ultimate sacrifice for love. Sung in Italian with surtitles in English.

Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing is the inspiration for Berlioz’s opera, here transformed to a Mediterranean setting rich in colour and atmosphere. Beatrice and Benedict are possibly the most famous quarrelsome couple in Western art. Will they make it to the altar on time, or will their feuding repartee destroy their tempestuous love affair?

In The Marriage of Figaro, it’s Figaro and Susanna’s big day. Before they can tie the knot they have more than one hurdle to overcome: Count Almaviva, Figaro’s master, has designs upon Susanna; while Figaro’s failure to repay a loan requires him to marry another woman.

Mistaken identities, surprise revelations and unlikely interventions mean it’s going to be a day that no one in the Count’s household will ever forget. Sung in Italian with surtitles in English.

The Marriage of Figaro Photograph by Bill Cooper

Circomedia St Paul’s Church, Portland Square, Bristol. www.circomedia.com

Desert Crossings, Friday 27 and Saturday 28 April, 8pm A new work, choreographed by one of Africa’s best-admired contemporary dance makers, Gregory Maqoma, and inspired by the interlocking histories of the red rock landscapes of south west England’s jurassic coast and the skeleton coast, Namibia. Once a single continent with a desert environment called Pangaea, our world was gradually torn apart through 250 million years of history.

State of Emergency, which is based in Somerset, presents five dancers from different cultural backgrounds as they journey through Earth’s history, sharing memories, stories, universal hopes and dreams.

The Tobacco Factory Theatre Raleigh Road, Southville, Bristol.

Box office tel: 0117 902 0344 or visit: www.tobaccofactory.com

The Cherry Orchard, Thursday 29 March until Saturday 5 May, please contact theatre for times In his final tragi-comic masterpiece Chekhov portrays an aristocratic family bewildered and

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impotent in the face of financial bankruptcy and the huge social changes sweeping Russia in the early years of the 20th century.

This will be Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory’s third excursion into Chekhov, following its 2005 Three Sisters, and the 2009 SATTF/Bristol Old Vic co-production of Uncle Vanya.

A Pleasing Terror, Sunday 22 April, 8pm In the 150th anniversary of his birth, the ghost stories of MR James retain their power to terrify and amuse. This one-man show retells two of the earliest and eeriest. In Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book, a young Cambridge antiquary discovers the devil in the details of an old book in a medieval town in the French Pyrenees. In The Mezzotint a ghoulish revenge is enacted within a work of art, before the helpless eyes of a museum curator in Oxford.

Age recommendation 13+.

A Pleasing Terror

The Vanishing Horizon, Tuesday 1 – Saturday 5 May, 8.15pm

Wednesday – Saturday, 7.30pm; Saturday, 2.30pm

Recently selected for the British Council Showcase 2011, this piece of theatre uses inventive staging created from battered suitcases, puppets, maps and paper airplanes.

Idle Motion give wings to the unsung female pioneers of aviation, the journeys they took and the freedom they found in flight.

Interwoven with this is the moving modernday account of a young woman’s travels to discover the story of her enstranged grandmother, who had fled the constraints of her life in post-war Britain to settle in South Africa.

Sarah Kane’s Crave is a contemporary classic, a ground-breaking work that challenges notions of what makes a play. Four performers embody the competing voices of a mind in torment and ecstasy. A quartet of anger, desire, frustration and despair. Presented by Actors Touring Company in association with The North Wall.

Instant Wit, Sunday 29 April, 7.30pm This quick-fire comedy improvisation show is based entirely around audience suggestions. It is an updated, invigorated show complete with its own specially commisioned theme music.

Good suggestions receive flying packets of custard; the best of the evening get a bottle of wine.

Bristol Old Vic King Street, Bristol.

Box office tel: 0117 987 77877 www.bristololdvic.org.uk

A Kind of Alaska/Krapp’s Last Tape, Thursday 5 April – Saturday 12 May, please contact theatre for times

The Brewery Theatre North Street, Southville, Bristol.

Box office tel: 0117 902 0344 www.tobaccofactorytheatre.com

A Curious Evening Of Trance and Rap with the Ogden Sisters, Tuesday 17 – Saturday 28 April, 8.15pm Trifle Gathering Productions presents a new comedy by Nick Whitby and Kyla Goodey. It’s 1982 and the world famous Ogden sisters invite you to their table as they voyage through the ethereal regions. This original piece of work is an intimate theatrical experience that looks into the world of mediums and the origins of the spiritualist movement. Drawing together clowning, choreography, magic, animation and tragic comical characters, this show is an absurd and all-embracing experience laced together by a wild yet poignant story.

A Curious Evening of Trance and Rap with the Ogden Sisters

Two short plays by Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter in a rare pairing that brings together two of the most influential writers of the 20th century. In A Kind of Alaska, Deborah wakes after 29 comatose years to a reality she cannot accept, relationships she does not remember and a body she no longer knows. In this brief awakening, she begins to understand that she has spent the prime of her life like this, trapped within a waking sleep. In Krapp’s Last Tape, a 69 year old Krapp listens to a recording of his younger self on his birthday. But, after a life of failure, withdrawal and physical decline, the youthful idealism that confronts him makes the passing of time even more acute.

Illusions, Tuesday 24 – Saturday 28 April, Tuesday, 7.30pm; Wednesday - Saturday, 8.40pm Award-winning Russian playwright Ivan Viripaev makes his UK debut with this new comedy that tackles love, death, loyalty, truth, fiction, hope and despair. Performed in rep with Sarah Kane’s Crave.

Arnolfini Narrow Quay, Bristol.

Box office tel: 0117 917 2300/01 www.arnolfini.org.uk

Laila Diallo & Jane Mason Double Bill, Thursday 5 April, 7.30pm A dance double bill featuring two new works from two contrasting female choreographers, that play with ideas of home and displacement. Leaving, arriving, letting go, holding dear. Laila Diallo, who lives and works in Bristol, finds inspiration in themes of migration, displacement and transience to create a compelling moment of dance, Hold Everything Dear. She is joined on stage by a cast of performers that includes three musicians and composer Jules Maxwell. Jane Mason’s new solo, Singer, unfolds using the most minimal of means. Paying close attention to the intricate possibilities of environment, materials and structures, Jane constructs ephemeral and fragile ‘homes’ and ‘worlds’ inhabited by fragments of connection and separation, love and longing. Jane is based in Devon.

The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Wednesday 18 April - Saturday 12 May, Wednesday, 2pm; Thursday and Friday, 9.30pm; Saturday, 5pm & 9.30pm Written and performed by Stu McLoughlin (Swallows and Amazons, Kneehigh’s The Wild Bride) and Howard Coggins (Treasure Island), this is an ill-researched lesson in cross-dressing Tudor history that you’ll never forget.

Wickham Theatre University of Bristol, Cantock’s Close, Bristol.

Box office tel: 0117 987 7877 www.bristololdvic.org.uk

Crave, Wednesday 25 – Saturday 28 April,

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Hold Everything Dear

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WHAT’Son MUSIC – listed by date Bristol Cathedral Chamber Singers, Friday 6 April, 7.30pm Bristol Cathedral, College Green, Bristol.

Tickets from Providence Music on tel: 0117 927 6536 The Singers perform Faure’s Requiem and other music for Good Friday, conducted by Paul Walton.

Bristol Classical Players, Saturday 14 April, 7.30pm St George’s Bristol, Great George Street, Bristol.

Tickets from the Box Office on tel: 0845 40 24 001 or visit: www.stgeorgesbristol.co.uk The Bristol Classical Players’ Russian series concludes with a contrasting programme of virtuoso works; a sparkling account of Rachmaninov’s fiery First Piano Concerto and Tchaikovsky’s bleak but achingly beautiful final symphony. A towering masterpiece of deeply melancholic music.

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Thursday 19 April, 7.30pm Colston Hall, Bristol. Box office tel: 0117 922 3686 or visit: www.colstonhall.org The BSO’s celebrated Chorus makes a welcome return to Bristol with a musical tale of two cities, followed by Orff’s bawdy yet tender masterpiece.

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Julian Lloyd Webber with the European Union Chamber Ochestra, Friday 20 April, 7.30pm St George’s Bristol, Great George Street, Bristol. Tickets from the Box Office on tel: 0845 40 24 001 or visit: www.stgeorgesbristol.co.uk Celebrated cellist Julian Lloyd Webber is one of the most creative musicians of his generation and an artist who commands instant attention.

From the opening of Handel’s Arrival of the Queen of Sheba to the Mozart symphony that ends the programme, sunshine abounds, with the Haydn Cello Concerto offering up moments of elegance and quiet intensity, crowned by a truly brilliant finale.

the Cabot Choir’s adopted local charity of the year, which works to engage with residents of care homes.

Sir Willard White: St George’s Day Celebration Concert, Monday 23 April, 7.30pm St George’s Bristol, Great George Street, Bristol. Tickets from the Box Office on tel: 0845 40 24 001 or visit: www.stgeorgesbristol.co.uk The opulent voice and powerful presence of Sir Willard White has graced the stages of leading opera houses and concert venues around the world. He is back to celebrate the venue’s namesake saint’s day with a musical feast of classical songs, spirituals and popular pieces.

Bristol Cabot Choir, Saturday 21 April, 7.30pm Clifton Cathedral, Clifton Park, Bristol. Tickets from the ticket office on tel: 0117 968 6822 or from Providence Music.

Bristol Cabot Choir, conducted by Rebecca Holdeman, with Ros Evans (soprano), Kate Woolveridge (alto), Peter Wilman (tenor) and Dyfed Wynn Evans (bass), and accompanied by Claire Alsop (organ) and chamber orchestra (leader Tony Best), will perform the Mozart Requiem together with works by Brahms, Haydn and Mozart. Proceeds will go to Alive!,

Opera star Sir Willard White will perform a St George’s Day celebration concert.

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WHAT’Son OTHER EVENTS – listed by date Have You Had It Long Madam?

Tales from the Antiques Roadshow, Friday 13 April, 7.30pm St George’s Bristol, Great George Street, Bristol. Tickets from the Box Office on tel: 0845 40 24 001 or visit: www.stgeorgesbristol.co.uk In this affectionate glimpse behind the scenes of one of the most successful and longest running television series, Hilary Kay and Paul Atterbury share their fascinating insights. The two familiar faces talk of the hilarious exploits, the major dramas, the off-screen disasters and the most fascinating discoveries.

Made Up - Storytelling Project, Deadline for story requests is Friday 13 April Mayfest, c/o Bristol Old Vic, King Street, Bristol. If you would like to be Made Up email: hello@madeupbristol.co.uk or write to Mayfest Ideas generated from a city-wide call out will be crafted in to personal story experiences to mark celebrations, give as gifts to loved ones, or simply to entertain you. Your idea could be part of a storytelling map of the city which will culminate in a finale event that weaves them all together.

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Berwick Lodge Dog Show, Sunday 22 April, 11am - 4pm Berwick Lodge, Berwick Drive, Bristol. For details about categories and cost please tel: 0117 958 1590 or visit: www.berwicklodge.co.uk Berwick Lodge is hosting a dog show in its 18 acres of estate and woodland. Categories include ‘most adorable’, ‘best child handler’ and ‘golden oldie’ and will be judged by well known dog trainer and Crufts shower, Mandy Blake. The team from the Berwick Lodge kitchen will be flipping ‘The Story’ burgers and hot dogs with caremelised onions and other BBQ’d delights. Teas and coffees will be served on the lawn, and a full bar service will be available from inside the boutique hotel.

Author Event: Royal Biographer Penny Junor, Thursday 17 May, 6pm for 6.30pm Bristol Grammar School, University Road, Bristol. Tickets £7/£5 available from www.bristolgrammarschool.co.uk/events/litera ry-events.aspx Bristol Grammar School and Hodder and Stoughton in association with Foyles Bookshop present Penny Junor talking about her new book Prince William; Born to be King.

Argentinian Tango Course Sunday 22 April, 7pm The Redlamd Club, Burlington Road, Bristol.

Six week course costs £48. Book on tel: 07981 756965 or visit: www.tangowest.co.uk The popularity of tango dancing has grown since Strictly Come Dancing hit the BBC and now Tango West presents this course for absolute beginners. Each class runs for between two and two and a half hours. All are welcome to come along, learn all the basics and start dancing.

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WITH SONG IN THEIR HEARTS

For dementia sufferers, locked in their own world, and their carers, joining a singing group has helped them find a key to communication and pleasure. Robert Hurst of Bristol’s Singing for the Brain explains

I

t was in a church hall in Newbury, that I first encountered Singing for the Brain and met the founder and inspiration behind this innovative service of the Alzheimer’s Society, Chreanne Montgomery Smith. Back then there were just a handful of groups. I knew that day that I’d discovered something special and resolved to bring it to the west of England.

It is now universally acknowledged that it is possible for many older people to live far better lives and remain at home for far longer if they do not become isolated and have access to stimulating and caring services such as those run by the Alzheimer’s Society. I approached its Bristol office.

After an excellent short training course, a small group of people with dementia and their carers met for the first time in a hall in Westbury-onTrym to discover the joys of the specially devised singing programme, Singing for the Brain, which I led, with staff and a few friends/volunteers from the local Alzheimer’s Society. As the group grew we moved to the hall of the St Monica Trust in Cote Lane.

There are now more than 115 similar groups nationally and seven in the Bristol/Bath area; in Westbury, Whitchurch, Horfield, Withywood, Thornbury and Bath all led by trained musical leaders. Our volunteers have become an essential part of the sessions. There are always waiting lists so we need to fund more groups and make it accessible in outlying areas.

We have seen people who can barely ❝ speak, transformed by the music to the huge surprise and satisfaction of those accompanying them

❞

Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia have been subject to much more media attention in recent years and the launch of the National Dementia Strategy in 2009 has encouraged excellent work. We were able to attract BBC attention which resulted in a critically acclaimed BBC2 Wonderland programme based on members of two of our groups.

Working with all who attend on a weekly basis has been a profoundly rich and moving experience for all the volunteers and leaders involved. It usually takes three weeks to settle in. We have seen people, who can barely speak, transformed by the music, to the huge surprise and satisfaction of those accompanying them and indeed us all. They are able to sing not just songs that unlock old memories but also experience the thrill of learning new vocal routines and participating in all the other features of the session.

We hear that conversations at home sometimes improve and there is the added bonus of newly formed friendships with people in the same boat. You don’t have to have any singing ability as we are there to have fun, “we don’t need to impress but we do need to express,” is a favourite phrase used.

While reasonably inexpensive to deliver, these peer support services constantly depend on local funding. By supporting the work of the Alzheimer’s Society you will be able to help sustain the services in this area.

For further information about the work of the Alzheimer’s Society including details of your nearest Singing for the Brain group, tel: 0117 961 0693, or email: bristol@alzheimers.org.uk. There are currently about 750,000 people in the UK with a form of dementia. ■ 38 The Bristol Magazine

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ALL THE FUN OF FUNICULAR James Russell takes a closer look at a site many of us pass every day unaware of its existence, but which conceals some fascinating social history about Bristol in Georgian and Victorian times and during the Second World War

A

lmost six years ago I took a tour that has remained in my mind ever since. It wasn’t a very long tour, or a particularly beautiful one, but it ranks with a ride in one of the M-Shed cranes as one of the strangest and most uniquely Bristolian experiences I’ve enjoyed.

My guide was Clifton resident Maggie Shapland and our destination the Clifton Rocks Railway.

The chances are you’ve driven past the lower of the Rocks Railway’s two stations, set into the cliff alongside the Portway, just around the corner from Hotwells. The façade bears elegant arches and the railway’s name, but beyond that there is little to see as you accelerate away, heading for the zoo or the M5. Like the timbers of the abandoned jetty on the riverbank, and the semi-circular 18th century arcade close by, the station entrance is a ghostly reminder of a time when the great and the good visited Bristol to take the waters at the Hot Well.

It takes some imagining now, but Hotwells was a popular Georgian tourist destination, and the spa continued to attract visitors – albeit of a less genteel class – through most of Victoria’s reign. In 1867 the Pump Room was demolished so that the river could be widened, but the spa was given a new lease of life when, in 1890, work began on a funicular railway that would carry passengers from the mainline railway station at Hotwells up through the cliff to Clifton. Spa water, meanwhile, would be pumped to the Clifton Grand Spa and Hydropathic Institution, built next door to the top station.

The idea of building a railway inside a cliff may seem rather odd to us now, but the building of railways in difficult circumstances was a defining pastime of the Victorian age.

Besides, when the Clifton Rocks Railway opened in 1893 it was an instant hit. The system used the force of gravity to drive pairs of carriages simultaneously up and down the tunnel, with the train at the upper station loaded with a ballast of water to give it the necessary weight. Multiple sets of brakes, 40 The Bristol Magazine

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meanwhile, made this train safer than most, and almost half a million people decided to give it a try in the first year.

Unfortunately for the Rocks Railway public attention had turned from spas to the seaside, and the trains eventually ran for less than 50 years. By the outbreak of the Second World War the Portway had been widened and the railway was closed, but the tunnel was soon to find other uses – as an air raid shelter first of all and then as a safe underground base for the BBC. At the lower end of the bombproof tunnel four rooms were built, complete with ventilation and drainage systems, standby generators and accommodation for technical staff.

Broadcasts began in September 1941 and continued for the duration of the war; the BBC only abandoned the tunnel completely in 1960, leaving it deserted and forgotten.

Hundreds of people once ❝ sheltered in the tunnel during air raids and the shelter spaces with their rows of benches retain a unique atmosphere

❞

Or mostly forgotten. Those who had lived or worked or sheltered in the tunnel certainly did not forget, and when Maggie Shapland and other enthusiasts began exploring the possibility of restoring the Rocks Railway they found plenty of support. Beginning in 2003, Maggie and her colleagues cleared tons of rubble from the Clifton end of the tunnel, installed lighting and restored the splendid railings around the station.

This enabled them to attract people for events like the Open Doors weekend, and when I visited the tunnel it was possible to explore all the way down to the Hotwells station.

At the time Maggie was talking about setting up a charitable

PORTWAY PORTAL: the old Clifton Rocks Railway at the foot of Avon Gorge used to carry people up to take the waters at Clifton

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RESTORED: the magnificent railings at Clifton, at the top of Avon Gorge

trust to manage the restoration project and, almost six years on the Clifton Rocks Railway Trust has become so well established that Maggie was invited to a Buckingham Palace garden party last year. During three Open Days in 2011 the Trust entertained more than 2,000 people at the top station, and also ran 56 tours of the tunnel.

In September 90-year-old Dorothy Blackwell visited the tunnel as part of her birthday celebrations. Her grandfather, George George of Hotwells, had begun life working in the quarries of Avon Gorge before moving to London to build tunnels for the London Underground, in the process acquiring skills that came in useful when he became a gangmaster during the construction of the Rocks Railway. He subsequently spent 15 years working as a conductor on the railway.

There are those who dream of reopening the railway itself, but given the prohibitive costs involved this is not likely to happen. It is extraordinary that the railway was built and operated successfully in the first place, and what we will probably see happening in the future is a less ambitious – but still fantastic – restoration. One of the trust’s jobs has been to

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canvas opinion from the public on what to do with the tunnel, and people who visit the site in person tend to agree that the best option is to restore both stations while leaving the wartime structure intact as a museum.

Hundreds of people once sheltered in the tunnel during air raids, and the shelter spaces with their rows of benches retain a unique atmosphere; one suggestion is to establish a museum relating to the tunnel’s wartime uses. One could use sound effects in one of the shelters to recreate the experience of a bombing raid, while restoration of the BBC studios might enable enthusiasts to broadcast inside the station.

Importantly, the Rocks Railway Trust has the support both of the City Council and of the Avon Gorge Hotel, which stands beside the Clifton station and owns 95 per cent of the railway.

With the Suspension Bridge so close by, it makes perfect sense to bring this wonderful old tourist attraction back to life; if anyone has an opinion about how this should be done, or memories, please get in touch with the trust. ■ The next open day is Sunday 15 April. For more details visit: www.cliftonrocksrailway.org.uk

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ARTSgardens &EXHIBITIONS CITY Philip Cunliffe, Ceramics

PETER REDDICK

Peter Reddick, Baobab

RWA Queens Road, Clifton, Bristol.

Tel: 0117 973 5129 www.rwa.org.uk

Until 22 April

▲ NEW MOON

END OF THE LAND Grant Bradley Gallery Number One St Peter’s Court, Bedminster Parade, Bristol. Tel: 0117 9637673 www.grantbradleygallery.co.uk

Guild Gallery 68/70 Park Street, Bristol.

Tel: 0117 926 5548 www.bristolguild.co.uk.

Until 28 April

Until 14 April A return visit to the Guild for seven artists including Charmaine Williamson, Caroline James, Jill Jarvis, Patrick Collins, Claire Hall, Erika Bibbings and Philip Cunliffe. They present new and exciting work in watercolour, acrylic, silk batik, collagraphs, monoprints, jewellery, ceramics and mosaics.

Angie Kenber gained her honours degree in Fine Art at Bristol UWE in 2000. Her work has recently been exhibited in galleries across London and Oxford, as well as three times in the New Gallery at the RWA. This new body of work is inspired by two ends of land, the Isles of Orkney and St Ives.

Angie Kenber, Painted Landscape

SHILPA GUPTA Arnolfini 16 Narrow Quay, Bristol. Tel: 0117 917 2300 www.arnolfini.org.uk

Until 22 April Someone Else is Shilpa Gupta’s first major solo exhibition in the UK. She creates artwork using a variety of media including photography, sound and video to examine such themes as desire and conflict. Shilpa’s application of technology in her works reveals her interest in how media affects our understanding of the world; considering technology as an extension of body and mind. The exhibition will include her major installation Singing Cloud, an amorphous cluster of 4000 black microphones susepended from the ceiling. Rather than registering sound, the microphones are reversewired and emit sounds travelling in ripples over the surface. This exhibition is of her work to date, as well as new work.

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Peter Reddick, founder of Spike Print Studio and co-founder of Spike Island presents Beautiful World. He is one of the leading wood engravers in the UK and this exhibition ecompasses 50 years of artistic practise including colour woodcuts, lithographs and previously unseen watercolours.

EXHIBITION OF PHOTOGRAPHY Bristol Folk House 40a Park Street, Bristol.

Tel: 0117 926 2987

Until 3 May An exhibition of mixed photography by members and users of St Paul’s Darkroom – a photography facility for the practise of traditional silver, wet-based photography. It will also showcase photography by Helen James, a series that depicts the lives of people from the Forest of Dean, and Nicola Williams from Bristol shows her experiments with black and white camera film.

Helen James, Belonging to the Forest

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The Great Conwy Sands by J I Bridgland Welsh Journey Judith I Bridgland

Lime Tree Gallery, 84 Hotwell Road, Bristol BS8 4UB

April 28 - May 26

Tel 0117 929 2527

www.limetreegallery.com

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ARTS&EXHIBITIONS JUDITH BRIDGLAND Lime Tree Gallery 84 Hotwell Road, Bristol.

Tel: 0117 929 2527 www.limetreegallery.com Judith Bridgland, Extract from Rhossili Bay

Barry Cawston, The Tibetan Cowboy

28 April – 26 May

▲ Beaux Arts 12 – 13 York Street, Bath. Tel: 01225 464850 www.beauxartsbath.co.uk

23 April – 12 May Award winning Bristol photographer, Barry Cawston, will be exhibiting new work from such diverse locations as the Yangstse river, the Brazilian rainforest and Avonmouth Docks.

HELEN SIMMONDS

Helen Simmonds, Sunlit Lemons

SCULPTURE EXHIBITION

▲

BARRY CAWSTON

Bristol Botanic Garden University of Bristol Botanic Garden, Stoke Park Road, Bristol. Tel: 0117 331 4906 www.bristol.ac.uk/botanicgarden

6 – 9 April The garden is hosting its first ever major sculpture exhibition.

Inspired by its natural beauty, the sculptors will display metalwork, stained glass, steel, wood and paper. The sculpture will be sited in positions around the garden. Exhibitors include Willa Ashworth, Reece Ingram, Susan Long, Pete Moorhouse and Aili Purdy.

Alexander Gallery 122 Whiteladies Road, Clifton, Bristol.

Tel: 0117 973 4692 www.alexander-gallery.co.uk

1 -– 31 April An exhibition of contemporary still-life paintings that draw on simplicity, light and space. Helen Simmonds’ compositions, which often just comprise a bowl or jug and some fruit, reflect her training as a sculptor at Bath Academy of Art. She deliberately places ordinary and unassuming objects in very carefully premeditated arrangements, emphasising both the space between them, and the space around them. Working as far as possible in natural light, Simmonds’ paintings have a sense of peace and calm.

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Nigel Cann, Monolithic Installations

Judith Bridgland is one of Scotland’s most successful artists. She was born in Australia but trained in Glasgow, Scotland and her bold colourful Scottish landscapes have led to exhibitions in Scotland, London and the rest of the UK as well as further afield in America, Russia and Sweden. Judith visited Wales for the first time last year, and the result is a one off, limited edition of The Great Welsh Journey, bold landscape paintings in oil and acrylic, together with a series of drawings and 40 postcard size paintings, tracking Judith’s journey around the Principality. Working in oils, her bold, vigorous rhythmical strokes of impasto paint reflect nature’s contrasts and harmonies.

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CITYarchive

AND THE BAND PLAYED ON A century ago this month Bristol-born clergyman Robert Bateman won a place in history for his bravery, conducting the band which kept playing as the Titanic sank. Lindsey Harrad looks into his remarkable story

T

his month, on 10 April, marks the centenary of the sinking of the ‘unsinkable’ ship, RMS Titanic, the most opulent and acclaimed ocean liner of her day. The wealthy elite packed out the first class cabins along with hundreds more in second and third classes, but many of those who celebrated securing a ticket for the great ship’s maiden journey from Southampton to New York were destined to become victims of what The Times Dispatch headline described at the time as The World’s Greatest Marine Disaster, a tragedy that claimed over 1,517 lives, almost two thirds of those on board.

After striking an iceberg shortly before midnight, Titanic disappeared under the sea completely by 2.20am. The New York Times reported that when another ship arrived at the scene at daybreak to attempt a rescue, alerted by Titanic’s wireless distress signals, “The Carpathia found only the lifeboats and wreckage of what had been the biggest steamship afloat”.

Titanic had been built for the White Star Line at the Harland and Wollf shipyard in Belfast at a cost of over $7 million, but surprisingly, given Bristol’s maritime connections, there was relatively little direct impact on the city’s citizens. However, one of the most intriguing characters on board Titanic was a Bristolian – the Reverend Robert James Bateman. Born and educated in England, he travelled extensively in the USA during his youth, and became a Baptist minister at the age of 21. Born in 1860 to Charles Bateman and his wife Hester in Staple Hill, the family were recorded as living in Oldbury Court, Stapleton, in 1881.

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Robert Bateman married Londoner Emily Jane Hall in early 1880 and the couple went on to produce seven children. By 1912, after stints in both Knoxville, Tennessee, and Baltimore, Maryland, Robert and Emily were living in Jacksonville, Florida.

In 1912, after visiting relatives in Bristol, touring an orphanage and reputedly arranging a headstone for his mother’s grave, Bateman, accompanied by his sister-in-law Ada Ball, bought a passage back to America on Titanic. Records show that he travelled second class on ticket number 1166, which cost £12 10s 6d.

❝

Brother forced me into the last boat saying that he would follow me later. I believe I was the last person to leave the ship

❞

With a formidable reputation as a passionate Salvationist, preaching fire and brimstone to his followers, he was also a champion of the disadvantaged, and was apparently known as ‘Uncle Bob’ to the thousands of children he worked with.

Through his work spreading the Gospel, he always gravitated to working with the homeless, the needy, the dissolute and the incarcerated, and after he had emigrated, eventually founded the Central City Mission in Jacksonville.

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ULTIMATE SACRIFICE: a detail from the memorial sculpture at Southampton to the engineer officers on board the Titanic who all lost their lives in the sinking

Main picture, the Titanic at Southampton

The Encyclopedia Titanica (www.encyclopediatitanica.org) records that according to Walter Lord’s 1955 book and subsequent film, as Bateman assisted Ada into lifeboat number ten he said: “If I don’t meet you again in this world, I will in the next”. Ada herself later recalled the following memory of their parting: “Brother forced me into the last boat, saying he would follow me later. I believe I was the last person to leave the ship.

Brother threw his overcoat over my shoulders as the boat was being lowered away and as we neared the water, he took his black necktie and threw it to me with the words, ‘Goodbye, God bless you’!”

But Bateman is also linked with another of the most famous and romantic stories of the sinking, which was immortalised by director James Cameron in his Oscar-winning film Titanic, starring Leonardo di Caprio and Kate Winslet. At Captain Edward Smith’s request, the priest had led a Sunday service on board with the ship’s band, and it was apparently Bateman who conducted the band as they determinedly played throughout the evacuation and final sinking.

Harold Bride, the surviving wireless operator, described the last desperate hours of the crew and passengers to the New York Times and said: “The way the band kept going was a noble thing… and the last I saw of the band, when I was floating out to sea with my lifebelt on, it was still on deck playing Autumn.”

According to other eyewitnesses, after seeing Ada safely onto a lifeboat, Bateman returned to the band and urged them to strike up Nearer my God To Thee, his favourite hymn, and passengers and crew who remained on the ship joined in the singing as the ship continued to sink. Again, according to some sources, Bateman was still conducting Abide with Me as he and the band went under the icy waters of the North Atlantic and Titanic made her final journey to the ocean floor.

Of the 2,207 on board only 712 survived, the victims were mainly third-class passengers and crew, although numerous men from all classes were lost, including the Reverend Bateman, who died aged 51. His body was subsequently recovered by the cable-laying ship Mackay-Bennett and identified by his possessions, including a gold watch and chain, a masonic charm pin and fountain pen. On 6 May 1912 his remains were returned to his wife in Jacksonville. After a ‘hero’s funeral’ presided over by 11 ministers, according to the Florida Times-Union, Bateman was laid to rest in the Evergreen Cemetery, Jacksonville on 12 May 1912.

In a further twist to this touching tale, a story that emerged many years later revealed that the Reverend Bateman had sent two postcards from on board ship, mailed at Cherbourg where Titanic had stopped off for supplies en route. He had sent one postcard to his wife, the other to his nephew, and they arrived several weeks after he died.

In 2007, one of these postcards was auctioned for 15,000 Euros. In the postcard to his nephew, Bateman had written, with his usual confidence in God’s care, but also with ominous foresight: ‘Tom, if this ship goes to the bottom, I shall not be there, I shall be up yonder. Think of it!”’ ■

www.thebristolmagazine.co.uk

What happened to Bristolians on board There were nine people who lived in Bristol aboard the Titanic when she sank. Reading the statistics about each one is a chilling indictment of the British class system in Edwardian times – if you were a third class passenger your chances of survival were greatly reduced.

Some men, like tinsmith Ernest Crease, 19, Thomas Everett, of 7 Treefield Place, St Werburghs, and John Ware, a painter and decorator, of Grosvenor Road, St Pauls, were heading to the States in search of work. All were lost that night, as was Edward Stanley who had been on his way to see his brother in Cleveland, Ohio.

John Ware’s wife Florence, who was travelling with him, was in one of the lifeboats and rescued by crew of the Carpathia. She tried to send a Marconigramm (an early telegram) to her mother. It is hindsight that makes this all the more poignant: ‘Safe but uncertain Jack.’

Frederick Shellard had been staying at 520 Gloucester Road, Horfield, before sailing. His body was never recovered. Similarly, James Ransom, a 33-year-old saloon steward from Knowle, was also drowned and his body never identified.

Mrs Ada Ball was a widow who had moved to Bristol from London, and was accompanied by the Rev Bateman, her brother-in-law, as recorded in the story facing.

John Widgery, 37, was a bath steward on the Titanic.

He survived by pure luck. Here is the description of his last hours on the ship. ‘Widgery went to bed at 10 o’clock on the night of April 14, 1912.

A noise, like a grating sound, FASCINATING: the story continues to fascinate writers woke him: “One of the men and readers of fact and fiction got up and opened up a port (hole) and it was blowing very cold and we told him to shut it.”

Then the order came down for all the men to take their lifebelts and go up on deck. Widgery went to his assigned station, lifeboat 7 on the starboard side. However, the Purser sent him to 9 where he assisted a storekeeper in putting in boxes of biscuits in that boat. The Purser then grabbed his arm, told him to get in the boat and help the ladies in. He remembered an elderly lady who would not go into the boat, instead returning back down the stairs.

“The Chief Officer called for more women and there seemed to be none and he told the men to get in, four or five of them.” They were then lowered into the water and ordered to row about a hundred yards off. “I cut loose the oars – I was the only one that had a knife amongst us – and we stood off a little ways.”’

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The Bristol Magazine 47

The George Inn Manor Road, Abbots Leigh, BS8 3RP tel: 01275 372 467

REVIEW

THE VERY BEST OF BRITISH T he morning after an evening going out for dinner can produce feelings of guilt or even physical unease about the sheer amount of food and empty calories one has consumed. But I can say, hand on – hopefully healthy – heart, that this morning after a delicious three course dinner at The George Inn at Abbots Leigh, I am full of energy, and rather than any regret about what I’ve scoffed, I’m thinking that I couldn’t half fancy some of that pub smoked mackerel for my tea tonight.

The pub may be a bit off the beaten track for some of us, being a few miles out of the city centre, but I assure you it’s worth the trip if your thing is great British food served in unpretentious surroundings. The George may be serving Premier League food but it still looks like a country inn, even down to the bloke at the bar in a flat cap drinking real ale. There are no fruit machines, no Sky Sports and no music. You can hear yourself think. Bliss.

And the menu is a single sheet, so there are no hours spent dithering or turning the pages. While we waited for our starters we were brought homemade bread straight from the oven, so hot it melted the butter. It was a sign. A good sign of things to come.

Chef/owner Dan Powell has taken some great British dishes and delivers them impeccably and with charm. If I tell you there’s nothing poncy about his menu, you’ll understand what I mean.

Bar snacks, for instance, include tempting treats such as homemade Scotch egg served with pear chutney. Perfect with a pint after a country walk.

If you’re a fan of fresh fish you’ll welcome the news that The George Inn gets its fresh fish daily from Cornwall, and is the first restaurant in the Bristol area to receive its delivery each day.

My starter was pub smoked mackerel with a crispy, light crab beignet, slices of soused cucumber and celeriac remoulade. This was streets ahead of any supermarket smoked fish I’ve had before – subtle, smoky, moist. Superb. The prices aren’t poncy either, with starters ranging from £4.75 to £6.25. Mr M’s devilled whitebait with sweet chilli mayo was good too, fresh and crispy.

Mr M opted to pick an item from the supper list, priced at £9.95. An excellent Goan vegetable curry arrived with mint raita and rice, the smell alone proved tempting. Happily, it tasted as good as it smelt. But I think I had the best deal, wild sea bass cooked en papillotte, the waitress kindly opening the paper parcel 48 The Bristol Magazine

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April 2012

in case the steam burnt my fingers (I didn’t ask her to, honest!)

Out came the scent of Chinese spices, including star anise and ginger, the dark liquor oozing umami, or what we call savouriness, but never overwhelming the fish. And not a bone in sight. A bowl of noodles with pak choi and baby sweetcorn was an ideal accompaniment. Main courses range from around a tenner to £14.75 and there are no side dishes entailing extra charges.

The George may be serving ❝ Premier League food but it still looks like a country inn even down to the bloke at the bar in a flat cap drinking real ale

❞

All the while we were enjoying a bottle of Pinot Grigio at £16.80, Mr M had also sampled the Cornish Doombar bitter.

To establish The George’s much deserved place on Bristol’s culinary map, Dan Powell is planning a series of events, beginning on 29 March with a wine tasting menu. Dishes from that threecourse menu include roast loin of venison with spiced, braised red cabbage and a horseradish potato croquette, with The George’s signature sticky toffee pudding to finish – all for £36.50.

But, back in the room, and we’re enjoying reading the pudding menu (note the down-to-earth puddings, not desserts), with plenty there to make one smile. There are even 11 flavours of Marshfield ice cream to choose from, and for £3.50 you can enjoy a selection with warm fudge sauce.

To welcome the first days of spring and the early rhubarb season, I chose a classic creme brulée accompanied by crisp and sweet sticks of rhubarb, retaining their perfect pink hue. The perfect finale to an excellent meal.

If we get fine weather over Easter I should imagine the gardens would be a pleasant sunny spot to sit. But if you would like to find out for yourself if Mr Powell’s cooking is as good as I’ve said, I would recommend that you book.

GMc

WORTH A VISIT: The George Inn at Abbots Leigh looks unassuming but its food is superb

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ITALIAN BAR & KITCHEN

2 for 1

Mondays: 6pm - 9pm

offer on piz on Mon zas day nights

Tuesday to Saturday: 12 - 2pm, 6pm - 10pm Closed Sundays

w

he

nd

rink is

bought

Lunch offer 2 course £12.95, 3 course £15.95 including a glass of house wine

If you would like to make a reservation please call 0117 973 0496 7 North View, Westbury Park, Bristol BS6 7PT

www.thebristolmagazine.co.uk

April 2012

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FOOD&DRINK

Foodie bites ■ The Devilled Egg Kitchen Academy in Bristol, is offering people the chance to get out of their culinary rut with a series of cookery workshops.

Run by head chef Barbora Stiess, the classes will tackle topics including fish filleting and cooking, dairy free dishes and how to create the ultimate dinner party. The Devilled Egg Cookery School is based in state-of-the-art kitchens at Nailsea Electrical, Gloucester Road. Classes start at £45.

For details visit: www.102cookeryschool.co.uk.

■ A two-day festival in celebration of the British chilli industry is being staged at Bath Racecourse in May, bringing a host of musical stars along too. KT Tunstall, The Blockheads and Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel will be headlining. The Somerset Chilli Festival runs over the weekend of 26 and 27 May and is open from 10am each day. During the day, people will enjoy chilli related events and experiences, including a chilli eating contest, food sampling and the chance to meet British growers. Then, once the sun goes down, organisers Jamonit Events will be bringing on the live music, including indie giants The Wedding Present. Tickets are £35 for the weekend, or £60 for a ticket plus camping. Visit: www.jamonitevents.co.uk.

■ You can usually judge a good Chinese restaurant by the number of Chinese people choosing to dine there, and Dynasty in Thomas Street, is one such place. Voted as one of the top five in the UK by The Observer & Guardian, the restaurant has just launched a new ‘taste of home’ menu.

Each item featured on the 12-dish menu represents a traditional dish.

Recipes from the Sichuan region include braised pork with tangy pickled cabbage and king prawns with pickled chillies, while from the northeast, there’s dong Bei Pork with chive dumplings and braised Three Earths, a combination of potatoes, eggplant and peppers.

Hot stuff

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New door-to-door service delivers diet Eating too much of the wrong food could not only be making us fat, it can also be making us ill, that’s according to lawyer turned professional nutritionist Frances Hawley of Health is Happiness.

Frances, 33, is living proof that changing one’s diet can improve your health. She was in a high powered job, working long hours and suffering from chronic stress. But, as a lover of good food, she changed the way she ate, her health improved and she decided to train for a new career, helping others to enjoy their food and feel good too.

Health is Happiness allows people in the Bristol area to have home-cooked food delivered to their door. This, say Frances, is the first diet delivery company for the area.

Each programme is tailored to the customer’s needs, whether it be to lose weight, or for a single working person to get the right nutrients.

The freshly prepared food, which comprises breakfast, lunch, dinner and two snacks, are delivered first thing in the

DELICIOUS: a zesty salmon salad will put a spring in your step

morning (at around 6.30am when they’re left at a mutually agreed spot). As Frances says: “There’s no need for you to do any shopping or calorie counting and our chefs make sure there is plenty of colour and flavour to keep you interested.”

“The benefits of our packages depend on what you want to achieve, whether it be a diet that supports you white

A sweet treat An Easter egg trail and the promise of lots of chocolate for sale is sure to lure families down to the Harbourside over Easter weekend, Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 April, when the free Chocolate Festival comes to town. Free activities, sponsored by Bristol City Council, include Drawn in Bristol offering colouring-in sessions. Learn about how Bristol invented the Easter egg, take to the water and find the Easter Bunny on Bristol Ferry Boat Company’s ferry trips, or enjoy the chance to try to win a prize with the Easter egg trail.

you’re training for a marathon, or a diet especially designed for you and your baby while you’re breastfeeding.”

Programmes start from threeday trials. A typical five-day package would be around £179, and that includes free delivery to most parts of Bristol.

To find out more visit the Health is Happiness website: www.healthishappiness.co.uk

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ere are many reasons to dine at the

IndIan FIne dInIng

What’s yours!

Cocktails 2 for 1 6pm-7pm

The Mint Room Longmead Gospel Hall, Lower Bristol Road, Bath BA2 3EB 01225 446656 • www.themintroom.co.uk • Car parking available

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MORE THAN A CHOCOLATE BOX: luxurious cream truffles, pralines, caramels and more. Signature Cabinet from Hotel Chocolat, £160. Hotel Chocolat, George White Street, Cabot Circus. Tel: 0117 9292329. www.hotelchocolat.co.uk

TAKE YOUR PICK: original gourmet chocolates from Montezuma. Enticing truffle boxes each containing sixteen luxury truffles, £11.99. Available from the Bristol Guild, 68-70 Park Street, Bristol.

Tel: 0117 9265548. www.montezumas.co.uk

DRINK IT: Rubis chocolate wine.

Luscious red cherries oozing with chocolate, £10. The Wine Tasting Company, The Barn, Dinghurst Road, Churchill.

Tel: 01934 853574. www.thewinetastingco.com

Embrace Easter with the finest range of chocolate and treats available in Bristol

Delightfully Indulgent

SAFARI: giraffe egg, £10.95 and zebra stripe eggs, £7.95 each, from Harvey Nichols. Cabot Circus, Bristol. Tel: 0117 9168888. www.harveynichols.com

DIY: try your hand at making your own professional chocolates with one of the many workshops available at The Chocolate Tart. Prices start from £20 for a workshop. The Chocolate Tart, The Old Malthouse, Congresbury.

Tel: 01934 833111. www.thechocolatetart.co.uk

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COCOA BEAN: made with beans from the Sambirano valley in North West Madagascar, the Venezuelan Black blend is perfect with food. Willie’s Cacao products available from Chandos Deli, Quakers Friars, Cabot Circus.

Tel: 0117 9349611. www.williescacao.com

HOT CHOCOLATE: the classic combination of chocolate and honeycomb is lifted with a hint of chilli, and the Parisian inspired macaroon discs come in a range of tempting flavours.

Chilli honeycomb, from £6 and macaroon discs, from £5.

Available from John Lewis, The Mall at Cribbs Causeway.

Tel: 0117 9591100 www.jameschocolates.co.uk

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Strictly for the grown-ups If you’re going to indulge in some chocolate this Easter, rather than gorge yourself on the cheap, mass produced confectionery, why not treat yourself to a couple of select gourmet pieces instead?

Somerset chocolatier Louise Sturmey is fast winning a legion of fans for her beautiful looking – and tasting – handmade chocolates which she sells under the delightful name of Maison Loulou Chocolates. You can tell already by the name that these naughty but nice treats are far too good for the children, and their fillings are decidedly adult too. There’s Venezuelan cacao truffle, or sea salted caramel, or the slightly spicy combination of ginger and fennel.

Like good olive oil or Champagne, Maison Loulou is proud of the provenance of its ingredients. Louise makes her milk chocolate using single couverture from Java and the cream is organic Somerset double cream.

Sample Maison Loulou’s wares at The Chocolate Festival at the Harbourside over Easter weekend, or order online visit: maisonloulouchocolates.co.uk. A box of a dozen dark chocolates of assorted fillings, including dark cherry and jasmine flavour, is £8.50. They arrive in a beribboned box with clear and mouthwatering view of the goodies inside.

The Brass Pig brings back the basics with a twist.

Our philosophy is that we simply provide what our customers want and deserve. Split between two floors we have the traditional feel of a public house but have adapted it into a modern setting.

Offering outstanding cocktails, a varied selection of premium spirits from around the world matched by an ambient atmosphere and a fresh seasonal locally sourced food menu.

Find us on Facebook

Brasspigbristol

1, Clifton Heights, Triangle West Bristol BS8 1EJ (T) 0117 329 4471

www.thebrasspig.co.uk

www.thebristolmagazine.co.uk

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BUSINESSnews

Pop-up shop showcases rough luxe

Support for balloon fiesta A tour of the Cameron Balloon factory for representatives from 40 local businesses kicked off the launch of the 2012 Bristol International Balloon Fiesta.

This was the first in a series of 100 Club networking events.

The 100 Club invites businesses to invest £2,000 in the festival, with members receiving a package of benefits including corporate hospitality, balloon flight vouchers, brand advertising and VIP tickets to the event, which runs from 9 – 12 August.

The Fiesta is a free event and a major tourist attraction, recognised as one of the UK’s top five outdoor events. For more information about the Fiesta 100 Club, contact Ben Hardy, tel: 0117 953 5884, visit: www.bristolballoonfiesta.co.uk

News in brief ■ Professor Kevin Thompson OBE, director of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, has been appointed Chair of the RWA Board of Trustees. He succeeds Dr Norman Biddle, who has stepped down after three years in office.

Professor Thompson has had a varied career in the arts. He studied trumpet and composition, and conducting. He was awarded scholarships for master classes in Europe, with Pierre Thibaud in Paris, and in America with Pierre Boulez, gaining his doctorate in 1983, and in 1992, a Winston Churchill Fellowship taking him to the American music schools Juilliard, Eastman and Curtis. He has played with the CBSO, and was founding principal of the new Birmingham Conservatoire. He has been a member of the Prime Minister's High Level Strategy Group on international students and is a broadcaster and programme host. Kevin Thompson will take up his new role in July.

■ Brunel’s ss Great Britain has launched an events brochure and, together with new menus, is promoting its entertaining spaces to the private and corporate community in Bristol. The tourist attraction has won more than 30 national and international awards, including a Visit England silver award for business tourism in 2010. As the ss Great Britain Trust is a charity the money generated from events and the corporate partnership scheme helps care for the ship.

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An interiors business is the latest popup shop to hit the streets of Bristol.

Dig Haüshizzle stocks a collection of vintage and antique furniture, including designer pieces, lighting, taxidermy and home wares. Its style could loosely be described as rough luxe.

The new shop opened recently at 6 Philadelphia Street in Quakers Friars, Cabot Circus and will remain open until 29 April. The shop is a new hireable project space set up by Antlers Gallery and will be available for future art exhibitions, product launches, and other creative projects.

Dig Haüshizzle was created in 2010

by Cassandra Linton and Edward Nicholas who were looking for individual pieces for their own home.

Cassandra said: “We struggled to find the individual pieces we wanted as we had such little spare time to look. Since then a collection of stock has been forming and we launched

our website in October. I have since left my main job to focus wholly on the project and to master restoration skills.

“Our aim for Dig Haüshizzle is to bring individual style furniture in an online collection for all of us out there who do not have time to trawl flea markets, antiques fairs and so on, to find something unique for their home.”

Ultimate in cool and classy camper vans Husband and wife team, Philip and Sarah Heaton, of Westbury-on-Trym have combined his skills as a cabinet maker and her talent for interior design to convert a small fleet of VW camper vans for people to hire.

Cool Classy Campers consist of three vintage VW campers which have been painstakingly restored mechanically and aesthetically. They are available for the weekend or longer, and are ideal for west country holidays. Pulling up in one of these iconic campers on a surfers’ beach would certainly turn a few heads.

Visit: www.coolclassycampers.co.uk

Ethical solar power ‘still worth £££s’ There has been much talk recently about solar power and Government support, and indeed whether harnessing the sun’s power to create energy can work financially and practically.

Bristol based Ethical Solar firmly believes that homeowners and businesses can still get lucrative financial returns, in spite of the government’s reduction to the feed-in tariff incentives.

The feed-in tariff was introduced in April 2010, as a scheme to boost investment in

the much underfunded renewable energy infrastructure in the UK. It offers a fixed price guaranteed payment, for every unit of electricity a solar array generates, offering an annual return on investment of between five and ten per cent.

For example, a 16 panel solar array installed on an unshaded south facing roof in this region would yield the owner around £832 thanks to the new 21p tariff and along with the 3p per unit offered to 50 per cent of the energy

produced that is assumed exported. Ethical Solar uses Innotech, which it believes are the greenest panels available to the UK market.

Ethical Solar was awarded The Installer of the Year Award 2011 in recognition of its commitment to sustainability and corporate social responsibility.

The knowledgable team at Ethical Solar is happy to talk to potential customers about the benefits of adopting solar panels for homes or business premises.

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Is your business in safe hands?

By Grant McCall Director AMD Solicitors

F

Provides a Service Tailored to You?

orming a business relationship with your commercial lawyer should be a proactive decision rather than a reactive one. Many legal commercial issues can arise over the course of a year.

At start up, a business should ensure that it is set up in the most favourable way possible. There are many ways to conduct a business, for example as a partnership or as a limited company. It is essential that the owners of a business know where they stand from the start. This means having a bespoke ownership agreement in place and having tailored terms and conditions of business that actually correlate to the way you run your business.

As a business grows, it should start to see a value in its trading name or business logo, “the brand”. Brand protection is essential for all businesses and something a good commercial lawyer will identify and register with you.

A growing business may need to take on premises. Our commercial department has specialist commercial property lawyers who can work with you to negotiate suitable terms for your business premises.

Acquisitions may be on the radar for growing businesses. Time is frequently a critical factor. Recently I received a telephone call from an existing client to complete the sale of a business within 5 days! This was only possible because I already knew the business. Had I not known the assets, contracts, employee position, it could have taken much longer to complete - my client clearly benefitted from having an existing relationship with his commercial lawyer.

So what are the challenges or targets for your business in 2012? Our commercial department are currently offering a free 30 min business legal health check over coffee.

AMD Solicitors are the winners of the Local Law Firm of the Year award 2011 and have been highlighted as one of the UK’s progressive law firms at a prestigious legal conference and awards dinner held at the Belfry.

Grant and the other members of the Commercial Team can be contacted on commercial@amdsolicitors.com or telephone 0117 973 8205.

Has Experienced People and an Excellent Reputation?

© AMD Solicitors

Landlords... are you looking for an agent that...

Listens to What you Need?

Offers a Competitive, Transparent Fee Structure?

Call us on 0117 973 0041 or email info@campionsletting.co.uk

www.campionsletting.co.uk www.thebristolmagazine.co.uk

Winner of the local law firm of the year award 2011

Telephone us on (0117) 9621205 or visit our website www.amdsolicitors.com April 2012

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ONEtoWATCH

CHAMPION IN THE MAKING Clifton teenager Dino Zamparelli may be only 19 but he’s single-mindedly working towards his dream of becoming a Formula One racing driver and picking up the big trophies, as he tells Georgette McCready

T

here are probably quite a few little boys out there who turn to their fathers at the age of six, while watching Formula One on television, and announce that they’re going to be a racing driver when they grow up – but how many of them ever actually get as far as putting that ‘racing driver’ job title at the head of their CV? But here is Dino Zamparelli, a polite, charming and selfassured 19-year-old racing driver, who’s sitting in the family home in Clifton, talking about how he has devoted all his time and energy since leaving school two years ago, to achieving his dream. And such is his success on the race track so far – he has a trophy cabinet that’s already too small to hold all his prizes – combined with his implicit confidence that he will move up the league table from F2 racing to F1, that you don’t doubt that he will succeed.

Dino started his driving career in kart racing, taking part in various championships in the UK and abroad, where he picked up his first crop of trophies. In 2007, when he was still too young to legally drive on the roads, Dino switched to racing cars, where he burned up the track, setting four new lap records and picking up ten wins, being crowned 2008 Ginetta Junior Champion.

In 2009 the teenage whizz-kid became third overall in the Formula Renault BARC and was invited to join the British Racing Drivers’ Club’s Rising Star programme. Sadly, in 2010 he wasn’t able to compete properly due to financial constraints,

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WAITING GAME: main picture, Dino Zamparelli calm before the race and, left, as a small boy, happy at the wheel

ON TRACK: opposite, Dino, doing what he loves best, and, above right, picking up the McLaren Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year awards in 2011

but roared back on to the grid last year where he set a lap record. While at Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital School in Bristol he acquitted himself well academically, gaining 11 GCSEs, four of them with A stars.

The end of the last season saw Dino come out of the pits as one of only half a dozen finalists in the McLaren Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year awards.

He’s now looking forward to the new F2 season, which begins on 14 April at Silverstone and, as we speak, is working hard on wooing new sponsors. An appearance on HTV sparked some interest and he’s hoping talking to The Bristol Magazine

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ONEtoWATCH will also prompt a local business to consider backing him.

“What would a sponsor get from backing you?” I ask Dino.

“It’s not just a question of getting their name on the car,” he says, “they can host corporate or staff days out at the races, they can go to the F1 Grand Prix and I can get them access to places they wouldn’t normally be allowed to go.

“The thing about motor racing is that it’s such an exciting, sexy and inspirational sport to be involved with. It’s good for team building and the sponsor gets a unique experience.”

The Big Prize for the winner of this new F2 season is a coveted Williams F1 test drive – which is like an audition for a part in the show that is Formula One. And that’s the big prize that Dino has got his sights on.

He may have been partly influenced in his choice of career by his Italian father Mike, who was a professional power boat racer in his younger days. He goes with Dino to his races and helps mentor him.

❝

The thing about motor racing is that it’s such an exciting, sexy and inspirational sport to be involved with

❞

Dino reflects that other, wealthier drivers use a driving coach, but, he shrugs, that’s too expensive so he works on motivating himself.

“A lot of people reckon that you don’t need to be fit to be a racing driver, but that’s just not true. When you’re travelling at 160/170 miles an hour you get incredible pressure on your head, neck and shoulders from G force, and add to that the weight of a helmet and you’ve got to keep your upper body strong.

“Also you’re basically using your bum as you control the car so your core body strength needs to be there. Then, of course, you’ve got to be mentally sharp as well as physically fit as you have to make split-second decisions when travelling at speeds like that. Your heart rate goes up to around 170 beats a minute, so you can’t afford to be out of breath and sweating.

Have I ever crashed? Yes, a few times, but I’ve always been lucky and come out OK. I suppose I am a bit scared of the damage bill if I had a big smash.”

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I imagine that his mother Sally must worry about his safety.

Dino says she doesn’t like to come and watch him race. He says: “She’s very supportive, but if the race is on TV she’d rather know the result and watch a recording than watch it live.”

We’ll be able to follow Dino’s progress this season on television as the races will be shown on Motors TV. I am curious as to whether we’ll see Dino doing wheelies or speeding around Bristol in his own car, but that’s highly unlikely as he drives a modest Fiat Cinquecento, which is not known for its turn of speed.

“My friends tease me about it. It’s the same car that they drive in The Inbetweeners. It’s economical and it gets me from A to B.” Dino clearly values the friends he has made in his home city and enjoys socialising. He may be focussed on the big prize, but he still finds time to enjoy water-skiing, golf, tennis and football, alongside his regular keep fit routine at the Empire Sports Club.

Anyone interested in finding out more about Dino and how to sponsor his future career, can contact him via his website: www.dinozamparelli.com. He is also developing his career as an ambassador for his sport and as an inspirational speaker for schools and businesses.

This young Bristol man declares: “I want to be F1 World Champion,” and it would be good if his home city helped him on his way. ■

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EDUCATIONnews

Sportswomen on their way to top A pair of west country sportswomen are making their mark on the twin fields of netball and cricket. Jodie Dibble is flying out to South Africa this month to play in the England women’s academy cricket tour, while Poppy Thomson of Haberdashers’ Monmouth School for Girls has been selected for the Welsh development netball programme.

Jodie, 17, is a pupil at Taunton School and the youngest member of the England team. The squad will play three Twenty20 matches and three 50-over games against the South Africa national women’s team. She previously captained England Under 17s in 2010 and then attended a training camp in India last year.

Jodie Dibble

She said: “It’s a great time to be involved in the England system.”

Meanwhile Haberdashers’ student 15-year-old Poppy Thompson will train with the Welsh development netball programme. She has already

represented south east Wales, South Gloucestershire and Avon at athletics and cross country and south east Wales at netball. Poppy, who lives in Chepstow, is coached

by Pat Gallagher at Westbury Harriers, and plays hockey with Yate Hockey Club and Avon JDC. At the Welsh Inter Regional Netball Championships in February Poppy was selected as one of the top 20 players in her age group.

Last summer Poppy underwent knee surgery at the Jonathan Webb Clinic, at the Spire Hospital in Bristol which specialises in health, rehabilitation and sports performance and then provided Poppy with the physiotherapy she needed to get match fit again.

Nail-biting finale

A winning attitude

■ The QEH Junior School Under 11 football team, pictured, has won the ISFA (Independent Schools Football Association) South West Tournament at King's, Taunton.

Having lost only once in the group stages, the team played St Peter's, Exmouth and beat them after a penalty shootout to reach the final against Llandaff College, Cardiff. A tense affair was 1-1 after both full time and extra time and another penalty shoot out followed.

The QEH team held its nerve and the last penalty before sudden death was saved giving it the title 4-3 on penalties. Phil Thomas, head of junior games said: "I am really impressed with the skill and determination shown by this outstanding team. The future looks very bright for them."

Pupils at Red Maids’ School in Bristol were inspired by a visit from Paralympian Graham Edmunds, holder of two gold medals for swimming, who gave a motivational and emotional speech to the school.

After a horrific motorcycle accident destroyed his ankles in 2000, Graham was left disabled. But this has not stopped him succeeding. In assembly, Graham told the school: “If someone tells you you can’t do something, there is only one thing to do – you come out fighting.”

The visit from Graham Edmunds is part of a number of activities being organised this year to celebrate the Olympic and Paralympic values; respect, courage, friendship, excellence, determination, equality and inspiration. An inschool Olympic committee is organising events to raise money for charity, including dress up as an Olympian day and Olympic-themed cake sales.

The Red Maids’ Junior School have also been in on the Olympic action with a two-night, whole-school production of Go for Gold show.

Graham was a member of Reading Swimming Club from an early age, captaining the Top Squad at the age of 17. But his world was turned upside

Poppy Thompson

CHAMPION: Graham Edmunds at Red Maids’ School

down when a car pulled out in front of him as he rode his motorcycle home from work. He was seriously injured and told he may never walk again. But he began swimming as soon as he was capable of getting himself in and out of a wheelchair, and made his first appearance at the Paralympics in 2004. He now has two Paralympic gold medals, which he won in the men’s 4x100 metres freestyle relay in Athens in 2004 and in Beijing in 2008.

College launches awards to encourage girls’ academic careers To celebrate 25 years of girls at Clifton College, the Clifton College Development Trust has announced the funding of seven new academic awards for girls, all of which will be strictly means-tested up to a maximum value of 100 per cent of the fees.

The awards are for the start of the academic year in September with four academic awards for girls to join the sixth form in the upper school and three academic awards for girls to join at 11 plus in the preparatory school. These awards are being introduced in a year of already outstanding academic achievement with 16 pupils winning offers to study at Oxford and Cambridge 58 The Bristol Magazine

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Universities. Prospective candidates will need to sit an exam on Saturday 28 April (earlier assessment by arrangement). These awards will provide genuinely life-changing opportunities to be educated at Clifton.

Philip Hallworth, director of admissions at Clifton College, said: “Girls already make up 40 per cent of our current pupils and we are very grateful to the Trust for funding these new awards which will provide life-changing opportunities for seven talented girls to be educated at the school. The pastoral care offered at Clifton for both boarders and day pupils is second-to-none and by getting to know each girl

really well we help them to find their own niche and develop their talents.”

For more information please contact the admissions department, tel: 0117 315 7000. The closing date for applications is Tuesday 24 April.

Recently Clifton’s U14 girls’ hockey squad were crowned national champions at the National Championships at Cannock Hockey Club. Looking ahead, September sees the opening of an additional new girls’ house in the Preparatory School in response to growing numbers.

The next open day for prospective students and parents is Saturday 12 May.

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DO YOU HAVE A SPARE ROOM? FRIENDLY HOSTS WANTED FOR OUR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS We are looking for welcoming, hospitable hosts to accommodate our international students.

• Long and short stays available • Great experience • Great rates of pay For more information, please contact: Elaine Sawyer Accommodation Officer 27 Oakfield Road, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 2AT Tel: 0117 909 0911 Fax: 0117 907 7181 Email: elaine@ihbristol.com Web: www.ihbristol.com

Study Travel Exams Holidays

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Department of modern languages Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Welsh

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IH Bristol is the only IELTS test centre in Bristol. If you are thinking about emigrating to Australia or Canada and need to take the IELTS test, then visit our website for further details and how to apply.

To subscribe just send a cheque payable to MC Publishing Ltd 2 Princes Buildings, George Street, Bath BA1 2ED or Telephone 0117 974 2800 for card payment

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REVIEW

SUBTLY SUN-KISSED Samantha Ewart visits the Candice White beauty salon in Clifton for a spray tan to give a healthy glow as we welcome the spring

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t this time of year, a St Tropez spray tan just doesn’t cut it. While it is time to start donning pretty tea dresses and showing our legs for the spring fashions, a dark tan just looks fake – after all, there’s not many places in the world that are hot enough at this time of year to make the ‘I’ve just been on holiday’ look seem convincing. But a subtle bronze radiant glow is a must, and Candice White beauty salon in Clifton offers the perfect answer to this. Instead of the usual one colour St Tropez spray tan, the salon offers Naturasun spray tanning with eight different shades – from a subtle sunkissed look to an intense dark tan.

The sprays are also mixable so you can even have a custom colour.

Candice White beauty salon is located downstairs in the Gary Henri hairdressers in Clifton, with two rooms that are comfortable and cosy to make any treatment a truly pampering experience. Candice offers a onestop-shop with treatments including facials, massage, reflexology, waxing (using tea tree wax, which is kinder to the skin), electrolysis, manicures, pedicures and eye grooming, as well as makeup and the extremely popular CACI facials that lift and tone the skin, softening lines and wrinkles while hydrating. The results are so dramatic with these treatments that CACI has become known as “the non-surgical face lift.” Candice’s 70-long regular client list for the CACI treatment just says it all.

I arrived at the salon on a beautiful sunny spring morning ready to be transformed into a bronze goddess. I was welcomed by a cheerful Candice who began with a consultation to establish any skin concerns, my desired tan colour and how the treatment would work. I then de-robed, stepped into the clean tiled room (no pop-up booths here), and Candice applied gorgeous-smelling body butter on my elbows, knees and ankles to stop excess colour, and sprayed me all over. It took less than ten minutes and I was given a blow-drier to dry off quickly. The colour looked instantly fabulous and continued to develop throughout the day – without too much of the usual biscuity smell. Later that night, to save the bedsheets, I rinsed off in the shower and was left with a perfectly even and natural tan – the first spray tan I’ve had where I haven’t emerged the next day looking orange and patchy. It made my skin look healthy and radiant and certainly gave me a little boost of fabulousness over the five days that it lasted.

Candice White beauty salon has been open since 2001 and has built up a great reputation, with a large client following from all around the area. The salon’s success is all down to the hard work of Candice – at the age of 17, Candice trained as a beauty therapist and by 23 she had saved up enough money to open her own salon, with the help of The Prince’s Trust, and in her own words “hasn’t looked back since.” ■ To book a treatment, pop into the salon on 52 Royal York Crescent, Clifton or tel: 0117 973 0727. For further information visit: www.cwbeauty.co.uk www.thebristolmagazine.co.uk

THE HAIRCOLOUR YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR!

NEW CHROMATICS LEAVES HAIR FEELING UP TO 2X STRONGER

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Tel: 0117 968 2663 • www.carlohairandbeauty.co.uk 6 Rockleaze Rd, Sneyd Park, Bristol BS9 1NF April 2012

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FIT&FABULOUS

GLOW FROM WITHIN Fiona Campbell, naturopath, nutritionist and lecturer for the College of Naturopathic Medicine, shares her top tips on how you can glow from within and improve the health of your skin this spring season

C

hanges that you make on the inside have a big impact on how you look on the outside. In just 2-4 weeks you could look years younger by making a few simple changes to your diet and lifestyle: ■ Keep well hydrated Start your day with a cup of hot water and a squeeze of fresh lemon and drink at least two litres of fresh water and herbal teas every day – green tea is a great way to boost your intake of antioxidants and will help you overcome any caffeine cravings.

■ Remove toxic influences What you take out of your diet is even more important than what you put in. Nicotine, caffeine and alcohol are the biggest hitters where our inner and outer health is concerned. At a basic level they interfere with the absorption of valuable nutrients and overload the organs and systems that support healthy elimination. The more you cut back, the more your skin will love you.

■ Healthy sources of protein and essential fats at every meal Are you a sugar junkie with problem skin? Boost your skin-supporting nutrients and curb your carbohydrate cravings with healthy sources of protein and fats at each meal. Have three palm-sized servings of organic and free-range meats, eggs and non-farmed fish each day and eat a small

▲

A daily facial...

The new Guerlain Super Aqua Serum (£65.50, 50ml from John Lewis) offers intense hydration and wrinkle plumper in just one squirt. From the moment of application it revitalises and smooths skin, leaving a radiant complexion

▲

The new Sanctuary Skin Perfecting BB Cream (£14.99, from Sanctuary Spa, Quakers Friars) does the work of a primer, moisturiser, foundation, concealer and sun cream in just one simple step. Combining skincare and makeup, this amazing product gives a bright and flawless complexion in ultra-quick time. Perfect for ladies on the go

▲

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SKIN DEEP The latest health and beauty news and product reviews from Samantha Ewart

▲

SPRING FRAGRANCES: perfect for lazy days in the sunshine is the light scent of Miss Dior Eau Fraiche (£49, 50ml from John Lewis and Harvey Nichols). Feminine and fresh, it’s a delightful take on the classic Dior fragrance, Miss Dior. And evoking the warm days of spring is Jo Malone’s new limited edition fragrance, Plum Blossom. It has a floral overtone, with sandalwood and musk to tone down the sweetness.

Available from May at Harvey Nichols (£36, 30ml cologne)

For a classic and sophisticated look, accentuate the arch of your eyebrow with Shavata’s Arch Enhancer (£9.95, available from House of Fraser). The soft pink light-reflecting pencil can be applied under the arch of your brow and also works as a fabulous cheek highlighter

▲

If you have dry and sensitive skin, try Vita-E cream (£7.49, from Boots) – fragrance free and kind to the skin, it heals, hydrates, softens and soothes skin, and you can use it on your body too

handful of nuts and seeds with a piece of fruit for snacks. Good fat foods include salmon, tuna, mackerel and sardines. Avoid full fat cheese, as well as fatty and processed meats such as pastrami and salami.

■ Fruit and vegetables To keep skin looking toned and clear of blemishes, eat foods that contain vitamins Fiona Campbell C, E, beta-carotene, zinc and potassium. Have four servings of vegetables and one serving of fruit daily. The best vegetable choices include broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, spinach, watercress, peppers, kale, squash, carrots and sweet potatoes. Dark fruit is packed with antioxidants which help to protect your skin – choose blueberries, cherries, figs, pomegranates and gogi berries.

■ Juicing Recipe If you have a juicer, this is a quick and easy way to boost the nutrients which support skin health. Juice two large carrots and two stalks of celery. If you have problem skin, swap the celery for 125g of watercress.

The College of Naturopathic Medicine (CNM) provides training in Nutritional Therapy in Bristol, visit www.naturopathy-uk.com or tel: 01342 410505 for further information

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C D

HARLTON PARK

ENTAL PRACTICE

Established in 2001, we offer a wide range of beauty treatments and services in a relaxed friendly yet professional environment.

As a [comfort zone] and caci appointed salon Candice and her team of highly skilled beauty therapists, are always available to offer free consultations or advice you on any queries you may have.

Open five days a week with two late evenings, we hope that our opening hours will offer a convenient appointment time to suit your busy life.

30 Charlton Park, Keynsham, Bristol, BS31 2ND Tel: 0117 9862627 Our friendly dental practice can help you to maintain healthy teeth and really give you something to smile about.

Drop-in clients are most welcome.

The only salon in Clifton to offer the amazing Caci Non-Surgical Face-Lift!!

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Please telephone or come into the salon to arrange your next beauty appointment.

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ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE

www.naturopathy-uk.com

What’s the difference between food allergies and food intolerances?

Tania Richards Photography

Fiona Campbell, CNHC and BANT registered Nutritionist and Lecturer for the College of Naturopathic Medicine investigates food allergies and intolerances.

“If you’re suffering from bloating or abdominal pain, skin problems, rhinitis, fatigue or irritable bowel syndrome, you may already be thinking that certain foods could be contributing to the problem.

“Food intolerances affect most of us at one stage or another. They can be difficult to pinpoint because of the time delay that often occurs between eating and experiencing symptoms. For many people a reaction can occur up to 12 hours later, long after the memory of what they have eaten has ebbed away.

“Many of us don’t understand that there is a big difference between food intolerances and food allergies. You might be surprised to know that some of the food intolerances you identified 12 months ago may no longer be relevant, so you may be avoiding certain foods unnecessarily.”

“Food allergies involve a special class of immune system cells, called IgE antibodies, which the body makes to help ‘fight off’ what it feels are harmful substances which it encounters through the mouth or the skin.

Symptoms range from rashes and tingling to more serious symptoms such as difficulty breathing. If you suspect that you may have a food allergy, it’s important that you contact your GP who can refer you to an allergy specialist if necessary.”

What is a food allergy?

What’s the difference to food intolerances?

“A food allergy involves the immune system and a reaction is usually quite swift and potentially severe. Luckily, only a very small percentage of the population has currently been identified as suffering from food allergies.

“Food intolerances are not so clear cut and are surrounded by controversy.

What we do know is that foods which we eat, or over-eat on a regular basis, can often start to make us feel uncomfortable and unwell.

“Wheat and other gluten containing foods, dairy and other common dietary staples such as tomatoes and white potatoes can irritate our digestive lining and eventually compromise its ability to filter substances properly. Stress, stimulants, alcohol and refined or processed foods can often compound the problem.

IfToyou’d like about to find out more about training find out more CNM’s Nutritional Therapy course go to in www.naturopathy-uk.com or call 01342 410 505. Colleges are in London, Bristol for a new career as a Nutritional Bristol, Birmingham, Brighton, Manchester and Edinburgh.

Therapist, come along to CNM Bristol's next free-to-attend Open Evening – for details check the website www.naturopathy-uk.com or call 01342 410 505 70 The Bristol Magazine

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OUT&ABOUT

FAG END OF INDUSTRIAL AGE Andrew Swift walks the streets of Bedminster and Southville, looking at vestiges left over from the area’s former coal mining, brewing and cigarette industries

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or April’s walk we head to the streets and edge of south-west Bristol and former coal mining country.

The first pit opened around 1750 and by the mid19th century what had once been farmland was an industrial suburb. The last pits closed in 1925, and today virtually no trace of them survives. The buildings of Bedminster’s other industry – tobacco – have fared better.

From Bristol centre, head south along Prince Street and Wapping Road, turn left along Commercial Road and cross Bedminster Bridge. A little way along Bedminster Parade, turn left along Boot Lane and then right past an old school along Stillhouse Lane. Passing old courts on the right and a converted malthouse on the corner of Willway Street, turn right at the end past Philip Street Chapel. A plaque on the left marks the birthplace of country music legend Art Satherley.

Turn left along East Street. The supermarket opposite retains the facade of Wills No 1 tobacco factory. Beyond it, on the corner, is the original HQ of Imperial Tobacco. On the left, look out for the sign above Pets Plus.

Carry on along East Street and turn left by the Old Globe along Church Lane. Turn right along a footpath past the churchyard of St John’s, bombed in 1941. The Robinson building ahead is home to Cameron’s hot-air-balloon factory.

Carry on to East Street, cross and turn right along Diamond Street. Just past the car-wash an alleyway on the left leads to a stone building, one of the earliest in Bedminster.

Carry on along Diamond Street and turn left at the end along British Road. Just before an open area on the right, turn left down Sion Road. The Jolly Colliers pub at the bottom is the only reminder of the Malago colliery, closed in 1892, which stood at the back.

Turn right along West Street. The Malago B&B across the road stands on the site of the Red Cow, an eighteenth-century pub demolished in 2009. Just past it is a grand but somewhat faded Georgian mansion. Take the next right and then turn left to continue along British Road. Turn right at the end and then 72 The Bristol Magazine

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left down Elmdale Road.

Turn right at the crossroads to the Luckwell pub. Cross and turn right, then turn left along Gore’s Marsh Road. Turn right along Greenmarsh Lane. Bower Court, on the left, stands on the site of New Deep Pit. Carry on along a footpath between a fence and a garage, turn left and left again along the dual carriageway.

Cross at the lights, carry on along the dual carriageway and turn down a footpath between South Bristol Cars and Plumbase. This leads past an old building, possibly connected with Hedger’s Pit, which stood nearby.

At the end, turn right up South Liberty Lane, which leads over the Portishead railway line and under a disused railway.

After 1300 metres, you will see, between a high-security compound and a building occupied by Vision IP, RWJ and Avanti, a footpath leading to a bridge over the railway. South Liberty Colliery, whose workings stretched from Dundry to Temple Meads, stood between the road and the railway. It closed in 1925 and the bridge built for the miners is now its only legacy.

From here you have a choice of keeping to the roads or heading to the edgelands. To keep to the roads, carry on for a few metres and turn right along Risdale Road. Carry on for 350 metres to a T junction, turn left and then right along Silbury Road. After 250 metres, turn left along a cul-de-sac, cross a footbridge and turn right alongside a brook.

For the edgelands option, carry on along South Liberty Lane.

When it bears right, carry on down Rose Meadow View, keeping to the right-hand pavement and going through a kissing gate. Follow the path across a brook, carry straight on, go through a gap in the hedge and turn right alongside a fence (ST560701). Carry on alongside a brook, going through a wooden gate and a kissing gate. Carry on past a bridge, go through another kissing gate, and turn right at a T junction along a broad track (ST560709). On the other side of the brook, turn left along the edge of the field where Bristol City plans to build its new stadium. Just before the fence, turn right.

CHANGING CITY: above, the old tobacco factory in East Street, as it used to look

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OUT&ABOUT

COAL MINING COUNTRY: left to right, the old Red Cow, demolished in 2009, an abandoned former malthouse, and the Jolly Colliers pub, named for the men who used to drink here

About 75 metres west of the south-east corner of the field, squeeze past two large stones and turn left alongside a brook.

Here, where the two routes re-join, is one of the most pastoral stretches of the walk, yet Starveall Colliery once stood to the south side of the brook. The tranquillity of the path is also compromised by a car auction lot to the left and a construction site to the right.

Follow the path across the Portishead line and carry on to the dual carriageway. Turn left along the dual carriageway to the level crossing. If you cross it, you can see, at the entrance to Babcock, the remains of sidings that once led into Ashton Colliery.

Carry on along the dual carriageway for a few metres, cross at the lights and head east along Marsh Road, which becomes Ashton Road. Carry on past Greville Smyth Park and right into North Street, past the old tollhouse (the original Ashton Gate).

On your right, the old Ashton Gate Brewery is now home to a range of businesses, including the Bristol Beer Factory. The building ahead with a mural on its wall is the Tobacco Factory.

Cross and turn left along Greenway Bush Lane. Turn right along Upton Road past the current HQ of Imperial Tobacco.

At the cross roads, carry on up Upton Road to the end and

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follow the road round to the left. Turn right down Mount Pleasant Terrace and left at the bottom along North Street.

At the roundabout, carry on along Dean Lane past the baths and turn left into Dame Edith Park. This was the site of Dean Lane Colliery, closed in 1906. A major explosion here in 1886 claimed the lives of nine miners. Workings from here extended as far east as Barton Hill.

Head up through the park, bearing right along the road. Turn right at the T junction and then left along Dean Lane, where at No 2 there is a plaque to Russ Conway. At the end turn right, and cross the suspension bridge. Turn right past the old gaol to the Louisiana, where a left turn takes you back to the city centre. ■

FURTHER INFORMATION Length of walk: seven miles Map: OS Explorer 155 would be useful through the fields ■ Approximate time: 4 hours ■ ■

April 2012

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CITYhomes

INSPIRED BY THE SEA Sarah Bolton visits the home and studio of Bristol artist Jane Reeves, who takes inspiration from happy holidays in Cornwall for much of her work IN DEMAND: main picture, Jane Reeves in her studio, surrounded by work that’s been commissioned for art galleries across the south west

T

he sunny studio of artist Jane Reeves is an evocative place: open sketchbooks, every inch of wall space taken up with paintings of the sea in all its moods, rows of brightly coloured Cornish cottages made from glass catching the light and a set of shelves stuffed with little curiosities to inspire – pieces of driftwood, old tiles, fragments from photographs. One might be forgiven for imagining that the view from the window would be a Cornish beach complete with wheeling gulls and black-clad surfers paddling out in search of the perfect wave. But this is the basement of a house in St Andrew’s so that’s unlikely.

The vista is actually a pretty courtyard garden filled with blossom and a variety of feeders whose visitors are the subjects of Jane’s most recent work, a series of beautifully rendered miniatures of birds painted on to glass. She says: “There’s something about looking out of the studio window at the goldfinches and wrens and being reminded about nature even though this is essentially an urban setting. You may have to look harder than you would in the countryside where it surrounds you but it’s there.”

The birds are a new departure for Jane whose usual work takes the sea and in particular the coastline of St Ives in Cornwall as inspiration. “The paintings developed when we started holidaying there 23 years ago,” she says. “I know it’s a cliché but I just fell in love with the place and the light that the town is famous for. I started painting anything to do with the sea and was especially drawn to the meeting point of water and land – the place where nature, the big ‘otherness’ meets man. I love the feeling, that I imagine is universal, when you stand on the shore and there’s just the sea and sky. My work is a response to the longing I have to be there.”

Jane also sees her art as a way of curating her experiences.

“Having had so many holidays in Cornwall with family and friends, I feel as though I have built up a store of memories and each of my artworks are attempts to capture those moments. I 74 The Bristol Magazine

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Left, the courtyard garden at the St Andrew’s house attracts much wildlife which has provided the inspiration for the artist’s most recent work – quirky miniatures of birds

think others are drawn to the images because they resonate with them reminding them of their own happy holidays and childhoods.”

Jane trained in graphic design and illustration at Bath Academy of Art before working as an illustrator producing programmes for the theatre. One of her earliest memories of school was standing at a tiny easel and painting a boat bobbing on the sea as all her school friends gathered round to admire.

“That was a good feeling,” she laughs.

After her own children were born, she enrolled on a stained glass course at night school which lead to a series of workshops to learn about fused glass – a process which involves cutting and shaping pieces of coloured glass, assembling them as a picture before fusing it in a glass kiln. Her studio table has carefully arranged boxes of glass in every imaginable hue and Jane seems to exude an extraordinary sense of calm as she gradually assembles her jewel-like creations of beach scenes, sail boats, the sea, the rocks and cottages before they are sent to the kiln. The end results are not flimsy creations but enduring and somehow tactile. She says: “Everyone who sees the glass always asks if they can touch it.”

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AN AIR OF CALM: Jane Reeves’ kitchen/dining room, left, and hall, right, have a tranquil air about them.

The home is also used to display some of her work, made in her home studio PICTURES: Mark Bolton

More recently, Jane has started to ‘paint with glass’ where finely powdered glass in a liquid medium is used as a form of paint which she applies directly onto sheets of glass. “I’m really taken with the process. It’s like the two disciplines, the painting and the glass work, have come together. It’s tricky though as you have to wait for each layer to dry and be careful not to smudge it.”

Jane’s work has been hugely successful and she now sells in 16 galleries across the UK including the 3D and Sky Blue galleries in Bristol, and also via her website to Australia and the US. Her husband and business partner, Kelvin, a web designer finds much of his time taken up helping out by liaising with galleries, running

the website, sending out orders and photographing the work. All a far cry from when Kelvin took just a few pieces into the prestigious New Craftsman Gallery in St Ives just to see if there was any interest.

Jane says: “We weren’t quite sure what the reaction would be as the galleries there tend to exhibit artists who live in Cornwall They took all five and they sold out within two weeks which was just so encouraging. I had the first glimmers of hope that it could be possible to make a living doing something I loved.”

Visit: www.janereeves.co.uk. Jane will be having a solo exhibition of her paintings and glass at The Picture House Galley in St Ives from 18-29 May. ■

BEAUTIFUL KITCHENS FROM £10,000

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April 2012

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BRISTOLinteriors

TREND SPOTTING Prints, pastels and minimalism- there’s something for everyone with the current interior trends INDIVIDUALITY: the NEO range from Hulsta is adapatable to all living spaces and lifestyles, with sophisticated and innovative designs.

For further information and prices contact Hulsta, 33C Wine Street, Bristol.

Tel: 0117 9290844. www.bristol.hulsta.co.uk

MONOCHROME: Lawrence duvet cover, £85; pillowcase pair, £30; Beatrice double headboard, £669.

House of Fraser. Cabot Circus.

Tel: 0117 9330999. www.houseoffraser.co.uk

MADE IN BRITAIN: Fired Earth is celebrating the best of British manufacturing across its range. Alhambra Palace wallpaper, £50 per roll, Fired Earth. 65A Whiteladies Road, Clifton. Tel: 0117 9737400. www.firedearth.com

LIMITED: Helmsley chest in white by Hammonds. Haskins, New Thomas Street, Bristol. Tel: 0117 3763378. www.hammonds-uk.com

CONTRAST: the Soho dining table in Makassar Oak, with an extendable mechanism. From £1,820, Natuzzi.

Clifton Pavillion, 85 Queens Road, Bristol.

Tel: 0117 9292723. www.natuzzi.co.uk

RULE BRITANNIA: commemorative Union Jack Enslow, from £2,265, Wesley Barrell. 84 Whiteladies Road, Bristol.

Tel: 0117 9238915. www.wesley-barrell.co.uk

IN VOGUE: the Florence large sofa covered in Vogue hot pink, from £1,368, Sofa Workshop. 76-78 Whiteladies Road, Bristol.

Tel: 0117 9706171. www.sofaworkshop.com

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ALFRESCO LIVING Get the garden ready for summer and alfresco entertaining with these striking design pieces and garden accessories SCANDINAVIAN: Danish design large slate oil lamps from Nordic House, in beautiful grey slate, £129. Order online at www.nordichouse.co.uk.

Tel: 0845 4751610 MAGNIFICENT: the Magma biofuel fire can be used inside or outside and burns for up to three and a half hours. £299, Living It Up. Tel: 0116 269 5960.

Order online at www.livingitup.co.uk

TIMEPIECE: sundial with an aged finish.

All designs can be personalised with a motto. £290, Merlin Sundials.

Tel: 01454 615036. www.merlinsundials.co.uk

LOUNGING AROUND: the Milano natural rattan two piece day bed from Bristol based company, Alexander Francis.

Perfect for gardens and patio areas, £1,195, Alexander Francis.

Tel: 0117 3255247. www.alexander-francis.co.uk

LADY WITH THE LAMP: clay garden lanterns from Kindle. £35, Kindle.

177 Gloucester Road, Bristol.

Tel: 0117 9243898. www.kindlestoves.com

MEXICANA: chimeneas, from £50, Kindle. 177 Gloucester Road, Bristol.

Tel: 0117 9243898. www.kindlestoves.com

PRETTY AS A PICTURE: interesting architectural pieces for the garden from Agriframes, such as the Gothic Pergola, £246. Agriframes, Journal House, Bristol.

Tel: 0845 260 4450. www.agriframes.co.uk

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April 2012

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OPENgardens

COURTING THE SPRING Jane Moore visits Tormarton Court to see the bulbs and trees burst into life for spring, in time for its April open day for the National Garden Scheme

T

here’s nothing that us gardeners like better than having a good gossip with fellow garden enthusiasts. Add to that the opportunity to gaze at a glorious garden and then partake of tea and cake and you have the perfect day out. Those clever folk at the National Garden Scheme, otherwise known as Yellow Book, cottoned on to this a long time ago and the scheme raises millions for charity each year.

But as well as getting a lovely warm feeling of giving something to a good cause, we also get to indulge our curiosity and have a good nose around gardens that are not often open to the public, such as Tormarton Court. This 11 acre garden opens twice for the NGS, once in June for the wildflower meadow and the roses, but also in April when it is a wonderland of beautiful bulbs and magnificent trees just coming into their new spring green.

“We have something like 150 mature trees,” says Noreen Finnamore, who has spent more than a decade renovating the house and developing the surrounding garden and park. “They demand a great deal of husbandry but give the garden its character and structure.”

The Court is home to many stately trees including majestic limes, a copse of mature beech and an avenue of horse chestnuts.

Recent additions include a nut walk and a small but rare Wollemi pine, a tree that was believed extinct but in 1994 a scant 100 trees were discovered in a gorge in Australia and it has since been micro-propagated.

Close to the house lies the glade, a charming collection of trees such as lime, ornamental apple, greengage and plum all richly under planted with a succession of spring flowers. Dotted among the trees and the old pets’ graveyard dating from the house’s heyday in the 30s are snowdrops and aconites, followed by daffodils and blue anemones and, Noreen’s favourite, the native snakeshead fritillaries. In April and May a mass of tulips, naturalised after being planted first in pots, create vivid splashes of colour through a foaming froth of cow parsley.

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Working with Noreen for the past five years have been head gardener Neil and his assistant Kate who share Noreen’s passion for wildlife.

“We try to make the garden as wildlife friendly as possible,” says Neil. “We leave piles of logs around and we’ve made hedgehog shelters in the copse.”

“And we’ve put up bird and bat boxes, even owl boxes,” adds Noreen. “There’s a tawny owl in one of the owl boxes this year which is great. We can hear him hooting in the evenings.”

The ancient dewpond is a rich source of wildlife and Neil has been careful to plant plenty of cover that is also ornamental such as coloured dogwoods and weeping willows with irises and marsh marigolds in the water.

“The pond is incredibly deep,” says Neil. “So we’ve sectioned it off with a ‘fedge’, a living willow hedge, which has rooted and is settling in nicely.”

Beyond the pond lies the copse of mature beeches which is an area that Neil and Noreen have just begun to develop, creating snaking paths through the trees and under planting with hellebores, ferns and cyclamen. The local children’s nursery uses the area as an outdoor classroom, with the children looking for wildlife or sometimes sitting on logs and telling stories.

From the copse there are broad mown paths through the new growth of the wild flower meadow spotted here and there with clumps of palest pink lady’s mantle, or cuckoo flower.

“The wild flowers are really at their peak for the June opening,” says Neil. “But there are always flowers to see in the spring.”

The formal gardens lie close to the house with the clipped yew hedges and immaculately striped croquet lawn providing a sharp contrast to the relaxed informality of the meadow and glade.

“Kate loves getting the stripes perfect and sometimes she mows it twice to get diamond shapes. She loves it, whereas I would rather be doing something else,” laughs Neil.

Within the high Cotswold stone walls of the walled garden

WILDLIFE HAVEN: main picture, a mown path leaves the wild flowers either side to grow and bloom freely

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OPENgardens

BRIGHT AND BLOUSEY: a magnificent display of spring colour at Tormarton Court, with tulips and daffodils in abundance

more yew hedges screen the family’s swimming pool and create smaller, more intimate areas of herbaceous borders backed with trained roses and a cutting garden for flowers for the house.

There’s also a substantial kitchen garden with masses of trained fruit trees. Apples, pears, quinces and even more are trained into fans, espaliers and stopovers. Beneath them are planted broad beans, garlic, potatoes and peas.

Next to the house, in the hot southerly facing Mediterranean style courtyard are the culinary herbs and more exotic fruits such as peaches and figs, as well as lemon trees and brilliantly coloured geraniums in the summer.

“It’s a suntrap in here and the lemons and the olive tree love it.

This is where we do the teas on NGS days,” says Noreen. “Let’s hope it doesn’t rain!” ■ Tormarton Court, Church Road, Tormarton, Somerset GL9 1HT, is open Friday 20 April 10am to 4pm. Jane Moore is the awardwinning head gardener at the Bath Priory, follow her blog, janethegardener.

www.thebristolmagazine.co.uk

Gardens open in April The Bath Priory Hotel, Weston Road, Bath. A quintessentially English garden of billowing borders planted with bulbs, flowering cherries, croquet lawn, and pots of brilliant tulips. Open: Tuesday 17 April, 2pm to 5pm.

The Children’s Garden, 28 Withleigh Road, Knowle, BS4 2LQ. New for this year, this small family garden packs in colourful beds and wild corners, a living willow tunnel, tree house, fruit trees and a sweet little pond, plus a great view of Bristol. Open: Sunday 22 April from 12pm to 5pm Prior Park Landscape Garden, Ralph Allen Drive, Bath.

Enjoy sweeping views of Bath over the garden’s lakes and Palladian bridge. Wilderness walk and wild garlic carpeting the woods. Open: Sunday 6 May, 10am to 4pm

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the directory

to advertise in this section call 0117 974 2800

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The Bristol Magazine, 2 Princes Buildings, George Street, Bath BA1 2ED Email: classified@thebristolmagazine.co.uk T: 0117 974 2800

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BRISTOLproperty

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he properties along Pooles Wharf Court are some of the most sought after waterfront homes in the city. This exquisite townhouse is situated in a wonderful gated community that wraps itself around the floating harbour and along the wet dock, presenting truly great views of the harbour along to the city. No. 77 is south facing and filled with natural light, it is presented in superb condition and the accommodation, arranged over three floors, comprises of: a beautiful and recently fitted kitchen, open plan to the dining room which continues into the sitting room, the whole of the ground floor is finished with solid wooden flooring. On the first floor there’s a reception room with a timber decked canopied balcony to enjoy the breathtaking views and a well proportioned master bedroom with a luxury en-suite with a boutique style walk in shower. On the second floor there are two further double bedrooms, one overlooks the harbour, the other with an equally interesting vista that looks back towards Clifton, both share a bathroom fitted to the highest standard.

Outside, the front of the property is approached via a gated entrance leading into a paved courtyard which gives access to the front door. There is single garage and room for additional parking. To the rear of the house is a private gated courtyard/sun-trap overlooking the harbour this gives access on to the Harbourside walkway, leading all the way into the city centre and access to the Harbourside water ferries.

Knight Frank, Regent House, 27A Regent Street, Clifton, Bristol. Tel: 0117 317 1999

www.thebristolmagazine.co.uk

POOLES WHARF, HARBOURSIDE BRISTOL •Exquisite waterfront location • Modern kitchen •Open plan living/dining room •drawing room •3 double bedrooms • en-suite & bathroom

Guide Price: £549,950

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n behalf of Bristol Diocese, we have been instructed to sell this magnificent period property at 23 Great George Street. The building was designed by the famous 18th Century architect, William Paty who was the appointed City Surveyor in 1788. The building which has been very well maintained by the Diocese as their offices, retains most of the original features, including superb fireplaces, full mahogany staircase, working window shutters throughout and original ceiling mouldings.

In all totalling a gross floor area over 7000 sq ft the building also benefits from the original large and secluded walled rear garden garden, with a sunny aspect and wonderful views from the property over the City.

The property is offered for sale freehold with offers sought in the region of ÂŁ950,000.

For information and all enquries please contact Julian Cook on: 0117 934 9977 Burston Cook, Lewins House, Lewins Mead, Bristol BS1 2NN www.burstoncook.co.uk

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Bristol & Clifton’s premier Commercial Property Agents IF YOU ARE LOOKING TO RELOCATE OR ESTABLISH A NEW BUSINESS IN 2012 PLEASE PHONE THE BURSTON COOK TEAM FOR ALL TYPES OF COMMERCIAL PROPERTY

(0117) 934 9977

8-10 WHITELADIES ROAD, CLIFTON

INVESTMENT/ DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITY

Prime office suite of circa 1,400 sq ft plus 4 car spaces.

For Sale – only £90,000

Undergoing full refurbishment.

Large shop of 780 sq ft and ancillary first floor suitable for 2 bed flat.

New flexible lease.

No premium!

ST AUGUSTINES PARADE, BRISTOL CITY CENTRE

PORTLAND SQUARE, CENTRAL BRISTOL

Open plan offices.

Fine period offices with ancillary residential flat.

Modern stylish suite of 800 sq ft.

Various sizes from 865 sq ft to 4,114 sq ft.

Only £8.00 per sq ft and flexible lease.

Flexible leases/may sell.

15 GREAT GEORGE STREET – FREEHOLD

OAKFIELD ROAD, CLIFTON

An attractive period building of 2,300 sq ft with rear garden. Fitted as dental clinic/offices and would suit residential.

Unique office opportunity – a Coach House of circa 910 sq ft with secure parking.

Great space!

FOR SALE

New lease available.

WHITELADIES ROAD RETAIL

OPEN PLAN OFFICES, CLIFTON

Large shop to let of 1,125 sq ft – would also suit A2 (retail office) use.

Open plan offices close to Clifton Triangle comprising 6,014 sq ft (558 sq m) with 4 on-site car parking spaces.

New lease to be agreed.

Flexible lease terms.

We can help you

• Sales • Lettings • • Valuations • Rent reviews • • Acquisitions advice • Investments • • Development advice • Landlord & tenant • For more about who we are... www.burstoncook.co.uk Julian Cook

Jayne Rixon

Andrew Oliver

David Ball

*Winner EGI most active Local Agent in Bristol 2008 & 2009* *EGI Top 5 Regional Agent in Bristol, Bath & Swindon 2010 & 2011*

Please telephone Julian Cook FRICS Jayne Rixon MRICS or Andrew Oliver MRICS or David Ball BA MSc (Hons) (0117) 934 9977 Burston Cook April.indd 1

Awards ‘08, ‘09, ‘10, ‘11 19/03/2012 17:19

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BRISTOLpropertyNEWS

VILLAGE LIVING IN FRENCHAY Just on the market is a smart conversion development of six contemporary townhouses located in a quiet village setting.

B

ristol estate agent; Maggs and Allen is the first to bring to market this exclusive conversion development of just six bespoke homes in Frenchay village, carefully designed to fit into the village surroundings yet enjoying a contemporary and quality living experience with great views. The development comprises of six two double bedroom houses featuring master bedroom with en-suite, downstairs cloakroom, open plan living space offering modern kitchen with integrated appliances and oak work surfaces, with oak flooring throughout, and bifold doors onto a private courtyard garden. Further benefits include downstairs cloakroom, utility, two parking spaces, bin and bicycle storage area, 10 year BLP Warranty, there are also superb views of the surrounding area, all set in a village location. Each of the homes has individual touches and are finished to a very high standard.

Prices are from £249,995.

If you would like further information or to arrange a viewing then please contact Maggs & Allen on: 0117 949 9000 agency@maggsandallen.co.uk Maggs and Allen also hasa facebook page which is regularly updated with new properties and information www.facebook.com/maggsandallen

EXPERIENCED PROPERTY AGENTS JOIN TO LAUNCH AUCTION HOUSE Left to right: the Auction House team; William Hills, Peter Beddoe, Nick Cragg and David Beddoe

T

wo of the region’s most experienced independent property auctioneers and agents have joined forces to launch the West of England office for the UK’s fastest growing auctioneering network.

Bristol-based Morgan Beddoe and South Gloucestershire’s Country Property have launched Auction House (West of England) with regular property auctions scheduled throughout 2012.

Auction House is a growing national network of over 25 regional auctioneers backed up by national marketing to increase the number of investors attending auctions and make a successful sale more likely for clients.

Auction House (West of England) covers Bath, Bristol, West Wiltshire, Weston-super-Mare, Gloucestershire and up through the Severn Valley.

This new initiative cements an already strong relationship between Morgan Beddoe, and Country Property as Nick Cragg of Country Property has been acting as consultant auctioneer at Morgan Beddoe for two years.

He said: “Selling a property by auction provides speed and certainty for clients. Once the hammer falls the contract is legal and binding, avoiding the potential for uncertainty associated with selling a property in the usual 86 The Bristol Magazine

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A joint venture between two of the region’s most respected agents creates a major new force in auctioneering in the west manner. Through Auction House we offer a regional presence as part of a national network with all the benefits that implies, including essential local market knowledge and good service.”

David Beddoe at Morgan Beddoe added: “The auction market is growing for commercial and residential properties and we are achieving sales on both as a result of accurate pricing and good marketing”.

“It’s what we know and who we know that is helping us achieve successful auction outcomes.”

Regular Auction House auctions will be held at the Museum and Art Gallery, Park Street, Bristol throughout 2012. The first auction is scheduled for 18 April and entries are invited. Properties for this first auction can be viewed on-line at: www.auctionhouse.uk.net/westofengland

For more information contact: david.beddoe@auctionhouse.uk.net Auction House Morgan Beddoe: 0117 946 4949 or nick.cragg@auctionhouse.uk.net Auction House Country Property: 01454 855060

Property Concept April:Layout 5

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MANAGEMENT • SALES • LETTING • CONSULTANCY

Clifton £695,000 The Best of both worlds! Cleverly reconstructed by the present owner now means that this superb home provides Georgian proportions combined with cutting edge contemporary design and finish. This is both a sophisticated but very practical home with flexible accommodation and layout. No expense has been spared and finishes include solid Oak flooring and staircases (with inset LED lighting), Corian kitchen work tops, vaulted ceilings with exposed ceiling beams, cast iron radiators and Travertine floors & walls to the bathrooms. The amazing roof top views from the south facing roof terrace and so many fantastic features make a rare opportunity in this central, sought after Clifton Village location.

Clifton £795,000 Exceptional spacious maisonette of magnificent proportions (c.2,899 sq ft) arranged over three floors of this fine Georgian property situated in the heart of Clifton Village.

Stylishly presented and refurbished by the present owners enhancing the many interesting period features throughout the building, to include stained glass windows, canopied first floor balcony and some superb fireplaces. Modern touches include the top quality kitchen, the Oak flooring, cast iron spiral staircase, bathrooms and the excellent decked south facing roof terrace. Additional outside space is offered via a south facing courtyard which gives access to two vaulted cellars. With flexible accommodation including 4/5 Bedrooms, principle reception rooms of original proportions and three bathrooms this is a rare opportunity.

Clifton £434,950

Clifton £475,000

Contemporary townhouse constructed in 2004 comprising 4 bedrooms, roof terrace with panoramic views towards Brandon Hill & Cabot Tower, rear courtyard garden and integral garage. Within walking distance of Clifton village, City Centre, Bristol University and Bristol Royal Infirmary and provides a great location for those wishing to partake in the many cafes, restaurants and boutiques the area has to offer.

The property over four floors comprises the remainder of the NHBC guarantee, 4 bedrooms, open-plan living/dining/kitchen with a door to the private rear courtyard garden. The roof terrace which is south facing is accessed off the 3rd bedroom.

A charming mews house situated in a very popular central location close to Clifton Village shops, cafes and restaurants. The well planned accommodation offers a kitchen dining room, shower room, delightful spacious first floor sitting room with stripped wood floor, two double bedrooms, bathroom and pretty walled courtyard garden to the rear. This is an excellent alternative to a large apartment and with parking and a pretty walled courtyard garden and lots of character this property is well worth viewing. Sold with no onward chain.

21 Princess Victoria Street

Tel 0117 970 6119

enquiries@propertyconcept.co.uk

Clifton, Bristol BS8 4BX

Fax 0117 970 6109

www.propertyconcept.co.uk

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Westbury-on-trym

®

www.oceanhome.co.uk

73 Westbury Hill, Bristol, BS9 3AD

0117 962 1973

Shirehampton £412,500

Westbury on Trym £299,950

An exceptional period residence situated on a popular tree lined road which features a stunning modern interior with many bespoke features whilst maintaining much of the beautiful original character. This fabulous family home offers four bedrooms of which two are en-suite along with a separate family bathroom, living room with open working fireplace, dining room and a magnificent kitchen/dining/family room which features a superb centre island with granite work surface and integrated appliances including coffee machine, micro oven and dishwasher. The property has a good size mature rear garden with a garage/ workshop to the rear and a pretty lawned garden and pathway to the front.

Occupying a larger than average corner plot between popular Falcondale Road and Canford Road in Westbury on Trym is this modern detached family home which offers huge potential for further development and extending (subject to the necessary consents). Currently arranged as a three bedroom, two reception home there is a modern family kitchen & bathroom, downstairs w.c and garage.

The property has a drive to the front elevation allowing additional parking and gardens to all four aspects. The property is offered with no onward chain.

Henbury £280,000

Coombe Dingle £199,950

At first you could be forgiven for not given this unusual looking house a second glance but look beyond the facade and you could be very pleasantly surprised.

This modular four bedroom home offers fantastic light and airy accommodation with a good size living/dining room, modern kitchen/breakfast room and the four beds and family bathroom on the 1st floor. The property offers a convenient utility area and a walled south/west facing landscaped garden. Situated just moments from one of Bristol's real gems, the National Trusts delightful Blaise Hamlet this unusual family home is sure to generate lots of interest.

A smart new build semi detached home situated in popular Coombe Dingle close to Blaise Castle Estate, Shirehampton Golf Course and many local amenities.

Offering three bedrooms, living room, kitchen/dining room with french doors to the garden a downstairs w.c and family bathroom on the first floor. The house benefits from off street parking, lawned west facing garden, central heating, double glazing. Offered with no onward chain these recently constructed houses are sure to prove extremely popular.

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oceanhome

Clifton

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www.oceanhome.co.uk

187-189 Whiteladies Road, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 2RY

0117 946 6007

Redland £207,500

Sneyd Park £324,950

A one bedroom garden flat set with a private south facing lawned rear garden (including sun terrace) measuring 63ft x 27ft with a private entrance large living room with French doors opening on to the garden and a separate kitchen with breakfast bar.

A wonderful garden apartment in a beautiful location opposite the downs, this lovely period apartment offers a 26' lounge with bay window and fireplace, dining hall, separate kitchen, two sizeable double bedrooms and a recently refitted bathroom with rolltop bath. Externally there is a private garden at the rear.

Redland £325,000

Hotwells £399,995

A spacious garden apartment benefitting from front and rear gardens on this corner plot with off-street parking (6 spaces for 4 flats), sizeable 19' lounge/diner with bay window and fireplace, separate kitchen with double doors to the rear garden, dining hall/study, two double bedrooms, walk in wardrobe to master bedroom, bath/shower room and separate WC.

Simply stunning grade II listed Georgian terrace on the doorstep of the floating harbour. This property presents itself over four floors and consists living room, four bedrooms, kitchen/diner, utility room/workshop. There are many period feature including five open fireplaces, cornicing and a courtyard garden to the rear.

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www.maggsandallen.co.uk

0117 949 9000 60 Northumbria Drive, Henleaze, Bristol, BS9 4HW

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Very well presented double fronted corner shop unit with warehouse (approx. 2,500sqft gross) situated in a prominent location on Zetland Road just off Cheltenham Road. Arranged as ground floor retail space with additional storage to the rear. New lease available.

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Rare opportunity to acquire this freehold investment property arranged as 2 commercial units fronting St Stephens St with 5 additional self-contained five bedroom flats above. Rental income approximately ÂŁ121,500p.a

A rare opportunity to purchase this freehold shop arranged over 3 levels (approx. 820sqft gross) situated in popular location on Park Row within walking distance to Clifton Triangle and Park Street.

To be sold with vacant possession. Early enquiries recommended.

Three storey light industrial building situated to the rear of Colston Yard (approx. 1200sqft) benefiting from planning consent for the conversion to a 6 bedroom house for students/nursing accommodation.

Potential for live/work subject to consents.

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Very well presented converted coach house (approx.

3,100sqft gross) arranged over 2 storeys with rear workshop and off street parking. Potential for conversion to residential subject to obtaining all necessary consents. To be sold with vacant possession.

Freehold mixed use end of terrace property arranged as ground floor lock up shop unit (just under 1,000sqft gross internal) and self contained 3 bedroom maisonette to the upper floors. Situated in a popular location in Henleaze. Early enquiries recommended.

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Well presented ground floor lock up shop unit (approx 500sqft) with additional basement level (approx. 550sqft) providing further storage. Situated in a prime location on Park Street within close proximity to Bristol University, College Green and Bristol City Centre. New lease available.

New build end of terrace shop (approx 500sqft gross) arranged as ground floor retail area with rear toilet and kitchen facilities. Benefiting from off street parking to the rear and situated in a prominent locatiion.

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Freehold shop with rear yard and self contained maisonette to the upper levels situated on North Street where freeholds rarely become available. Benefits include a rear yard with vehicular access. To be sold with vacant possession.

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Maggs & Allen April.indd 1

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16/03/2012 14:07

www.maggsandallen.co.uk

0117 949 9000 60 Northumbria Drive, Henleaze, Bristol, BS9 4HW

Redland

£530,000

A most spacious and attractive 1920’s semi detached family house that is located in a prime location with great access to local junior schools and just 0.5miles (approx) from the popular Redland Green School.

The spacious accommodation is arranged as: wide entrance hall, downstairs WC, three receptions, fitted kitchen along with four good sized bedrooms, family bathroom. Outside there is a pleasant rear garden with a generous garage and to the front is off street parking for several cars. This sizeable family house is situated on the popular Upper Cranbrook Road where property of this nature is rare to the market. Upper Cranbrook is positioned on the border of Redland and Westbury Park and is conveniently placed for Coldharbour Road/Waitrose/Henleaze Road shops as well as easy access for Durdham Downs, Whiteladies Road and the Centre.

Winterbourne Down

£700,000

’Justacottage’ is a beautiful detached cottage on approx half acre plot. Enjoys modern improvements such as an oak kitchen with granite surfaces & under floor heating. Accommodation comprises: sitting room with inglenook style fireplace, dining room with fireplace & flagstone floor, study, utility room, cloakroom, conservatory with views, 4 bedrooms, master with en-suite & a family bathroom. Outside: lawned gardens, stone outbuildings, stone under cover BBQ, piggery/log store, detached double garage with off-street parking & a 2nd garage/office with sound proofing, which therefore makes it an ideal area for budding musicians, music enthusiast or even potential for a home office.

Estate Agents

Maggs & Allen April Sale.indd 1

Lettings & Management

Auctioneers

Frenchay Village

Prices from £249,995

Maggs and Allen are delighted to bring to market this exclusive conversion development of just SIX bespoke homes in Frenchay village, carefully designed to fit into the village surroundings yet enjoying a contemporary and quality living experience with great views. The development will offer six two double bedroom houses offering master bedroom with en-suite, downstairs cloakroom, open plan living space offering modern kitchen with integrated appliances and oak work surfaces, with oak flooring throughout, and bifold doors onto a private courtyard garden. Further benefits include downstairs cloakroom, utility, two parking spaces, bin and bicycle storage area, 10 year BLP Warranty, superb views of the surrounding area, in a village location. Each of the homes has individual touches and are finished to a very high standard.

Westbury Park

£489,950

This sizeable semi detached home on Linden road offers plenty of space, original features, south facing rear garden and plenty of parking. The ground floor offers welcoming entrance leading to two receptions, and kitchen with breakfast room and cloakroom, to the first floor you find four bedrooms and the family bathroom, then to the second floor the fifth bedroom with cleverly built in storage. The property still retains it’s garage, and plenty of off street parking. The rear garden aspect is southerly and is enclosed suiting families and those looking for that ‘sunny’ aspect. Further benefits include double glazing, Redland green secondary apr, and westbury park primary APR.

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Bishopston

St. Andrews

Montpelier

Located on a picturesque Edwardian tree lined crescent, this three storey, 1930s family size five bedroom semi detached home has an array of original features, including cornicing and stained glass lead inset windows. Being within the Redland Green APR, this property also benefits from off street parking and a garage, and boasts a 75 foot rear garden.

An immaculate example of period grandeur, boasting an array of lovingly maintained period features, delicately complimented by contemporary decoration throughout. Being linked mid terrace and also 9 metres wide, the property affords three reception rooms and three double bedrooms. Also benefiting from a south easterly facing landscaped rear garden, and off street parking.

Retaining an abundance of features, period charm and grandeur, this three bedroom period cottage style property has stunning views to the rear over the approximately 100 foot rear garden with its southerly facing sunny aspect. To the rear of the property is a cleverly concealed workshop. Offered to the market with no onward chain.

£525,000

£495,000

£350,000

Henleaze

Westbury Park

Westbury Park

Within close proximity of Henleaze Infant and Junior School, this detached home offers fantastic character including hallway and gallery landing. Three receptions, Ingle Nook fireplace, kitchen/breakfast room, five bedrooms with extensive views and bathroom. A 21m West facing family garden, workshop and private driveway.

This Victorian style family home is well positioned within close proximity to Westbury Park Infant and Junior School and RGS School. Accommodation briefly comprises: three receptions, two upper floors offering; six bedrooms and two bathrooms, ample storage, south westerly facing 15m garden and off street parking.

This Victorian style Period family home offers; living room with bay window, dining room, kitchen/breakfast room and separate utility room, three double bedrooms and bathroom. A secure garage to the rear, low maintenance garden and is positioned within close proximity to Henleaze Infant and Junior School.

PRICE GUIDE £700,000

PRICE GUIDE £450,000

PRICE GUIDE £700,000

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Sneyd Park

Offers in Excess of ÂŁ285,000

Two Bedrooms | Sitting Room | Dining Room | Kitchen/Breakfast Room | Master Bedroom with En-suite Shower Room | Communal Gardens A very spacious two double bedroom first floor apartment with south-west facing balcony. The apartment has a large reception hall, sitting room, dining room, kitchen breakfast room and main bathroom. The master bedroom also has an en-suite shower room. Set in a quiet location in the heart of Sneyd Park the property has open views across the Avon Gorge to Leigh Woods. There is a parking space and an allocated single garage.

The Apartment Company April.indd 2

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Great Pulteney Street, Bath

OIEO £420,000

A stunning Grade I listed two bedroom 2nd floor apartment located in the world famous Great Pulteney Street. Affording spacious and wellpresented accommodation all just a level walk from central Bath.

The Grange, Bath

OIEO £345,000

A beautifully appointed two bedroom period apartment currently run as a successful holiday let. This delightful garden apartment enjoys a peaceful setting whilst being within easy reach of central Bath.

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City Centre

OIEO £225,000

A beautifully light contemporary apartment in a most convenient location within walking distance of local shops and the harbour-side restaurants. Balcony, secure parking and storage area.

The Apartment Company April.indd 2

Portishead

OIEO £210,000

Highly stylised, contemporary loft style duplex apartment. Open-plan living room, kitchen & cloakroom. Two bedrooms, en-suite shower room & bathroom. Feature lighting and porthole windows. Close to waterfront.

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Redland £589,950

A most civilised and remarkably spacious Victorian town house located within walking distance of Durdham Downs and Whiteladies Road. The property has been meticulously cared for and offers flexible accommodation arranged over 4 floors - each with impressive room proportions. Briefly comprising: 2/3 reception rooms, 4/5 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.

Outside you will find a modest sized, level town garden.

Clifton £550,000

A unique 3 bedroom penthouse apartment in Clifton Village with parking space. This apartment combines original features of a Victorian factory with contemporary design. The result is an exceptional residence with large, airy rooms, a conservatory on an amazing roof terrace, and private parking. The property is Grade II listed.

Westbury-on-Trym £450,000

An exceptionally well presented Coach House completely remodelled and refurbished by the current owners now offering a highly individual property with integral garage and wonderful views. The accommodation is arranged over three floors with kitchen/diner, study/bedroom 4, utility and shower room on the ground floor. The first floor provides a living room and master bedroom with en suite. Both have access to a small rear terrace area. The upper floor provides two further bedrooms and a bathroom.

Leese & Nagle April.indd 1

Stoke Bishop £699,950

Four bedroom modern detached house positioned in a tucked away spot on the prestigious Queensgate development in Stoke Bishop. Two formal reception rooms, study, kitchen/ breakfast room opening onto the garden. Master bedroom with en suite, three further double bedrooms, family bathroom. Potential to convert large loft space. Rear garden with Southerly aspect, two garages and off street parking.

Stoke Bishop £625,000

A stylish extended 1930s five bedroom detached home in Stoke Bishop offering well presented accommodation. Comprises; sitting room, cloakroom, utility room and dining room open to a fabulous contemporary kitchen with sliding patio doors out to a westerly facing timber decked area and a large family friendly level lawned garden. 4 bedrooms, one with en-suite shower and family bathroom, a loft conversion provides bedroom and bathroom.

No onward chain.

Westbury-on-Trym £225,000

A well presented, comfortable 2 bedroom detached bungalow enjoying a tucked away position on a private development of three properties. Comprises; entrance lobby, hallway, separate kitchen, living room which opens into a centrally heated double glazed conservatory which in turn opens into the rear garden. Two bedrooms and a bathroom. The rear garden enjoys a South Westerly aspect. Garage and plenty of parking. Situated just off Horfield common.

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Clifton Guide Price £775,000

Late Georgian townhouse with spacious flexible accommodation arranged over five floors.

The house is attractively presented, yet allows the incoming owner to adapt to their own requirements. It retains some lovely period features including a wrought iron first floor balcony off the elegant drawing room. Potential for a self contained lower floor flat for rental or relative. Good sized lawned front garden with a westerly aspect, rear garden with a garage.

Henleaze £575,000

A delightful five bedroom semi detached Edwardian style family home situated in a desirable location within a few minutes’ walk of both Henleaze High Street and Henleaze Schools. The house has been substantially extended to provide light spacious and airy accommodation with a lovely formal reception room at the front and a large open plan family living area opening onto the large rear garden which enjoys a South Westerly aspect and has a garage at the far end. Offered with no onward chain.

Long Ashton £675,000

Situated at the end of a private road and enjoying elevated views over surrounding countryside this modern executive home is finished to an extremely high standard and offers comfortable family living. Key features include a superb C.21’ x 20’ kitchen/breakfast room which opens onto the entertaining terrace, three further reception rooms, conservatory, four bedrooms (2 en suite), double garage, off street parking and attractive private manageable gardens.

Leese & Nagle April.indd 2

Sneyd Park £699,000

A contemporary style 4 bedroom detached house built in 1986 surrounded by its own garden affording peace and privacy at the end of a tucked away lane. The ground floor comprises entrance porch, entrance hall, 3 bedrooms, cloakroom, and utility room. Over the first floor the kitchen is open to the wonderful family room with sitting and dining areas and doors leading onto two terraces suitable for al fresco dining. Two further rooms and bathroom complete the first floor. The second floor benefits from a stunning spacious sitting room with pitched roof.

Sneyd Park Guide Price £750,000

A modern style detached five bedroom house set in a plot of two thirds of an acre with 315ft long rear garden backing onto a nature reserve in Sneyd Park. This is as close to living in country as you can get in the city. Dual aspect living room, dining room, kitchen/breakfast room and cloakroom. Five bedrooms and a family bathroom. We feel there is potential to extend further (subject to any consents).

Sneyd Park £425,000

A wonderful hall floor garden flat located in this handsome period building just off Durdham Downs. Comprises: Entrance Vestibule, Impressive Hallway, Sitting/Dining Room, Kitchen, 3 Double Bedrooms & Bathroom. Workshop/Storage room. Outside you will find mature gardens to both front and rear of the house which belong to this flat. The rear garden is private and benefits from afternoon sunshine.Very highly recommended.

15/03/2012 14:15

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EFFECTIVELY SELLING hOMES IN YOUR AREA

REDLAND

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AT LEESE & NAGLE OUR EXPERIENCED TEAM COLLECTIVELY COMBINE OVER 125 YEARS OF ESTATE AGENCY EXPERIENCE. WE PROVIDE REALISTIC MARKET APPRAISALS OF YOUR PROPERTY BACKED UP BY COMPARABLE EVIDENCE, SPECIALIST REPORTS AND YEARS OF EXPERIENCE.

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Fabulous Victorian Family Homes With Unusually Large Gardens

Redland Guide Price £850,000

An 80 foot long level south by south west facing rear garden comes with this lovely five bedroom Victorian semi detached family house positioned in central Redland. Potential buyers will also be impressed by the lower ground floor which has been opened out to provide a huge (circa 35’ x 20’ ft) kitchen/diner/family living area with bi-folding doors opening directly onto the rear garden.

The house is ideally suited to those wanting a comfortable family home in this desirable location.The hall floor provides tradition with two formal reception rooms that retain period features and a guest/fifth bedroom with adjoining shower room & WC. Upstairs there are four well proportioned bedrooms. The master with en suite shower room and a further family bathroom. As previously mentioned the lower floor is largely open plan, there is however a tucked away combined cloakroom and utility for convenience. As well as the superb rear garden which is laid mainly to lawn and enclosed by brick walls there is a secure gate to the side of the house providing access for bikes etc. The front garden provides the invaluable provision of two off street parking spaces.

The house is offered with no onward chain.

Area The house is situated in the heart of Redland, around the area that was the original village settlement. The lovely Redland Park is within a minutes’ walk as are local shops and pub. The area is highly prized amongst families with excellent local state and independent schools and convenient access into the city centre.

Westbury-on-Trym Guide Price £850,000

Gracious and most picturesque Victorian semi-detached family residence located in one of Bristol’s prime residential areas. The property is set back from this quiet road with a 60’ front garden affording a degree of privacy and enjoys a magnificent family friendly circa 150’ long level rear garden. The comfortable family orientated accommodation is arranged over three floors with the main entrance door positioned to the side of the house with porch area affording access at Hall Floor level.The spacious hallway is well lit courtesy of a lantern light positioned above the stairwell.

There is a attractive Sitting Room and Study positioned to the front and a Dining/Family Room at the rear. There is a large cloakroom with capacity to store plenty of coats, boots and buggies if required. On the lower floor there is a full width kitchen/diner with wood burner set at one end and door providing access to the patio and garden. The ground floor ancillary accommodation comprises a walk in pantry, various store cupboards and two external storage vaults. A guest room is positioned to the front and has its own en suite shower room. The three principal family bedrooms are positioned on the upper floor and are of generous proportions. The master bedroom boasts a sumptuous en suite bathroom and has fantastic views over the rear garden. There is also a recently fitted family bathroom. The gardens are undeniably one of the main attractions of the house being unusually large not only for the area but for a Victorian house in suburban Bristol. The front gardens ensure high levels of privacy and with a drive leading past the side of the house to a good size stand alone garage there is plenty of off street parking. The rear gardens are maturing gracefully with areas of patio, lawn, well stocked borders, fruit trees and towards the far end a vegetable garden with traditional style greenhouse.

Area Westbury-on-Trym is a traditional affluent suburb with vibrant shopping area and even a Michelin starred restaurant centred around the historic village centre. There is a popular junior school and numerous civic amenities all within a few minutes’ walk. Red Maids and Badminton school are within walking distance and several other independent schools are within reasonable distance.

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