Bristol – 2: A Day in Clifton

My first day’s excursion has to be around Clifton. The Clifton Suspension Bridge is top of my list of things to see. The stroll through Clifton in the morning sunshine is very pleasant. Clifton developed into an affluent suburb in the late eighteenth century. It occupies the high ground above the city between Whiteladies Road at the top of Park Street and the Avon Gorge to the west. It’s a pleasant, Georgian and Victorian environment consisting mostly of tall, elegant terraces. It is reminiscent of Dublin 4, though quieter and more intimate. Even many of the street names match with Lansdowne and Pembroke Roads. 

I skirt Clifton Village with its lovely arcade and plenty of sunshine sidewalk cafes, before zigzagging vaguely uphill. There’s parkland along the summit, and prominent here is the Clifton Observatory. There’s a wee coffee shop where I can catch my breath. So good I use it twice. At first to relax over a strong coffee and again to recover with something harder after my visit.

The tower has panoramic views over the gorge with bits of Bristol peeking through the trees beyond Clifton Downs. Built in 1776 as a windmill, it was bought by  William West who converted it into his art studio. Indulging his passion for photography, he installed the Camera Obscura, meaning dark room, in 1828. The camera took advantage of the spectacular views of the Clifton Downs and the Avon Gorge, further enhanced by Brunel’s suspension bridge of 1864.

I take the full ticket, with entry to the Camera Obscura above and the Giant’s Cave somewhere below. A lady is ahead of me in the queue for the Camera and kindly offers to share the dark room with me. I’m glad of this as it soothes the experience of being in the dark, atop a tower, with the ghostlike apparition of the giddy panorama somehow all around. She also knows how to operate the thing which would probably have mystified me. It is very addictive. There’s a hint of the confessional in the darkness and the hush, without the padre but the presence of God, and the serene lady. By myself I would probably have left scratch marks on the walls, but spent several magic moments within the ancient and modern contraption before finding the door after only a few attempts. 

West cut the steep descending passage to the Giant’s Cave. It’s a long way down and my incipient claustrophobia, triggered by the dark room, waxes some more as the passageway gets ever narrower. And then there’s the thought of having to retrace my steps, all of them, all of those steps. I break out into the cave at something of a gallop but don’t tarry long as I rush onto the viewing platform. This juts out of the cliff face with well nigh 360 degree views of the bridge and gorge. Great, claustrophobia and vertigo. It really is stunning. Soaking all in, as much as I can, I quickly clamber up to the open air, regretting I’m not young anymore but very glad to be alive. And my second visit to the 360 degree Glass Cafe offers wonderful views and refreshments, including a welcome bottle of beer. All that and Amy Winehouse singing Valerie on the sound system. Life can be perfect, sometimes.

Well, sometimes I go out by myself

And I look across the water

And I think of all the things of what you’re doing

In my head I paint a picture

And then it’s time for another cliffhanger. The Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol’s most awesome icon, was conceived by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in response to a competition to choose a bridge to span the gorge. Brunel’s design won, or at least he convinced the judges that it did, and he received the contract to proceed. Construction was beset with problems. The Bristol Riots of 1831 halted construction and investors backed out. Work resumed five years later but was dogged by funding problems. The project was abandoned in 1843 with only the towers completed. Brunel died in 1859 and so never saw his project brought to fruition. Admirers at the Institute of Civil Engineers reckoned that completing the bridge would be a fitting memorial to the great man and a revised design by William Henry Barlow and John Hawkshaw was begun in 1862 and opened in 1864.

Brunel’s design had a sphinx atop each tower, but these never materialised. It’s still mighty impressive. The towers do have a certain Egyptian slant and rise to 100 metres above high tide. The bridge has a clearance of 75 metres, a span of 214 metres and a total length over 400 metres.

I walk across the bridge and back. There are few comparable walking on air experiences. I’ve cycled across the Golden Gate, walked and driven over the Hoover Dam, and taken a few tentative steps along the Firth of Forth Bridge. This is right up there, and I mean up. It’s giddy-making and transcendent. There’s a visitors centre on the Leigh Woods side in Somerset but I’m in a special place and continue back to the Clifton side. I am enjoying a long, and I hope visibly poetic, view across the gorge when I sense someone entering my space. 

Hello there, you alright there, mate? It’s a genial man, in the livery of the Bridge company. I inform him of my happiness, something not always apparent in my countenance, and consider that people are extraordinarily nice in Bristol.  And then I understand where he’s coming from. The bridge is also, balefully, a renowned suicide spot. Plaques advertise the number of the Samaritans and monitors regularly patrol. In 1885 a young barmaid, Sarah Henley, jumped from the bridge. Her voluminous skirts acted as a parachute and she landed safely, if embarrassingly, in the soft mud of the Avon at low tide. She lived into her eighties.

I assure the man that I’ve read the plaques, although that may only confirm his suspicions. I tell him it’s great to be alive. I had hoped to click my heels jauntily while departing, but the old legs aren’t quite up to it, so I stroll, with as much mirth as I can muster, back to Clifton Village. 

Clifton Village itself is wearing a happy face in the sunshine. I potter about the shops and the cafes. There’s an upmarket but bohemian vibe abroad, a palpable sense of Santa Monica in the straight streets, the faded fin de siecle facades. I stop for refreshment on the pavement along Princess Victoria Street. While reviewing my photography, my phones battery dies and I must head back to the hotel to recharge. 

It’s time for a late lunch anyhow. Racks Bar is empty, it was packed yesterday. The bargirl asks me how my day has been going and I tell her. Ultimately it’s all about being glad to be alive. I must apologise to the queue that’s formed behind, hopefully enjoying my tale. Outside the sun is blazing and I relax over a falafel and a foaming beer. Amy Winehouse is playing, same as at Clifton Observatory. Two perfect moments in one day.

Oh, won’t you come on over?

Stop making a fool out of me

Why don’t you come on over, Valerie?

Valerie was originally a song by the Zutons, a Liverpool band of the Noughties. It was written by their frontman, Dave McCabe, though credited to the full band. McCabe wrote it in a cab, a kiss blown westwards to his ex, an American girl called Valerie Star. It features on the album, Tired of Hanging Around from 2006. Winehouse’s cover is found on her producer Mark Ronson’s album Version, released the following year.

Bristol – 1

I am early into Bristol and alight from the airport bus at the city’s main railway station, Temple Meads, at the tail end of the morning rush hour. Built in 1840 as the terminus for the Great Western Railway which was the first railway project of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. It was extended in 1870 to allow for through traffic. The distinctive entrance tower with its decorative turrets was added then. The station is on the island formed by the division of the Avon River not far from the city centre which is largely cited on high ground above the northern bank. 

The name Bristol is derived from the Anglo Saxon Brigstow, the place of the bridge, and it blossomed in early Norman times into a vital trading city and port. It would also form one end of the bridge for the Norman invasion of Ireland, a century after the Battle of Hastings. Today, Bristol is a large city of half a million people, so I’m not going to see it all in three days. I’ve a checklist to explore; especially its maritime, ancient and cultural connections. I may make a trip to Bath nearby, there’s connections by rail and river. I’ll see how it goes. I’m just glad to be overseas, even if it’s only the Irish Sea crossed. I’m off my own island and onto another, for the first time in two years.

I grab a coffee and breakfast roll at the first opportunity, then begins the task of lugging my bag up to Clifton where I’m staying. My route takes me past St Mary Redcliffe Church which draws me in. It’s a fine gothic pile standing on its own green enclosure. A most friendly gentleman welcomes me. He gives a good rundown of other sights worth seeing, but doesn’t rate my excursion to Bath. “Or, as we say: bah!” says he. I am made swear I will visit the SS Great Britain, as I had planned. Meanwhile, St Mary Redcliffe’s proves well worth the stop.

Described by Queen Elizabeth as the fairest, goodliest and most famous parish church in England, it was almost as old to her as she is to us. There was a church in Saxon times, but today’s church dates back to the 13th and 14th centuries. It formed a significant landmark in its situation above the Avon perched on the red cliff that gives it its name. Mariners would pray for grace on departing and give thanks on their return. As Bristol burgeoned as a port, well heeled local traders contributed to the upkeep of the church. The result is a testimony to the glories of the English Gothic Perpendicular. Such famous family names as the Penns, the Cabots and the Ameryks are part of the fabric. 

John Cabot was an Italian who in 1496 came to England seeking funding for a voyage to the New World. He gained the support of Henry VII, and in 1497 sailed from Bristol to cross the Atlantic and make landfall, probably in Newfoundland. He became the first European to reach the North American coast since the Viking, Leif Erikson, some five centuries earlier. That other Italian, Christopher Columbus had famously set foot in Central America in 1492, a prelude to Spanish dominion over the southern parts of the Americas. It looked like England was destined to establish its own foothold to the north. Cabot set sail again the next year, but then only silence. Cabot may have died at sea, or stayed in America by accident or design. Some claim that he returned and sponsored further exploration by other mariners. William Weston was one, his voyage along the Labrador coast being the first to signal the obsessive search for the Northwest passage. Cabot’s son Sebastian, born in Venice, also explored the North American coast over a number of years in the early sixteenth century and was keen to establish a presence there. He returned to England in 1509, but the new king, Henry VIII, wasn’t interested in exploration, of a geographical nature anyway.

England would have to wait until Elizabeth’s time for its colonial project to begin. Virginia Dare, born in Roanoke in 1587, was the first European settler to be born in the territory that became the USA. No one knows what happened to her either. She disappeared without trace into the feral woodland embracing the Chesapeake, a lost white child in a vast dark wilderness. 

Cabot’s achievements slipped below the radar for a while. But he’s well commemorated in this most maritime city. There’s a statue to him outside the Arnolfini Gallery near the Old Town, the landmark Cabot’s Tower rises over the city centre and a reconstruction of his ship, the Matthew, floats in Bristol Harbour.

Sir William Penn, father of the founder of Pennsylvania is a notable monument in St. Mary’s, again connecting with the New World. Penn senior was an admiral and politician who died, not yet fifty, in 1670. His son, William, accepted a grant of land in America, in lieu of monies owed by the crown. The new colony was to be called Sylvania, being covered in dense woodland, the word Penn prefixed in honour of the late William senior. A more fanciful connection is proposed for Richard Ameryk, Anglo Welsh merchant and Sheriff of Bristol. The claim that he, as sponsor of Cabot’s Matthew voyage, gave his name to the place has few champions. Yet another Italian, Amerigo Vespucci, has that honour. 

After a brief pause for prayer, I continue around the church which is a sublime hymn in stone. Churches, like trees, bend and grow with time. St Mary’s had been hit by lightning in 1446, destroying the spire, which was only repaired four centuries later in 1872 to a height of eighty metres (260 feet). Bombs rained down during WWII, still the church survives. Stories live on, even when their subject quickly fades. In 1752 poet Thomas Chatterton was born here, his family being longterm holders of the office of sexton of St. Mary’s. Chatterton features in Pre-Raphaelite painter Henry Wallis’s depiction of his tragic death by suicide at the age of seventeen. Chatterton was an inspiration for the Romantic poets who followed: Wordsworth, Keats and Coleridge. Coleridge has a particular connection. At Cambridge, he had become a friend of Robert Southey, a Bristolian. They hoped to establish a Utopian commune in Pennsylvania but the plans were abandoned. The two married sisters Sara and Edith Fricker at St. Mary’s in November 1795 and set up house in the Lake District. 

Coleridge’s weird masterpiece, the Rime of the Ancient Mariner begins with the wedding guest being accosted by a raving loon, the Mariner himself. Can happen in any bar, believe me. At the end of the tale, spoiler alert, the mariner makes it home, and experiences the universal joy of the traveller returning.

Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed
The light-house top I see?
Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
Is this mine own country?

Another item of note, if you’ll pardon the pun, is provided by the organ. A massive construction of over four thousand pipes it was designed by Harrison and Harrison of Durham in 1911. Which reminds me, the last time I was in Durham I got a lift from Sunderland with a man called Harrison (no kin). Travel is all about connections. 

Taking my leave of St. Mary’s I eventually get to cross the Avon at the Redcliffe Bascule Bridge. There are many Avons in England. The most famous dribbling past Stratford not far north of here; but that, though near, is a different Avon. The word is simply the old Celtic word for river, as in our own Avonmore and Avonbeg. At Bristol, the Avon is about eight miles inland from the Severn Estuary. It is still tidal here. That created problems for the harbour as the water level fell by thirty feet at low tide leaving craft grounded in a muddy channel. In the early nineteenth century William Jessop designed the solution creating Bristol’s Floating Harbour. 

A new cut for the tidal river was made to the south, with the harbour remaining on the northern branch. Locks, now called The Brunel Locks at the western extreme help establish a constant water level, meaning the harbour is perpetually afloat. At the eastern extreme is another lock, and upriver from that the Avon remains navigable as far as Bath. Between the two branches, Spike Island was created. This long, narrow island became an industrial and dockland centre. 

Although Bristol thrived for more than a century, the tidal nature of the river downstream, through the Avon Gorge, presented dire navigational problems for ever larger modern shipping, which eventually did for it as a port town. But towns and cities change and adapt also. The old harbour area of Bristol has been intelligently developed. Riverside bars and restaurants, shops, museums and galleries abound, the wharfs are thronged with joggers and strollers from far and near. Small ferryboats and pleasure boats ply the waters of the floating harbour in the early Summer sunshine.  Great ships of the past, Cabot’s Matthew and Brunel’s Great Britain are parked here, now waiting for the world to come to them. 

The Palace Bar

The Palace in Fleet Street is a genuine old style pub dating from 1823. The first proprietor was named Hall. The Ryan family from Tipperary took over in the first half of the twentieth century. The license passed to Bill Aherne in 1946, then to his son Liam and today the pub is run by his son William. It stands on the doorstep of Temple Bar, where the word genuine is oft traduced. I’m not curmudgeonly about it, I delight in most manifestations of the Bacchanalian muse, but the Palace truly remains uniquely oldschool; a place where the discerning soul can commute with the timeless spirit of the capital city.

Back in the day, Temple Bar was a bus queue, waiting for a station, doomed to demolition. Early examples of those things dear to the urban hippy: free love and free trade, were thinly spread on a faded streetscape. These days the whole place is hopping from lunchtime to the wee small hours. The Palace remains unchanged. Always something of an oasis, it rejoices in a literary theme, celebrating Patrick Kavanagh, Brian O’Nolan, Brendan Behan and Sean O’Casey. Patrick Kavanagh described the Palace as “the most wonderful temple of art”. Amongst the artistic regulars were Sean O’Sullivan, Patrick O’Connor and Harry Kernoff. 

Kernoff became renowned for his paintings of Dublin streetlife and pub culture. The Palace was both a local and a gallery for Kernoff. He sold his paintings off the wall here through the thirties, forties and fifties. Renown at last recognised him in later years, and he died in 1974. Amongst his most famous pub paintings is A Bird Never Flew on one Wing. This was sold off the Palace wall for a tenner or so in the fifties and found its home in another famed hostelry, O’Briens of Leeson Street. There it hung for decades and I remember admiring it over many’s the liquid lunch back in my ad agency days in the eighties. It was sold to a private buyer for a hundred and eighty grand early this century. 

Over the years the Palace has also become closely associated with the newspaper trade, the Irish Times in particular, with their premises just a short block away. Editor RM (Bertie) Smylie would repair here of an evening with a coterie of journalists, in that bygone era when journalism was the thirsty profession. 

This acrylic is a snapshot of a sunny afternoon spent amongst friends. A brief lull in the conversation allows me to throw my eyes around the bar. I recognise a few of the faces, though things are getting a bit blurred around the edges; but pleasantly so. Perhaps I’ll have another.