Walk

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lRoutes in Central and South BristolWalk 4 - Clifton Squares

As members of the Ramblers we promote walking, protect therights of way, campaign for access to open country and thecoastline and defend the beauty of the countryside.

We have regular walks of varying distance and difficulty onSaturday mornings, Sundays and Wednesdays. In the Spring andSummer we have shorter walks on Tuesday and Thursdayevenings. Our walks on Wednesdays and Tuesday evenings areusually accessible by public transport.

Non-members are most welcome. After a few walks they will beinvited to join the Bristol Ramblers Group. We have amembership of almost 1000 walkers in Bristol and over 2000 inthe West of England area.

For details of membership and our walks programme visitwww.bristolramblers.org.uk. Then just choose a walk tosuit your ability and contact the walk leader to introduce yourselfand obtain further details.

Even though these walks are within the city, suitable footwearand a waterproof are still advised. All of the walks are accessibleby public transport. The times for buses and trains can be

checked at www.travelinesw.com. We have done our best toprovide accurate and up to date information, but services areliable to alteration at short notice.

Whilst every effort has been made to check the routes in thisbook, mistakes do happen and the city is subject to changes, soneither Bristol City Council or the Ramblers can acceptresponsibility for any inconvenience this may cause. To advise ofmistakes or recommend new walks for future editions contactBristol City Council at transport.plan@bristol.gov.uk or0117 9036701.

Neither Bristol City Council or the Ramblers necessarily endorsethe opinions expressed by the authors of the walks.

All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may bereproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in anyform or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of thepublishers.

Bristol Group Ramblers

Walking is the simplest and cheapest form of travel and also oneof the best forms of exercise. It helps you to feel good, reducesstress, increases your energy levels, reduces blood pressure andhelps you to sleep better at night. It is a very good way to helpyou to lose weight.

Walking also helps you to appreciate the city that you live in.Other forms of transport race you past those lovely views or smallpoints of historic interest. They make it more difficult to pop in tothat small shop or stop off for a drink and a bite to eat. Walkinglets you appreciate all of these at a leisurely pace.

In 2002 Bristol City Council and Bristol Group Ramblerscollaborated to produce a delightful publication called ‘BristolBacks – Discovering Bristol on Foot’. This book contained 27walks around the city, all over varying length and all taking invarious features of this great city.

The book was intended to be sold, as it had been lovinglyproduced to a high quality. Unfortunately, this meant that whenstocks began to run low, the cost of re-production proved to beprohibitive.

It seemed a real shame that access to these walks could bedenied to so many people, so it was decided to re-produce aselection of these in a smaller format. The beauty of this newpublication is that it will be free for all to enjoy.

Trying to decide which walks to exclude was very difficult andthis led us to producing two booklets, one for the north and eastof the city and the other for the south and central. You may wishto pick up the one that is local to you or both of them to exploreother parts of the city. Although a number of walks are in orclose to the city centre a conscious effort has been made to takethese walks to the majority of the population out in the suburbs.There are some little gems in the most unexpected of places.

So please, go out and walk around your city and enjoy its littlehidden pleasures and explore those alleys and lanes that youmight not have known existed and if it means that youoccasionally leave the car at home, it will have all been worth it.

Introduction

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CUMBERLAND

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MARLBOROUGH STREET

Brunel Lock

CumberlandBasin

BalticWharfMarina

River Avon

Floating Harbour

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DowrySquare

HopeSquare

VictoriaSquare

BerkeleySquare

Brandon Hill

Cabot Tower

Hope Chapel

College Green

College Square

Millennium Square

Pero’s Bridge

CathedralLby

Queen Square

SavillePlace

RodneyPlace

Canynge Square

Worcester Crescent

Clifton College

Clifton Down

Clifton Suspension

Bridge

Observatory Hill

Start

Clifton Squares

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On alighting from the buson Merchants Road,Hotwells (N.B. there isanother road of the samename in Clifton) turn lefttowards the church,cross the road and go leftto Dowry Square. Walkround the square notingthe plaque in the top lefthand corner.

Dowry Square probably has thestrangest associations of any street inBristol, deserving a place in the affectionsof literary types, drinkers, dentists anddrug addicts. Here, early in 1812, theeconomic migrant Jacob Schweppeopened his fizz factory. Here Dr ThomasBeddoes ran his clinic, attempting to cureconsumption by introducing cows into thepatients’ bedrooms. He and his assistantHumphrey Davy did much for the gaietyof nations by producing nitrous oxide,popular amongst the intelligentsia as a

recreational drug. Another assistant, PeterRoget, compiled the Thesaurus.

Beddoes’ son, Thomas Lovell, is Bristol’sgreatest poet and certainly one of themost distinctive poets in literature, albeitdistinctively morbid and macabre. Like hisfather, whom the local library barred as‘not Blue enough’, he was a politicalradical which got him into trouble inSwitzerland and caused him to beexpelled by ‘the ingenious jackanapes ofBavaria’. He made several attempts at

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Description: This walk covers the squares of Hotwells, Clifton and Central Bristol referring to the major and minor celebrities who have lived in them.

Length: 3-4 miles.(1.5 to 2 hours)

Refreshments: Many pubs and cafés en route.

Transport: The 500 bus links the beginning and end of the linear walk or walk along the Brunel‘ Mile and Harbourside to complete a circular tour of some 5 -6 miles (2.5 to 3 hours) To cut it short, take 8/9 from Clifton or one of the many services up Park Street.

Clifton Squares - Walk 4

suicide, losing a leg in the process, andfinally succeeded in 1849, using curare.There is no kudos in self slaughter at theage of forty-five so he never achieved thestereotypical fame of Chatterton. His bestremembered poem is the anthologisedDream Pedlary: ‘If there were dreams tosell, what would you buy? Some cost apassing bell; some a light sigh’. Hisgothic gifts are displayed in his plays,notably Death’s Jest Book. Compare thiswith the gimcrack archaism of Chatterton:

‘Squats on a toad-stool under a tree

A bodiless child full of life in thegloom

Crying with frog voice

What shall I be?

What shall I be? Shall I creep to the egg?

That’s cracking asunder yonder by Nile, And with eighteen toes,

And a snuff taking nose

Make an Egyptian crocodile?’

A lighter poet of the gruesome andgrotesque, the Revd Richard HarrisBarham of the Ingoldsby Legends stayedin the square seeking and failing to findhealth. His last work was written here.

Leave the Square and turnright up Hope ChapelHill, right into NorthGreen Street and eithermake a detour left alongthe footpath beside thePolygon Gardens leading toHope Chapel and turnright up the Hill to HopeSquare or go straight onup the path to CornwallisCrescent, turn right toGoldney Avenue and lefton the footpath to RegentStreet.

Many developments in Clifton bankruptedthe speculator. Hope Square , namedfor a Lady, not a virtue, is one example.Up the hill (a later development, as

Hotwells was fashionable before Clifton),Cornwallis Crescent took so long tocomplete that the path you use wasestablished across its line. This delay hadfar-reaching effects. The architect,Francis Greenway, whose firm bought theunfinished buildings as a speculation,was driven to forgery. His death sentencewas commuted to transportation and hebecame the Father of AustralianArchitecture.

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Note: the plaque at No 30 CornwallisCrescent to the Winkworth sisters,translators of German poetry who wereconcerned with female education anddecent housing for the poor.

Cross Regent Street andwalk round Saville Place.(The alley at the top righthand corner provides ashort cut to VictoriaSquare should you wishto shorten the walk.)

In Saville Place lived E.H. Young,novelist of the shabby genteel; she hasbeen rediscovered and reprinted byVirago.

Turn right along RegentStreet and Clifton DownRoad, cross over at zebracrossing and continueright to Rodney Place onyour left.

Admiral Rodney was especially popular inthe city because he secured Britishcontrol of Jamaica, where manyBristolians had investments. Here there isyet another plaque to Dr Beddoes andone to his pupil Radical Jack Lambton,Earl of Durham. ‘£40,000 a year’ he saidwas ‘a moderate income such a one as aman might jog on with.’ Despite this, hewas a fervent supporter of the ReformBill. Recalled from the Governorship ofCanada for exceeding his constitutionalpowers in settling a rebellion - hisnickname was ‘the Dictator’ - he wrote,or at least signed the Durham Reportwhich staved off a Canadian Revolutionon the American model and set the liberalpattern for the white dominions of theBritish Empire.

Return to Clifton DownRoad, cross over mini-roundabout in front ofChrist Church and headfor the cottages beyondthe Church.

Briefly, Walter Savage Landor lived atPenrose Cottage where Southey visitedhim. His outrageous temper maderesidence in England difficult. On oneoccasion, he threw his cook out of thewindow breaking his arm.

Landor regretted the action when heremembered the violets were underneaththat window.

Follow Canynge Road toCanynge Square. Return toCanynge Road and followto Percival Road right.

Clifton College was the first publicschool of the modern foundations,training the children of the middle classesto bear the lucrative burden of Empire.John Percival, after whom the road wasnamed, was its first headmaster. CliftonCollege Close, before you, has its place inthe dubious statistical annals of cricket:A.J. Collins, 628 not out in a very

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protracted house match. It is also thesetting of Newbolt’s Vitaï Lampada: TheTorch of Life, the place where there was abreathless hush, a bumping pitch and ablinding light. Other men of lettersassociated with Clifton College areQuiller-Couch and T.E. Brown, the Manxpoet (‘a garden is a lovesome thing, Godwot’), a retired housemaster who died ona visit to the school and was buried atRedland Chapel. Douglas Haig has astatue overlooking the Close. A moreuseful old boy was Leslie Hore-Belishawho brought an ungrateful nation suchunglamorous innovations as the drivingtest, the Highway Code and theeponymous beacon. He also sought toreform and democratise the Army.

At 8 College Road, then 34 WorcesterLawn, Dr George Spear Thompsonorganised the first Bristol demonstrationof the telephone at a scientific soirée on4th October 1877.

Alexander Graham Bell came fromLondon at short notice to explain thegadget and its potential uses. Todemonstrate, someone sang a line of‘God save the Queen’ at the Mayoress. Ayoung man who helped at thedemonstration, in 1922, as Lord Mayorhimself, took part in a test wirelesstransmission between Marconi House inLondon and Bristol.

Turn right along CollegeRoad, follow WorcesterCrescent round andcontinue along CollegeRoad. Cross Clifton Parkinto Lansdown Road,noting Worcester Terraceand Vyvyan Terrace on theway to Victoria Square .Walk anti-clockwiseround the square.

There is a plaque to John AddingtonSymonds, critic, poet and (monumental)art historian.

The real hero of Victoria Square, however,has no plaque, though he does have aplace in legal textbooks. R v Matthias isstill cited when the ‘usual accompanimentof a foot passenger’ is underconsideration. William Matthias wasnicknamed ‘General’ because of his longdrawn campaigns against the Corporationand the Merchant Venturers Society. Oneof these concerned Boyce’s Avenue,through the arch in the corner of theSquare. Matthias said it was a publicfootpath; the Merchant Venturers, thedevelopers, said it was a publiccarriageway. The disagreement lasted aquarter of a century and the developershired navvies to break down Matthias’sbarricades.

In 1861 when he turned back a womanwith a perambulator by pushing her onthe shoulder, the Corporation encourageda prosecution for assault. The vehiclestopped by Mr Matthias being aperambulator - then a novel invention -

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no precedents could be adduced, andthere was much legal contention as to theright of such a carriage to pass alongfootpaths.

The absurd female fashion of wearingcrinoline, an article which had justswollen to extreme monstrosity, was alsoamusingly introduced. Mr Matthias’scounsel asked if a lady whose dressspread the entire width of the path was tobe turned back by a perambulator, uponwhich Mr Justice Byles thought that ababy’s carriage would not be half soformidable an obstruction as the meetingof one lady with another. Eventually thejury disagreed and was discharged but ithad been decided that legally a pram isnot a carriage. In the end Matthias wonand a supporter wrote an acrostic.

William the Conqueror! Art thourighted now?

In spite of Civic spite or Civic row:

Leonidas of Clifton’s Pass of Boyce!

Let Clifton in such British pluckrejoice.

In many a gallant fight, ‘tis thine toboast

A host against thee - but thyself a host;

Majestic still, thou stoodst guardingthy rightful Post;

Might versus Right, good General!Was’t not so?

And thou seemd’st ‘chosen’ first tobear the blow.

Tongues rave against thee, as a perfect bore;

The Scribbling tribe abused thee moreand more;

Horsemen oft trespassed on thy Rightof Way; In Law Courts too they sued,costs made thee pay;

And Nursemaids charged thee withuncourteous hustle; Still hast thouvanquish’d all, spite of this boisterousbustle.

Matthias’s campaigning came to a formalend In 1873 when at the age of 92, hewas imprisoned for six months fordisobeying a court order to restore a roadhe had dug up. On his release, hisdaughter still took him down theMagistrates’ Court to heckle.

In Boyce’s Avenue itself worked EdwinBailey, a cobbler. In 1871, he raped amaid sent to collect a pair of boots. Whenthe girl gave birth, he arranged to haveher child dosed with Steadman’s SettlingPowders, laced with strychnine ratpoison.

The house next to the arch in VictoriaSquare has a plaque to W.G. Grace, thesnobbish, unsporting but phenomenalcricketer.

From the archway, takethe path across theSquare, cross MerchantsRoad. Avoid thetemptations of theFosseway and ChurchWalk and follow Clifton

Road. Turn left along YorkPlace to Park Place. Leaveby Pro Cathedral Lane onthe right. Cross to lookat Upper Berkeley Place,Turn right up TriangleSouth, right up steps toBerkeley Crescent andfollow round to BerkeleySquare. Go clockwiseround the square.

At No 23 , lived John McAdam,surveyor to the Bristol Turnpike Trust, whoshaped the modern world by inventing acheap way to make light roads.

Note: the remains of Bristol’s replica HighCross in the garden of the square.

The original was removed as a trafficobstruction in the eighteenth century andsold as a garden ornament. The replicastood on College Green. Amateurs ofstreet names should collect There andBack Again Lane. Except for the name itis of no interest whatsoever.

(To cut the walk shortleave by bottom left handcorner. Bus stops for theCentre are on the left.)Leave Berkeley Square bythe top left hand cornerand turn into Brandon Hill,take path down tobottom, turn right and leftdown Brandon steps,cross the car park rightup College Street, toCollege Green

The Cathedral was converted from aNorman abbey by Henry VIII. The buildingwas not finished until the nineteenthcentury. Next to it stood the Bishop’sPalace until it was burnt down in the riotsof 1831.

On College Green, note the Art DecoHouse. Relish the delightful lack of trafficin front of the Cathedral. A few years agoan enterprising Council closed the road.

Through the Norman archbeyond the Library, goround College Square,formerly Lower CollegeGreen to the pedestriancrossing, then left toMillennium Square .Cross Anchor Square andleave by bottom left handcorner for the hornedPero’s bridge to QueenSquare.

Queen Square , was a fashionabledevelopment in the early eighteenthcentury. Much of it was burnt down in1831 during the famous ‘Reform’ riot. A few drunken rioters were enveloped inboiling lead. 130 people were killed orwounded as the cavalry restored order.

During the nineteenth century a railwayembankment and a central station wereproposed. In 1939 the Corporation didactually build a dual carriageway across

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the middle which has now been closedand dug up by a more enlightenedadministration. Richard Bright, bestknown for the kidney disease named afterhim, is commemorated by a plaque. Healso wrote a book of Hungarian travels,informative about gypsies.

Thaddeus Kosciuszko, the Polish Patriot,passed through Bristol in 1797 on hisway to the United States after defeat bythe Russian Empire. Earlier in his career,he had fought in the American War ofIndependence on the side of thecolonists, helping win the battle ofSaratoga. He was granted land in Ohiowhich he left in his will for the educationof black Americans. A national park andthe highest peak in Australia are namedafter him, and, for good measure, thebirthplace of Oprah Winfrey.

Walk devised by Peter Gould, Bristol Ramblers

Clifton CollegeG

Millenium SquareK

Clifton TerracesCollege GreenJ