Extraordinary Streets: Withywood

First stop: Campus Pool Skatepark. A place today of play and leisure. Previously, a swimming pool. Several of our writers once swam here. Previous to this, a hub of village life. One of our writers remembers the cottages here, even before the swimming pool, where children played on the green and in the lanes.

This station is all about play.

The next leg of our sound walk is the longest stretch you'll walk between stations. You're walking away from Bishopsworth, towards Withywood, with the Dundry Hills rising up beyond to fill the horizon. Take Church Road, and when the road forks, take the left fork down Grange Road. Grange Road eventually turns into Queens Road.

You're heading for the Queens Head pub, a blue building on the crossroads. You're going to be taking a left turn up a driveway opposite the pub to discover the third station on our soundwalk.

Listen as you walk. This is all about journeys.

You're looking at a mural, painted here in 2018. It was designed by 80 young people aged 14-15 at Merchants Academy who worked with a Bristol artist called Amy Hutchings. Some of the young people even applied the paint. The central message, "Nothing Is Impossible", came from them.

This station is all about dreaming the impossible.

Next, carry on across the carpark. You're walking first towards the church, and then out the blue gates. Turn right along Gatehouse Avenue until it rejoins Queens Road, then turn left and head to the small rank of shops on Queens Road for the next station.

Welcome to Queens Road shops. You'll have noticed that a lot of these shops sell food. Many people who live here, especially those without cars, rely on these shops to keep themselves fed. All the writers knew about the enormous portions at the chip shop. One of us has heard one of the employees in the chip shop singing loud Portuguese folk songs just after they've closed, the song blending with the scrape of utensils on stainless steel as the kebab fryer is cleaned.

This station is all about food.

Still heading towards Dundry Hills, walk past the last shop and take a right along Three Wells Road, towards our final destination, Withywood Park.

You're standing in Withywood Park, a long thin strip of green amongst the houses. One winter, one of us saw children build a very successful igloo here. There's often a lot of dogs, skateboards and scooters. The shipping container houses Brave Bold Drama's imaginative play equipment which is brought out from time to time so local children can transform this park with their imaginations.

When writing this final station, we took plants from this park and put them under a microscope. Some of the writers were inspired to write about this extraordinary perspective on apparently ordinary plants.

This station is all about nature.

Thank you for listening to Extraordinary Streets: Withywood. If you enjoyed this, there are more soundwalks by Brave Bold Drama you could enjoy, including one just up the road in Manor Valley Woods, Bishopsworth called The Saxons to the Seventies.

To find our sound walks, head to www.bravebolddrama.co.uk and choose the events page. If you would like to tell us what you thought of this soundwalk, there's a contact page on our website, or you can find us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter as Brave Bold Drama.

This soundwalk was funded by Arts Council England, and was launched in May 2023 as part of Bristol Walk Fest.

And that's all we have to say, other than please remember the extraordinary can be found everywhere and in everyone.