Walking Words: Royal Fort to Wills Building

A walk from the Wills building via the Triangle to RWA and Victoria Rooms. Poet: Jim Sidgwick RWA The Royal West of England Academy was the first art gallery to be established in Bristol, and is one of the longest-running regional galleries and art schools in the UK. Its foundation was initiated by the extraordinary Ellen Sharples, who secured funding from benefactors including Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Prince Albert, and the building was ultimately financed by a bequest of £2,000 from her will in 1849. At first, the core of the Academy was a well-known group of artists in Bristol, known as the Bristol Society of Artists, who were mostly landscape painters, and many, such as William James Müller, Francis Danby, James Baker Pyne and John Syer were well known. In 1844, when the Bristol Academy for the Promotion of Fine Arts was founded, the Bristol Society of Artists was incorporated into it. At this time the president and committee was predominantly its patrons, rather than its artists. In 1913 King George V granted the academy its Royal title, with the reigning monarch as its Patron, and by 1914 a major extension to the front of the building, including the dome and Walter Crane lunettes, was completed. The Victoria Rooms, also known as the Vic Rooms, houses the University of Bristol's music department in Clifton, Bristol, England, on a prominent site at the junction of Queens Road and Whiteladies Road. The building, originally assembly rooms, was designed by Charles Dyer and was constructed between 1838 and 1842 in Greek revival style, and named in honour of Queen Victoria, who had acceded to the throne in the previous year. An eight column Corinthian portico surmounts the entrance, with a classical relief sculpture designed by Musgrave Watson above. The construction is of dressed stonework, with a slate roof. A bronze statue of Edward VII, was erected in 1912 at the front of the Victoria Rooms, together with a curved pool and several fountains with sculptures in the Art Nouveau style.

A short walk from the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery down Park Row to the Christmas Steps. Poems by Gillie Harries The Museum and Art Gallery The Museum and Art Gallery's origins lie in the foundation, in 1823, of the Bristol Institution for the Advancement of Science and Art, sharing brand-new premises at the bottom of Park Street (a 100 yards (91 m) downhill from the current site) with the slightly older Bristol Literary and Philosophical Society. The neoclassical building was designed by Sir Charles Robert Cockerell (1788–1863), who was later to complete the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and build St. George's Hall, Liverpool, and was later used as the Freemasons Hall. In April 1871 the Bristol Institution merged with the Bristol Library Society and on 1 April 1872 a new combined museum and library building in Venetian Gothic style was opened at the top of Park Street. Christmas Steps The name comes from the medieval Knifesmith Street. In Middle English the 'K' in 'knife' and 'knight' was sounded. It seems likely 'Knifesmith Street' became corrupted over time to 'Christmas Street'. In William Worcestre's 1480 itinerary of Bristol, he describes it as 'knyfesmythstrete aliter Cristmastrete' The street continued to be recorded as 'Christmas Street' in the official town rentals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This is also how it is recorded in the Hearth Tax Books of Bristol in the 1660s.Christmas Street still runs from St John's Gate to St Bartholomew's Hospital at the bottom of 'Christmas Steps'.(wikipedia)

A walk from Park Street around Berkeley Square. Poet: Charles Thompson Berkeley Square and The Square Bar Berkeley Square was laid out in 1787 by Thomas Paty. The surrounding buildings were only completed in the early 19th century. It is unusual among the Georgian squares of Bristol in that it occupies a sloping site, and this makes the unity of its architecture difficult to appreciate. When Bristol obtained its charter in 1373, the event was marked by the building of a magnificent ‘High Cross’ at the heart of the city. The Cross remained in place for over three centuries, “high, noble, and increasingly inconvenient to traffic”.In 1733 it was moved to College Green, but the residents complained and it was pulled down. In 1762 the Dean of Bristol illegally presented the High Cross to his friend Richard Hoare, who installed it in the grounds of his house at Stourhead in Wiltshire.In the 19th century the city recognised its loss and built a copy of the original cross after a fund raising campaign by the then Dean. It was erected in 1850.However, history repeated itself. The Cross was moved to the Green in 1888 to make way for a statue of Queen Victoria. In 1959 it was taken down to open up the view of the new Council House.The top part was rescued and erected in a corner of Berkeley Square, where it still stands “the kings and queens, sadly gazing at the moss in their laps”. A conversion of a Grade II Listed building from the former YWCA in Berkeley Square to a new high quality hotel with restaurant and en suite bedrooms, together with the creation of “The Square” bar in the basement. The building forms the central feature of a terrace of 8 houses, originally constructed by Thomas and William Paty in the late 18th century and rebuilt following destruction in the second world war. The buildings feature limestone ashlar walls, articulated by giant pilasters to cornice and parapet, with rusticated ground floor, all under under a slated mansard roof.(wikipedia)

Poetry walk following St John's Conduit from St Georges down Park Street and across to the Bristol Beacon. Poet:Martin Rieser St John's Gate St John's Gate, which stands at the bottom of Broad street, is the last remaining part of the city wall, with Church of St John the Baptist built above it. The two side passages were created in the 1820s. Niches in the wall contain the figures Brennus and Belinus, according to legend they founded the city. Nearby St John's Conduit was originally built for the friary of the Carmelites but also supplied the people of Brandon Hill. The parishioners were allowed to use only the overflow from the system, and they took advantage of this again during the blitz of World War II when water mains had been damaged. (wikipedia)

Bristol Beacon Past and Present / The Colston Statue and its history. Poets Pauline Sewards, Lisa Lopresti and Deasy Bamford Bristol Beacon The hall first opened as a concert venue in 1867, and was called Colston Hall as it was built on the site of Colston School named after Edward Colston an English merchant, slave trader, philanthropist, and Tory Member of Parliament. The name was changed in 2020 to become more welcoming and inclusive. The hall became a popular place for classical music and theatre. In the mid-20th century, wrestling matches were in strong demand, while in the late 1960s it developed into one of the most important rock music venues in Britain. ‘Hey! You Cats! I’m coming back’ From the UK Tour advert in March 1959 when the fabulous Louis Armstrong, in great form, played to a sold out Colston Hall in Bristol. It was reported he said ‘You sure are a jumping audience’ and in his dressing room Louis ate his lunch in his underwear. Beacon Hall was one of the most important rock music venues in Britain, hosting acts like The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Elton John, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. Its recent refurbishment, the first phase of Bristol Beacon's renewal in 2009 involved constructing the £20 million foyer space. Now remodelling the main hall to increase standing capacity by 15 per cent, transforming The Lantern facility area within the Hall into a versatile performance venue and opening up the extensive cellars for the first time in 150 years – creating a new performance space to be completed in 2023. Edward Colston The statue of Edward Colston is a bronze statue of Bristol-born merchant and trans-Atlantic slave trader, Edward Colston (1636–1721). It was created in 1895 by the Irish sculptor John Cassidy and was formerly erected on a plinth of Portland stone in a public park known as "The Centre", until it was toppled by anti-racism protestors in 2020. Designated a Grade II listed structure in 1977, the statue has nonetheless been the subject of controversy due to Colston's fortunes at least partially made from his involvement in organising the Atlantic slave trade, as a senior executive of the Royal African Company. The statue was erected to commemorate his reputation in Bristol as a philanthropist. From the 1990s onward the debate on the morality of glorifying Colston intensified. In 2018, a Bristol City Council project to add a second plaque to better contextualise the statue and summarise Colston's role in the slave trade resulted in an agreed wording and a cast plaque ready for installation. Its installation was vetoed in March 2019 by Bristol's mayor, Marvin Rees, who promised a rewording of the plaque which never materialised.(wikipedia)

MA project

Poet: Richard Devereux Description: A walk around College Green via Council House and Statue of Roy College Green The area around College Green has almost certainly been a place of religious significance for a 1,000 years. In 1140 a powerful local merchant Robert Fitzharding founded a monastery there, a community of Augustinian ‘canons regular’. By 1158–60 a church had been built in which to worship. A residential complex for the canons was constructed on one side of the church (west and south sides), and a burial ground stood on the other (today’s College Green). The two most spectacular survivors from this era are the Cathedral chapter house and the Abbot’s Gatehouse. They are among the finest works of 12th-century architecture in the country. The monastery was sited on high ground overlooking the rivers Frome and Avon, marking the historical gateway to Bristol. The church was embellished and enlarged during the 13th - 16th centuries. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s-1540s, the church at St. Augustine was saved and was made a Cathedral. This marked a transition from a monastic institution to a collegiate one (hence College Green), where a group of secular canons and priests are overseen by the Dean. It also marked the transition from an inward looking monastery to an outward looking, public institution. Bristol grew rapidly as England’s second city helped drive the colonisation of the Americas and the spread of the British empire. The former burial ground (now College Green) became an important public open space. St Jordan’s chapel became a schoolhouse before it was demolished, probably in the early 18th century. From 1868, under the architects GE Street and JL Pearson, the site of the medieval nave was cleared and the great cathedral nave built. The City Library was constructed from 1902-06 and the City Hall from 1935-52. Re-landscaping of College Green completed the transformation of the ancient sacred enclosure to the north of the church into Bristol’s premier civic space.

The Centre, past and present. Poet: Lisa Lopresti The course of the River Frome, immediately to the west of the historic centre, was covered over in stages, in the second half of the 19th century. The area became the hub of the city's tramway network, and was known as the Tramways Centre.[5] It was so called long after the last trams left in 1941, but is now known simply as The Centre. Between 1936 and 1938, the Centre was enlarged when more of the River Frome, between Broad Quay and St Augustine's Parade, was covered in, making way for the Inner Circuit Road.[6] The western side of the Inner Circuit Road has since been largely decommissioned, and recent works have rebalanced The Centre in favour of pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users. (wikipedia)

Misfits On The Move is a short poetry walk around the harbour - from the mirror-ball to M Shed - by The Misfits Poetry Group. Misfits Theatre Company are a unique theatre and social group, led by people with learning disabilities. To listen just download the ECHOES app!