Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: Bristol

  • Bristol – Banksy Artwork

    Bristol – Banksy Artwork

    This artwork was stencilled onto this wall on Frogmore Street in Bristol by Banksy in 2006. My photo is from 2013, after the artwork was vandalised with a paintball gun which had fired blue paint at it, but before it was attacked with black paint. It’s five metres up from the floor, which required Banksy to erect scaffolding and the council discovered the artwork when they removed that structure.

    Although Banksy had been painting on walls in Bristol for some time before this, the artwork gave the city council a challenge. They were against graffiti on buildings, but the works produced by Bansky proved popular with locals and they were of a higher quality than much of the other graffiti that was scrawled onto walls. So, in this case, the council went along with it and it has remained in place since.

  • Bristol – Edward Colston Statue (an update….)

    Bristol – Edward Colston Statue (an update….)

    This statue was taken down and thrown into the river today, although since it was a listed monument I imagine it’ll be recovered and then placed in one of the city’s museums.

    Here’s my original post about it, namely as I liked the anti-slavery display around it.

     

  • Bristol – Hampton by Hilton – An Update

    Bristol – Hampton by Hilton – An Update

    A few weeks ago, I was in the stage of being very pleased at how efficient and honourable many hotels were being at cancelling hotel stays. A couple of hotels explained to me that they were struggling, so I’ve postponed rather than cancelled a few of my stays as I appreciated their honesty.

    As over 1,500 people saw judging from the page views number, I also posted positively about Hampton by Hilton in Bristol, they cancelled on me and confirmed promptly themselves they’d refund in full. Hotels.com also confirmed this, and explained that the refund had been completed. Then, and the story is quite long and I’m not repeating it in full just yet, hotels.com explained that the hotel had seemingly changed its mind.

    After weeks of confusion, hotels.com confirmed that the hotel is refusing a refund and is offering only a heavily restricted voucher instead. I’m not at all content at this sort of behaviour, it puts people off booking hotel rooms at a time when the hospitality industry needs all the support that it can get.

    So, I’ve asked the two press offices for permission to post from some of their e-mails, which are a convoluted mess of chaos and confusion. I don’t much mind long delays, as this is a difficult time when hotels are suffering, but this sort of deliberate obfuscation isn’t perhaps ideal and reflects badly on the hotel industry.

  • Bristol – Hampton by Hilton

    Bristol – Hampton by Hilton

    Hotels.com have since informed me that the hotel has withdrawn the refund option. Will repost about this….

    The third in my series of hotels that I never got to stay at due to the coronavirus….. But, I like to post about positive experiences and this hotel refunded my non-refundable booking that I had made via hotels.com. This is particularly positive as I hadn’t yet contacted this hotel, so it was an entirely pro-active refund. I will try to ensure that I visit the hotel in the future, they’ve made this process entirely painless.

    Reassuringly professional.

  • Bristol – Ibis Bristol Temple Meads

    Bristol – Ibis Bristol Temple Meads

    I can’t write much about this hotel, as this was a cancelled stay due to the Coronavirus. But, I wanted to note how helpful the hotel was in what must be trying circumstances for them. I paid for this booking, which was for the two days after the now cancelled Rambers General Council, primarily through loyalty points and the helpful hotel staff member wanted to check with Accor that I could get the points back if they processed the cancellation. They confirmed I could and I have within just a couple of hours got them back in my account.

    Swift, efficient and polite – an impressive response time from Accor.

  • Bristol – Zero Degrees

    This substantial brewery restaurant opened in 2004 and was purpose-built to meet the needs of Zero Degrees.

    A view down over the bar area.

    The clever design of the pub meant that we were able to see this brewery equipment, all adding to the character of the location.

    Ready for pizza…..

    Some nice glasses…..

    And the pizza, the sweet and spicy Italian sausage. Very lovely, lots of flavour although I’d have preferred a slightly crispier base. The price was reasonable and the food was brought over promptly, so there was no long wait. We weren’t sure how easy it would be to find a table for five for food in Bristol, but there was a reasonable amount of space here and so we were seated immediately.

    Not that it would have mattered as we were there on a Friday, but the restaurant has resorted to a buy one get one free with Tastecard, a sign to me that a location isn’t performing well. They might be doing perfectly well, but I wouldn’t go back knowing that they were ditching out food cheap like this without it being offered to loyal customers.

    The service was quirky and the server had a rather dry wit, but he came across as friendly and welcoming. The environment was pleasant and despite the harshness of the interior design, it was still comfortable in the dining area.

     

  • Bristol – St. John’s Conduit

    A little bit random, but this is St. John’s Conduit, located at St. John on the Wall Church on Broad Street. This was originally installed to bring water to the Carmelite Friary in the fourteenth century and it is rumoured that it ran with wine during elections in the city.

    The information plaque at the conduit. Part of the original route of the conduit is apparently marked on the pavement by small plaques, but I didn’t know about this at the time to look out for them.

    And a sign nearby informing those passing by that the conduit had been the only source of fresh water in the city during the Second World War.

  • Bristol – The Three Tuns

    The Three Tuns is an independent pub with a comfortable atmosphere, although it proved to be too busy for us to stay too long. I was though pleased with the pub’s thoughts on Brexit which were mentioned on a chalk board on the back bar. There’s also some history to the pub which retains a traditional feel and it dates back to the early part of the twentieth century.

    Some of the beer selection which had been sourced from numerous breweries. I say some of the beer selection although the photo doesn’t exactly show much of the choice, although it does evidence that this was a local CAMRA pub of the year in 2012.

    The Three Tuns also does food and if I were ever to make a future visit, I’d pop along to try out the menu which is mostly themed around burgers and is operated by a separate company in the pub’s kitchen. Given that the pub isn’t that large in size, it seems a sensible choice to just operate with a limited menu.

    A poster in the pub detailing some of the many heritage pubs in Bristol.

    It was a shame that we couldn’t stay for longer in the pub and they did try and find us a table, but there sadly weren’t any available. There seems to be lots of events held here, including quiz nights, film nights and live music, and there was a community atmosphere even though it’s a city centre pub.

  • Bristol – Bag of Nails

    It’s safe to say that this pub is unique, since it’s full of cats, it has a lot of rules and a landlord who has upset a fair few people. But, it’s also marvellous, it’s well-run and at a guess I’d say that most of the people upset by the landlord are probably idiots.

    Some of the pub rules.

    The quirky interior of the pub.

    The toilets are also decorated.

    A port-hole through to the cellar underneath the main bar.

    This is a beard friendly pub. And goodness knows what happened to that phone.

    The nature of the pub’s operation, namely being full of cats, means that there’s a limited opportunity to serve food. Nathan decided to risk a pork pie for £1 and he reported back that they were excellent, so we ordered a few more. He was right, they were a bargain for £1 each, and there was piccalilli to go along with them.

    Some photos of the cats, who to be honest looked perfectly content and happy. They were evenly distributed along the bar and were mostly asleep.

    One of the cats scratched Scott. He deserved it.

    Liam, Scott, Ross and Nathan admiring all of the cats.

    I very much liked this pub although I hadn’t expected to before I went in. The landlord seemed happy to engage about the beer selection, the other staff member was helpful and they were both keen to discuss the cats in the pub. They might be just slightly selective in their customers, not wanting stag groups or anything which might upset the cats, but that doesn’t seem unreasonable. There was also a decent beer selection, with none of that fizzy rubbish, and the surroundings were clean and quirky. All rather lovely.

  • Bristol – Edward Colston Statue

    This is the controversial statue of Edward Colston which is located in Bristol city centre. The local Labour MP, Thangam Debbonaire wants it gone. However, such a move might be divisive, so why not do something artistic which tells the story rather than airbrushes it? That’s the plan here anyway.

    And here it is. Using the old overhead view of how slaves were forced into a small spaces during transport, it has been brought to the modern day by referring to jobs such as kitchen worker, sex worker and fruit picker. These jobs can be related to modern slavery and what a wonderful way of using art to tell a story.

    These 100 figures were part of the anti-slavery day which was held in October 2018, although I can’t find out which artist was responsible for it. Whoever it was, it’s a brilliant reinterpretation of the statue which doesn’t take away from history, but adds to it.