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  • Bath – Blitz Scarred Labour Exchange Building

    Bath – Blitz Scarred Labour Exchange Building

    In the early 1940s, the Germans were making slower progress than they would have liked in the Second World War and British air raids on Germany were increasing. The Germans had the idea of damaging historic British cities primarily to try and impact on the morale of the nation and they initially targeted Exeter, Bath, Canterbury, Norwich and York. Bath was hit between the 25 and 27 April 1942 with substantial damage being done to buildings, as well as the injuries that were caused to people.

    This building is the former Labour Exchange, which had only been completed in 1938, and it was badly damaged during the air raids. They patched the building up as they wanted it to continue in use, but after the war it was just left without the first floor and nothing much happened until around fifteen years ago. It was then decided to bring the building back into use, but they wanted to do something as a memorial to the Baedeker Raids. I think that it’s a nice looking transformation of the building which has retained some of the historically important elements whilst also bringing the structure back into use.

    And so, in memory of the 417 people in Bath who lost their lives during the Baedeker Raids on the city, this part of the wall was retained with the original war damage.

    The memorial plaque which was a little hard to read, although I like its style and how they’ve recreated damage to the plaque as well. The text reads:

    “IN MEMORY OF THE 417 PERSONS KILLED IN THE WORLD WAR II BAEDEKER RAIDS OF 1942

    In 1938 Bath City Council demolished 43 houses and cottages to build this building. A much-needed Labour Exchange building, a place for people to find employment. During the preceding decade many people simply had no work and the depression of the 1930s was shown by how many 1932 onwards. When World War II broke out in 1939 the building was extremely busy looking after the unemployed.

    On 26 April 1942 in the early hours of the morning a 500kg bomb hit the area. The bomb directly hit the ground where the garden is now placed. The Labour Exchange was badly damaged by the impact and the Labour Exchange staff were very brave working as they must not stop providing badly needed services to the bombed-out homeless on the north side of James Street West, opposite the Kingsmead North junction.

    Wartime records show that the new Labour Exchange was badly damaged by this second blast. The buildings walls immediately crumbling from the first attack, workers through the rubble, there more than one attempt to rebuild it. Despite this and the efforts the fire in the roof spread and burned out the whole of the top floor.

    It was recorded that the scene of the building as it stood after the first night attacks continued on fire and the damage can still be seen on the restored replacement building.

    The main building was severely damaged, the following morning now there were, are badly damaged. The story of the depot shows was heavily asked to make a temporary roof and the need of the bombed-out families and community. The Labour Exchange continued to provide more jobs during the War period, including in areas of sharp demand making sure they were short they suffered misery.

    This became even more important when wartime demanded such industry, many local companies and big businesses opening up, employment for functions that assisted the war efforts and the Labour Exchange had to help them find suitable jobs.

    For a long period after the war the Labour Exchange was housed in the library space. In 2002 it was designated as a Grade II listed building. Having lived one of the last surviving examples of the “made do and mend” necessities of wartime when workers, tools and materials were both in very short supply.”

  • Bath – Demolition of 1930s Fire Station

    I had been reading about the controversy of Bath’s fire station being demolished, so I felt the need to go and have a little look as I was in God’s own city and I like to find controversial things I can have an opinion on that no-one else will be interested in.

    I think it’s fair to say that it’s probably too late to reverse the decision now. The Twentieth Century Society opposed demolition and argued for its heritage value, while the fire service argued that the building no longer met modern operational needs as the doors weren’t big enough or something.

    Bath Fire Station is on Bathwick Street and Cleveland Bridge and was built between 1938 and 1939, with design work begun by Alfred John Taylor and completed by his daughter Gertrude Molly Justice Taylor, later Molly Gerrard. I think that’s interesting as female architects were hardly being overwhelmed with public commissions in the late 1930s. Avon Fire & Rescue Service closed the station in February 2026, moved crews temporarily to Roseberry Place/Lower Bristol Road and says the rebuilt station is expected to open in summer 2027.

    I do naturally veer towards the side of heritage, but Bath does have quite a lot of architectural history so that softens the blow a little, although it’s a shame to lose some interesting twentieth century architecture. And this is a working building, so the priority has to be about firefighters having a structure that’s actually useful for them. It was nice to see the building before it was entirely demolished though and I’m sure that there was some sort of consultation process to make people feel a bit better about the whole arrangement. On which point, I must do an update on the Sheringham bus shelter debacle at some point.

  • Newport – Queen’s Hotel (formerly JD Wetherspoon)

    Newport – Queen’s Hotel (formerly JD Wetherspoon)

    Located literally opposite the Travelodge in Newport is the Queen’s Hotel, a former JD Wetherspoon venue which they sold in 2021.

    I have stayed here before back in 2018, so I have some photos of the inside. The history on their website noted:

    “A grade II listed building, previously the Queen’s Hotel, this three-storey premises opened in 1863, soon after Bridge Street was laid out. Named after the reigning monarch, Queen Victoria, it dominated the western end of Bridge Street which soon became known as Queen’s Square.”

    The bar as it looked back in the halcyon days of March 2018 and there were a good number of real ales on.

    The standard JD Wetherspoon breakfast and, in this case, an overcooked egg…

    The single room that I booked.

    The view from the hotel room window and I accept that it’s not the sort of vista that would cause a Romantic poet to start trembling near the curtains or something similar, but it could be worse.

    The room plan and I remember from the time that this didn’t feel like a typical Wetherspoon hotel, they had by that time started to have grander rooms in either purpose built extensions or they had been heavily renovated. They hadn’t done that here, they’d just tidied up the existing rooms and did the best with what they had which is a noble British tradition and also the basis for about half of the country’s hospitality industry.

    I didn’t take carpet photos back in 2018, as I obviously didn’t know how to live, but at least it’s visible in this photo.

    I remember that the pub was a Lloyds so they had music and were showing sports, with the whole arrangement not really fitting into the broader chain’s dynamic. I’m not entirely surprised that they sold this venue, it seemed an odd fit in many ways. They never reopened up after the lock-down in Wales required pubs to close and it sold for nearly a million pounds, but successive operators have struggled with it and I think that it’s currently entirely closed. Anyway, hopefully it will open again at some stage but it’ll be hard for any operator to make it as busy as it was when JD Wetherspoon managed it.

  • Newport – Travelodge Newport Central

    Newport – Travelodge Newport Central

    I mentioned in my previous post for my two excited loyal blog readers that I had decided to stay in Wales rather than Bristol as it was just cheaper to do so. I took this photo standing outside of Newport railway station and it gives an indication of the length of the walk. I think even my friend Richard could manage this sort of walk.

    There was no-one on reception when I arrived, but I could hear the receptionist on the phone to her friend in the back office. I then heard, “I’ll phone back in a bit, just got a customer” and since she said it in a way that didn’t sound annoyed, I didn’t feel like an inconvenience. This is, I think, the very summit of modern hospitality.

    And the receptionist was rather friendly, chatting away about how to get in the hotel if I stayed out late, which wasn’t relevant to me, but I obviously looked like someone that went to nice pubs a lot so I was pleased as there are worse personal brands to have developed.

    These are the newly designed Travelodge rooms and I rate this whole set-up, as long as the prices are affordable anyway. The room was clean, functional, modern and was comfortable, so that’s pretty much everything sorted.

    There was quite a lot of external noise from drunk women shouting in the evening, but I rather like city life and didn’t find it problematic. I also had a fan on my window and there it is in the photo…..

    I had a little look at the reviews as I like doing that and they’re not great on Google…..

    “Honestly, this has to be the worst hotel I’ve ever stayed in. I know it’s cheap and you get what you pay for but I would rather have anything else than this. The place was dodgy from the start. I was given the key card by a man without uniform, nevwr asked me for my ID, just the name. The room was clean but could see a lot of broken or stained things as shown in the photos. The place also seems like a gathering place for the local alcies as they were right by my windows. I also booked the hotel through work and it was meant to include breakfast. This place has no restaurant so breakfast was a box that contained a stale pain au chocolat, a flap jack and some cereal. Will never see me there again.”

    I’ve looked at these photos and I can’t see any staining, it’s not entirely clear what someone wanted from the arrangement. And I’ve never been asked for my ID in a Travelodge, just my name and address. I often don’t have any ID with me anyway, so I don’t want to be asked.

    “Would AVOID!! Council are housing undesirable people here, got zero sleep as people were running up and down corridor at 3am, police were there !! Music blaring out of some rooms, if you want a peaceful restful night this is not for you.I had an 8 Hr drive the next day with little sleep. Be aware.staying here.”

    Undesirable people is perhaps a rather loaded way to describe anyone.

    “AVOID AT ALL COSTS… customer service shocking and really not helpful at all!! We were booked in here 26/12/25 for one night only whilst we were visiting family..one family member asked where we had booked so we told her and she said DO NOT STAY THERE!! She works local to the travel lodge and said it’s a drug den and been raided with on going issues!”

    If it was a drugs den it was a very well kept secret from me, although that would hardly interest me unless they were dealing in crisps or something. Well, maybe some decadent craft beer I suppose, although I don’t tend to buy that in hotel corridors. It feels a little sub-optimal to be offered a mixed fermentation saison by a man standing near the lift.

    Most of the reviews on Google aren’t actually negative and on TripAdvisor it’s all much more positive. However, nearly every review on TripAdvisor names a staff member which is this guilt trip thing they try on me of “if you could leave me a positive review and mention by name then I get a bonus” which feels really quite unfair of the chain to me to make their team members do this.

    Anyway, I found the whole stay to be positive enough, it was clean, quite internally and I didn’t see this den of iniquity that others discovered. For a cheap stay it feels like a very viable option and it worked for me as a cheaper alternative to accommodation in Bristol.

  • Bristol Clifton Down to Newport Rail Journey

    Bristol Clifton Down to Newport Rail Journey

    After leaving Bristol Craft Beer Festival it was the railway station of Clifton Down that was the most convenient to depart from. I was heading to Newport as accommodation in Bristol was too expensive and the savings on hotel prices by staying in Wales more than made up for the rail fare, so a handy bit of financial prudence. The entrance to the railway station is a little tucked away in a car park, it’s not the grandest of approaches that I’ve ever seen.

    The frontage is a little better.

    The railway station opened in 1874 as part of the Clifton Extension Railway with the preceding station being Sea Mills and the following station being Redland. The railway station was particularly useful for the nearby Bristol Zoological Gardens and that formed a helpful part of its traffic during its history, although the zoo closed in 2022.

    The railway station buildings that were here have now been closed for passengers, but there is access from the other side and it’s now used as a pub named Steam.

    The train arrived several minutes early and, as usual, I was standing at the wrong end of the platform. This is one of my more consistent railway skills. I also had to stand, as the station has not burdened itself with providing much seating on this platform, presumably to keep passengers alert and characterful.

    On board the train that took me to Bristol Temple Meads.

    And the delights of Bristol Temple Meads. I didn’t have long to make the connection so I couldn’t meander around for long and I’ve taken enough photos of this railway station before. I like the GWR benches though.

    I’m 6’0″ and for the many people taller than me, these seats just don’t have enough space. But, there are power outlets, so that will just have to do as I don’t want to sound like I’m always complaining but that ship (well train) may have already left the platform….

    After leaving the tunnel, we were safely sweeping through Wales.

    I was staying overnight in Newport but had to leave again early in the morning, so I didn’t get chance to have a little look at Newport Castle. Next time….

    And this is Wales. It was then only a two minute walk to Travelodge, which is very handily located for the railway station. Everything was on time which gave me a limited time to enjoy Newport, but the early start meant that I could head to God’s own city of Bath.

  • Bath – The Old Post Office (JD Wetherspoon)

    Bath – The Old Post Office (JD Wetherspoon)

    This is the new JD Wetherspoon in Bath that opened a few weeks ago in March 2026, the second one of the chain’s pubs in the city and this refurbishment cost them £2.2 million. This building was once Bath’s Post Office, but was for the last fifteen years or so used by Revolution until they closed.

    One thing that JD Wetherspoon does well, amongst many other things, is having an interest in the history of their buildings. This reads:

    “York Buildings is a grade II listed Georgian terrace, with a grand frontage along George Street. Completed in c1760, most of York Buildings, excluding No. 2, was the York House Hotel, latterly the Royal York Hotel. No 2 is at the end of the terrace. Previous uses include the Midland Bank, an auctioneer/estate agent’s premises and Bath’s main post office.

    York Buildings was designed in the Palladian style by John Wood the Younger, who also designed Bath’s world-famous Royal Crescent, one of the finest examples of Georgian architecture in Britain. The porches were added in the 19th century, with ground-floor alterations made to No.2 in the 1870s. Bath’s architectural transformation into a Georgian city was begun by his father, John Wood the Elder. An outstanding architect and town planner, he began laying out George Street in 1734.

    On the front of 2 York Buildings is carved ‘The Old Post Office’. During 1854–1927, these premises housed Bath’s main post office, with Oldham T Taylor its postmaster for nearly 30 years (1863–90). Thomas Moore Musgrave was also a long-serving postmaster here. On 2 May 1840, Thomas famously posted an item of mail from the Bath post office, then at 8 Broad Street, with the newly invented Penny Black postage stamp — this was the world’s first adhesive postage stamp’s earliest use.

    Ralph Allen was another famous postmaster. He arrived in Bath in 1710 and worked as a postal clerk. Two years later, aged only 19, he became the postmaster of Bath. In 1722, Ralph was elected mayor of Bath. During the intervening years, he made a fortune from reorganising the main postal routes across England.”

    The downstairs bar and it all looks colourful, bright and clean.

    The window seat was handy for people watching. There’s an upstairs bar as well and the whole arrangement is quite sizeable.

    My now obligatory carpet photo.

    There were six real ales on (with beers from Thornbridge, Oakham, Brains and Greene King), but as it was still morning I went for the £1.89 refillable coffees.

    As usual for this chain, I felt drawn to look at the online reviews and it’s one of the higher rated JD Wetherspoon locations on Google although it has only been open for a few weeks.

    “I was disappointed to see the lack of diversity in the interior design of this new bar in Bath. The images displayed throughout the venue only portray white men, which feels out of touch in 2026 and does not reflect the diverse history and communities that exist. Public spaces should be inclusive and representative of everyone. I hope this is something the management considers improving ASAP as it would make the environment feel more welcoming and inclusive.”

    Although the photos the reviewer took showed half the images in the venue were women and there is perhaps a limit of how many eighteenth and nineteenth century diverse images of famous Bath residents they can find without it looking a bit forced. I can’t imagine that this will be a priority for JD Wetherspoon.

    “Arrived to the new weatherspoons and looked good. Asked if we could have a table with our dog and was told yes out side. Sat down ordered food , told I have to order to a table inside and take it out side my self .
    After getting oue drinks and paying I am told that I must leave as my dog was not welcomed due to policy.
    I understand policy, how ever being told I can have a table outt side then order my food .to then be told I have to leave is not on. I did get a full refund , as my food arrived. Will never return”

    There’s already a review that JD Wetherspoon don’t accept dogs anywhere in their venues, that didn’t take long.

    And that’s about it, just some disappointment about cold breakfasts and tables that weren’t cleared down very quickly, otherwise customers seem to like it. It was certainly busy when I went on a Saturday morning in June, with the service all being fast and efficient. All very lovely and that’s another one of the chain’s venues that I’ve visited, so I then thought I’d better visit some Good Beer Guide pubs as well.

  • Bristol – M Shed (Book Bound With Human Skin)

    Bristol – M Shed (Book Bound With Human Skin)

    There are some museum exhibits which might make visitors stop because they are beautiful, and some because they are historically important. Then there are others which have an exhibition label next to them noting that “This book was bound in human skin” and it’s a little hard to not do a double take at that. This book relating to John Horwood (1803–1821), displayed at M Shed, is certainly a surprising exhibit to discover.

    Horwood was an eighteen year old from Hanham, near Bristol, who became the first person publicly executed at Bristol New Gaol. He had been convicted of the murder of Eliza Balsum, who died after being struck on the head by a stone he had thrown. After his execution, his body was dissected by the surgeon Richard Smith (1772–1843), and part of Horwood’s skin was tanned and used to bind a collection of papers relating to the case, trial, execution and dissection. I like archiving and all that, but less so when there are bits of human anatomy involved with the whole process, it’s not something that I’d want to handle.

    What makes the story even more unsettling is also the afterlife of Horwood’s body. His skeleton was retained long after his death and, for a long time was kept in a cupboard, with the noose still around its neck. Eventually, that part of the story was corrected as in 2011, Horwood’s remains were buried beside his father in Hanham, exactly 190 years after his execution. That burial really matters in many ways as it gave him, belatedly, something that the legal, medical and civic systems of his own time had rather comprehensively failed to provide which is a measure of human dignity. And his guilt has been questioned by historians, so it’s not entirely clear that his punishment was just or fair.

    The difficult question is whether the book should be on display at all, although the museum doesn’t seem to address that at all, although others have. Although it might not be possible to bury the book in the way that Horwood’s skeleton was, I wonder whether human remains need to be almost a centrepiece in a museum like this. The museum is very much on the side of social history, inclusion and diversity, so I’m a little surprised that they haven’t addressed the subject of human remains on display, even if just by changing how they’re exhibited.

  • Bristol – M Shed (Elizabeth Shaw Chocolates)

    Bristol – M Shed (Elizabeth Shaw Chocolates)

    There is something wonderfully reassuring about seeing an Elizabeth Shaw Mint Selection in a museum, because it occupies that exact little space between industrial history and chocolate. With chocolate and youth, it’s easy to remember the boxes, the wrappers, the slightly formal act of offering one round after dinner and the delicate social calculation of whether taking a second mint would look greedy. Naturally, I would never have this problem, as I conduct all such matters with dignity, restraint and only occasional disgrace.

    The Bristol connection is not quite as simple as imagining Elizabeth Shaw herself standing in a Bristol factory inventing mint chocolates. The brand began with Elizabeth and Patrick Joice, who started making honeycomb mint-flavoured chocolate crisps in the 1930s. The name “Elizabeth Shaw” combined Elizabeth’s own name with that of Page & Shaw, the confectionery firm where she had previously worked, so it’s not really as authentic as people might think which does feel a little sub-optimal.

    The Bristol part of the story comes through the Greenbank chocolate factory, which became associated with Elizabeth Shaw after a series of mergers and moves within the confectionery industry. Bristol already had a long chocolate-making tradition, most famously through Fry’s, and the Greenbank site had its own industrial life before Elizabeth Shaw became the name most attached to it. The city of Norwich also had a chocolate tradition with Caley’s and Mackintosh.

    There is also something very Bristol about the way this story sits between production, identity and reinvention. The Greenbank factory closed in 2006, and the old chocolate-making site has since become part of the city’s wider story of redevelopment. The Elizabeth Shaw lives on and I rather like that it’s currently owned by the Polish company, Colian Holding. And looking at this exhibit made me hungry, part of the reason that I went to Za Za Bazaar…..

  • Bristol – Za Za Bazaar and All You Can Eats

    Bristol – Za Za Bazaar and All You Can Eats

    This cavernous restaurant at Bristol Docks is the all you can eat Za Za Bazaar and I thought it might be a sensible location for lunch before going to the craft beer festival that was located around 100 metres away from it. As ever, sensible might be doing some heavy lifting there, but it was at least a plan that eating enough provided a stable foundation for an afternoon of beer. This sort of practical thinking is what has held civilisation together for centuries…..

    There’s a team member downstairs who books customers in and she asked me if ninety minutes was long enough. I debated this with myself and decided that it probably was, although it later transpired that they weren’t enforcing the arrangement anyway. I didn’t want to be rushed, particularly when there were spring rolls involved, so I thought I’d be efficient in my food collection.

    There’s no denying that this restaurant is large and it can apparently seat up to 1,000 people which is a little ridiculous. The pricing wasn’t too onerous, £22 for all you can eat and all the soft drinks you could possibly want.

    Being the food expert that I obviously am, I got muddled up and thought these were onion rings when they were calamari, but both work for me. There’s a heap of randomness there and a fair amount of beige with spring rolls on top of the chicken in black bean sauce.

    Some of the food, such as pasta and fish &chips, is made to order but there is plenty of choice available for those who didn’t want to wait. I didn’t much want to wait as I felt that there was enough to choose from.

    The kitchens were all open and a fair number of the options were being made from scratch.

    The design vibe is meant to be Asian street food and I liked the whole set-up.

    OK, I like beige. My friend Ross would have very much liked this whole arrangement. I did wonder if there was an optimum sequence of plates, but I quickly got distracted when I saw a food that I liked.

    Curry with onion rings, keeping it classy as ever….. The scale inevitably means this isn’t a delicate and calm location, but all the food was hot and it seemed to have a decent turnover.

    This is one of the largest restaurants that I can recall visiting and I remember taking photos at this point as I realised that I’d had enough food. It did all seem to be a bit of a relic from the late 2000s and early 2010s when there was more dining confidence than there is perhaps now.

    And a quick dessert.

    Or two.

    Overall, I rather liked this set-up and some of the food really was quite decent, the curries had a depth of flavour, the meat was tender, the food retained some texture and it was certainly all acceptable. This was meant to be something of a chain, but they opened a second in Newcastle and never made it any further and that one has now closed. They had hoped to open an outlet in Norwich, but that never came to pass.

    I do wonder why all you can eat restaurants are falling away in the United Kingdom and the US. Although food prices and staffing prices are going up, the turnover at places such as this is high and it looks from the outside as if it’s profitable, but appearances might be deceptive. However, they’ve been trading here for over a decade, so it’s certainly working at this quite premium location in Bristol. But back to my decision as to whether this was a good choice for a craft beer festival, absolutely it was even though I thought I might have overdone the chicken curry and Vimto…. I might come here again I’ve already decided….

  • Bristol – M Shed (Kids Pinching Lead in 1796)

    Bristol – M Shed (Kids Pinching Lead in 1796)

    This is a witness statement from 1796 and the text was as described by John Williams who had been employed to look after some unfinished houses in the parish of St. Paul’s in Bristol.

    The text reads:

    “The Information of John Williams No. 10 Portland Street in this City and John Randall No. 6 in Stokes Croft taken on Oath this seventh Day of November in the Year of our Lord One thousand seven hundred and ninety six before John Harris Esq. Mayor being one of His Majesty’s Justices of and for the City of Bristol and County of the same City.

    The Informant John Williams for himself on his Oath saith that being employed to overhaul, protect certain unfinished Buildings in the parish of Saint Paul within this City and County, situate on Tuesday the third day of this instant November, two of this deponent’s men proceeded fixing their names Henry Williams and Thomas Smith back into an unfinished House in the said parish by getting under the floor thereof of the room and through into the adjoining one by one John Williams, the second Oath Henry Williams and Smith in the said dwelling house in the room at breaking a lock off one of the doors with an Iron Bar.

    That then Williams and Smith after they were so taken discovered to this Informant about one hundred weight of Lead which they said they had ripped off the roof, part of the House and had concealed in the cellar of the said House for the purpose of stealing and carrying the same away whenever convenience could be had and saith that the Informant that John Randall and William Morris of his other Boys were…..”

    It’s a reminder that pinching lead from buildings is nothing new…. There also used to be a slang term for this crime which was “flying the blue pigeon”, but it was a risky business as there was a risk of this being treated as a capital crime. Youngsters would have likely ‘got away’ with transportation for seven years, but stealing a lot of lead was no minor matter. Some things never change…..