Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: Bristol

  • 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    Hotels.com have since informed me that the hotel has withdrawn the refund option.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.

  • Bristol – Small Bar

    The pub name of Small Bar refers to the concept that small businesses focus on being the very best that they can be, rather than the size of the venue which is actually relatively large.

    I’m very much in support of this, which is any business being brave enough to be cash free. It means that people don’t have to carry about money, pubs don’t have to have money on site or transport it to banks and then pay to change it. It’s easier to be transparent with card only payments and it’s just quicker.

    This is why I don’t like pubs like the Jubilee in Norwich which still surcharge for card payments (or at least they did a few months ago, I’ve now stopped going in because of the surcharge despite it otherwise being a brilliant pub), even though the law has changed to prevent such price gouging.

    There are 31 taps available in the pub with the choices on chalkboards above the bar. The full list of bottled beers are available on a screen to the side of the bar, all very modern. It’s also much easier to keep a screen such as this up-to-date, it’s a shame that more locations don’t do this.

    And the crisps selection.

    The pub had a relaxing and on-trend feel to it, being both stylish and not over-stated. The beer quality was, as would be expected, excellent and the choice was considered and well thought through.

    Every modern pub needs some books. The pub served food, and it was an on-trend (like most things about this pub) menu based around Asian chicken. We weren’t ready to eat when we visited, but it did offer a tempting selection.

    Overall, a rather lovely pub, perhaps one of my favourites from all those that we visited over the weekend. Although it had a modern feel to it, there was no element of pretentiousness or excessive hipster atmosphere, just a comfortable and welcoming environment.

  • Bristol – King’s Head

    There’s some history to the King’s Head on Victoria Street in Bristol (it has its own Wikipedia page) which was a long time ago a private property, but which was later turned into a pub. And the Victorian interior which dates to around the 1860s is gorgeous and remains relatively untouched, sufficient for the pub to be listed on the National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors.

    There’s a corridor along the side of the pub which runs to the back of the building, with the Tramcar Bar taking up the central space. It’s really quite staggering that this was never removed during the twentieth century in the name of progress, as it is a bit clunky, but historically it’s marvellous.

    A photo of the aforementioned corridor.

    It was towards the end of the night, so the photos aren’t quite as straight as perhaps I’d ideally like. But another photo of the historic interior.

    Underneath the old mineral waters sign is this old Dublin Stout sign, which I assume was from Burton Ales.

    I didn’t place the drinks order, but I think from memory I had the London Pride (or at least it tasted like London Pride, so my money would be on it being London Pride), which was well-kept and at the appropriate temperature. There was nothing there which was particularly unique, although it was nice to see a beer from Harvey’s Brewery in Lewes as I was in the town just a couple of weeks ago.

    The service was friendly and I can imagine the furtive conversations which have been held here over the last couple of centuries. It’s a comfortable environment, although the pub is relatively small, so there isn’t a great deal of space.