E. Cabot Tower to the old city - Part One
Cabot Tower
Cabot Tower was built as a memorial to Cabot, and was opened in 1897 to commemorate John Cabot’s 1497 journey to the New World and the coast of North America. Cabot and his family were ‘incomers’ to Bristol, or what we might today call ‘economic migrants’ who came to Britain to make their fortune. Cabot persuaded Henry VII to pay the cost of the voyage in order to find a new route to the spice islands, but instead landed in Newfoundland, Canada. His ship was lost on a later voyage to the area.
The path approaching the tower is steep and there are some steps to get to its base and see a panorama of the city. There is no lift inside the tower.
Nearby in…
Berkeley Square
John Loudon McAdam, the Scottish road engineer, lived here. He revolutionised road construction by developing a system of crushed stone and grit, and creating a camber or curve to the surface to drain water away.
In 1804 he was appointed as General Surveyor of Roads for the Bristol Corporation, and became surveyor to the Bristol Turnpike Trust in 1816. His
method was later called ‘macadamization’ – from which we get the term tarmac.
To discuss with pupils:
McAdam was a Scot who transformed transport, but there is no memorial to him here. Should there be a memorial to him in Bristol?
E. Cabot Tower to the old city - Part Two
Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, Queens Road
Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, Queens Road.
Ask at the museum reception where you can see these art works…
Portrait of Raja Rammohun Roy
The large oil portrait of the Indian reformer, by H. Perronet Briggs, hangs on the right hand main staircase. Drawn from life, the portrait was created a year before the early death of Roy, and shows him in costume as an Ambassador for the Mogul Emperor Shah Alam II.
Raja Rammohun Roy (1772-1833) was a Hindu and a Bengal noble who came to Bristol from India in 1831, to meet with others who wanted to develop a dialogue between different cultures and religions.
He was a reformer, and spoke out against suttee, the Hindu practice of widows burning themselves to death on the funeral pyres of their dead husband.
Painting of St James’s Fair
Local tradesmen looked forward to market days and holidays as an opportunity to make money, and Bristol had two of the largest fairs in England – Temple Fair, in early March, and St James’s Fair in early September. Both events attracted lots of traders and visitors. In the 1750s John Norton and Sons, merchants from London and Virginia, rented a nearby warehouse for ten days and filled it with goods from the fair to take to the American colonies to resell. St James’s fair was ended in the Victorian period because it was felt to encourage rowdy behaviour.
To discuss with pupils:
Does the City Museum adequately explore ‘the migrant experience’ and tell the story of what it was like to settle in Bristol in the past?
From the entrance of the Museum, turn left and walk along Queens Road. Where the road divides, go ahead (left) into Park Row.
The Park Row (Orthodox) Synagogue
The Park Row Synagogue.
This building is not open to the public, except on special occasions.
This is the first purpose built synagogue built in Bristol, for the city’s Hebrew (Orthodox) congregation. It was consecrated on 7 September 1871, and built to a design by Hyman H Collins, of London, at a cost of £4,000. A number of the internal fittings and ritual items were transferred here from the community’s earlier Weaver’s Hall and Temple Street synagogues.
During the 19th century, although prejudice against the Jewish community continued, there was a gradual increase in Jewish tolerance and Jewish
participation in public life. Reform in 1858, during the mid-Victorian period, allowed Jewish citizens who became Members of Parliament to swear an oath using a Hebrew Bible kept in the House of Commons treasury box.
For further information on the building visit this website:
http://www.jewishgen.org/JCR-UK/community/bri1/Synagogue/Synagogue_menu.htm
The website for the congregation:
http://www.brijnet.org/bristol/
Cross the road and continue down Park Row to just past the multi-storey car park on your right, and turn right down Lodge Street. Walk until you can turn right into Trenchard Street, which runs into Frogmore Street, from where you can turn into Orchard Avenue and then into…
Orchard Street
These houses are older than they actually look. They were houses for the comfortably off, and their location means that a lot became offices when it was no longer fashionable to live in city centres. Once it was part of a busy community. The refugee Huguenot community in Bristol used a chapel that once stood on the corner of this street as their place of worship from 1726. Although many of the incomers were poor and had lost everything, some of those who arrived were wealthy, and had trading connections to powerful Bristolians and to family members in the Protestant parts of the Netherlands, North America and the Caribbean. Some of the Huguenots also became wealthier through their involvement in the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
During the late 17th and early 18th centuries wealthier members of the local Huguenot community were able to integrate into the local merchant elite, with two serving as Lord Mayor – James La Roche (1750) and David
Peloquin (1751) – and Henry Cruger serving as a Whig MP for Bristol at the same time as the Irish born Edmund Burke MP.
To discuss with pupils:
The history of the communities who lived in these little streets in the past is not well known. Should there be interpretation boards with information for the public to read around the city?
Turn left into Denmark Street and walk its length to St Augustine’s Parade. Then turn left and look above the entrance to the Hippodrome Theatre where you can see…
Statue of Demerara
The Bristol Hippodrome was designed by Frank Matcham, and opened in late1912.
Above the entrance is a reconstruction of the figurehead from the ill-fated steamship the ss Demerara showing a figure representing an African. William Patterson’s Demerara cost £42,000 and was the second largest ship
built in Bristol (only 2.5m shorter than the ss Great Britain). When Demerara was launched on the 27 September 1851, the movement of the ship was too fast; it swung across the river and became wedged at the double bend in the River Avon under the towers of Brunel’s then incomplete Suspension Bridge.
The ship was refloated, but wedged again the next day. It was returned to dock and written off due to the damage it had suffered in the process. After the Demerara was dismantled the statue was placed above the entrance to Demerara House in the city; the original crumbled when moved to be placed at this site in the 1930s.
Statue of Demerara, Bristol Hippodrome.
Further along (to your right as you stand in front of the statue) the road curves slightly left to Colston Street where you can see the Victorian…
Colston Hall
The front of this building was designed by architects Foster and Wood, in the Bristol Byzantine-style to look like an Italian renaissance palazzo or palace. It was built in 1869 – 1873 and stands on the site of a large Tudor house, garden and grounds which belonged to Sir John Young. Legal records from the time tell us that a black Bristolian was employed as a garden watchman or security guard here in the mid-16th century, making this the earliest known reference to a person of African ethnicity and their workplace in Bristol.
To discuss with pupils:
Is Sir John’s garden security guard an important historical figure? Is he worth remembering in historical accounts of Bristol?
Colston Hall, designed by architects Foster and Wood in the Bristol Byzantine-style to look like an Italian palazzo or palace.
Turn back and continue along St Augustine’s Parade to the large neo-classical church…
St Mary on the Quay
Until the middle of the 20th century this church was on the quayside and waterfront. Today the river and the Quay are still there, but covered over. The church was was consecrated as a place of Catholic worship in 1843. Between the 1840s and 1857 the number of Catholics worshipping locally rose from around 500 to more than 2,000, perhaps due to The Great Famine in Ireland (1848) and the demand for workers in Bristol.
At the entrance to the building is a war memorial plaque commemorating the fallen of the church community during the Great War (1914-1918). The first of the names is George Archer-Shee, killed in the early stages of the fighting. This experience formed the basis of playwright Terrence Rattigan’s play The Winslow Boy – set at naval school with a cadet incorrectly accused of theft and expelled, followed by his family’s long but eventually successful battle to clear his name.
St Mary on the Quay.
Walk along the road along St Augustine’ Parade, which continues in to Colston Avenue. In the pedestrianised space formed between the roads, and to your right is the…
Statue of Edmund Burke MP
Edmund Burke (1729 –1797) was an Irish born Bristol resident, who served as one of the two Whig Members of Parliament for the city in 1774 –1780. He became famous for his democratic views, speeches against excessive punishments for criminals, support for fair taxation and a balanced treatment
of the American colonies, writings about the American and French Revolutions, and criticism of abuses by the East India Company. As a junior government Minister, Paymaster of the Forces, and a Privy Councillor he carried out anti-corruption reforms.
He was a protestant, but became unpopular with some local voters after expressing support for a relaxation of the laws restricting Catholics from holding office, from inheriting property and running schools. He lost his seat in 1780, as a result of his moderation and other’s prejudice, and later became MP for Malton. Of course very few people could actually vote – no women at all, no working class men and very few of the middle classes. In 1831, before electoral reforms, only 6,000 of the 104,000 locals could vote.
English prejudice against the Irish has often been the cause of tension across the isles, and when Burke retired from Parliament it was partly due to the arguments over relaxing the laws which severely limited Catholics’ participation in politics and government work.
To discuss with pupils:
The Irish community in England has often been given a hard time; Burke campaigned for the rights of everyone. Should there be more public information about what he believed and did on this site?
Statue of Edmund Burke (1729-97).
Continue along Colston Avenue, past Christmas Steps, to…
Lewins Mead Unitarian Chapel
The chapel was designed by William Blackburn. It was built between 1787-91 for the Unitarians outside of the city centre in an area near the waterfront. This chapel was at the centre of local campaigning. Alderman Richard Bright was chair of the Protestant Dissenters Committee, which also included Bristol Baptists, Congregationalists and Quakers. The Unitarians were important to social reform in Bristol – it was Mary carpenter the Unitarian reformer who invited Rammohan Roy to the city.
Until the repeal of the 1661 Corporation Act, Test Act of 1673, and the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, people who did not attend and worship within the Church of England were unable to hold national political office, graduate and receive a degree, or serve as an officer in the army or navy. This meant that the Protestant dissenting churches and Roman Catholics formed tight knit communities centring on their places of worship and community networks. During the early 19th century these groups were lobbying hard to change the rules which shut them out from local and national government service.
The Lewins Mead Congregation of English Presbyterians was at the centre of local dissenter attempts to gain tolerance of their views. Their local leader, Alderman Richard Bright, was chair of the Protestant Dissenters Committee, established in 1790 to lobby for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts.
Next door to the chapel, and now a very exclusive hotel, was a sugar house where sugar was refined. So this was once a smelly, busy place and an industrial location close to the port.
To discuss with pupils:
There are lots of sites associated with the slave trade in Bristol. Are trails the best way to tell people about the city’s history?
Lewins Mead Unitarian Chapel.