Trail 2 - v1_Layout 1 03/11/2011 10:22 Page 1
The Downs History Trails No 2 A little background history START at Sion Hill look-out point Clifton and Durdham Downs: how has such an extensive and dramatic landscape that is so close to the centre of a great city survived open and free from development Start at Sion Hill look-out point will not refuse riding behind a man… and for so long? above the Avon Gorge Hotel; take numbers of what they call double horses For many centuries the tenants or commoners of the two medieval manors of Clifton a seat looking up the hill. are constantly kept for that purpose.” and Henbury had the right to graze their animals here. But by the mid-nineteenth Three ‘double horses’ are depicted. Clifton Down century grazing was declining as the city expanded and development pushed in at This seemingly bleak view On the top of the hill is the defunct the edges of the common land. Mines and quarries also scarred the Downs as well as 1A was drawn in September windmill, which was to become the the Avon Gorge. 1789 from an upper window of a newly Observatory thirty years later. Below the built lodging house in Sion Row, only just In 1856 the Society of Merchant Venturers, owners of Clifton Down since the late tower is a ruined building, just possibly “... for ever hereafter open out of your sight around the rising bend seventeenth century, promised “to maintain the free and uninterrupted use of the the remains of St Vincent’s Chapel which of Sion Hill. Clifton was then expanding Downs.” The following year Bristol City Council purchased two small properties in William Worcester recorded in 1480 rapidly partly at the expense of the Stoke Bishop, together with one of the few remaining commoner's rights to graze and which was still extant in 1625. and unenclosed...” declining Hotwell spa, immediately below animals on Durdham Down. In the spring of 1858 the City of Bristol turned out Any remaining traces would have been you at the river’s edge. sheep stamped ‘CB’, keeping alive the medieval rights of pasturage and making swept away in the 1830s during the further development more difficult. In 1793 Shiercliff's Guide tells us that construction of the approach road to the "Some ladies also take great delight in Clifton Suspension Bridge which springs Then, in equal partnership, the council and the Merchant Venturers promoted Detail of I.K.Brunel’s approved ‘Egyptian’ design for the Clifton Suspension Bridge, 1831; watercolour by riding upon Durdham Down… and the from the point just to the left of the ruins. The Clifton and Durdham Downs (Bristol) Act, 1861. This act allowed the council to Samuel Jackson and Auguste Charles Pugin (BCMAG K4077) best lady attending the Hot-well, if she purchase Durdham Down. It preserved the Downs for us all ‘for ever hereafter’. And it does not chuse to ride a single horse, set up the method of management that continues today: the Downs Committee, We are at the southern The first competition for the bridge, made up equally of councillors and Merchant Venturers under the chairmanship of 1B extremity of the commons held in 1829, was a fiasco. In the second the lord mayor. of Clifton Down. When William Vick, competition Brunel had to overturn the a Bristol wine merchant, died in 1754 committee's initial decision against him there was hardly a house to be seen from and then, having won, to get agreement Where to start: The nearest toilets: this spot. Vick’s will left £1000 in the care on the style of architecture that was to At Sion Hill at the look-out point above Are by the Clifton Suspension Bridge, of the Merchant Venturers to grow by clothe the engineering solution. Elegant the Avon Gorge Hotel, but you can join see map. compound interest until sufficient for Egyptian gateways topped with sphinxes at any point on the map. the building of a stone bridge from were selected. The towers were to be The Avon from Clifton Down, watercolour by Francis Danby, c.1822 (private collection) Further information: Clifton Down to Leigh Down – a flight covered in cast-iron plaques illustrating of inexplicable fancy, for such a bridge every phase of the bridge’s history How far and how long: Go to www.bristol.gov.uk/page/downs was then beyond the wit of man. and construction. it is 2.5 km long and takes about to download other trail leaflets on trees, It is 150 years since The Clifton and Durdham Downs (Bristol) Act, 1861 But by the end of the century iron was 90 minutes. It is almost all on birds, lichen and other subjects. Brunel died in 1859 and the bridge was secured the Downs as a place of recreation for us all – forever. This trail and revolutionising engineering and the tarmac paths. For educational visits, events, guided finally completed in 1864 to a much small but growing village of Clifton had a second trail exploring Durdham Down celebrate this anniversary and tours, news and volunteering go to the altered design and as a memorial to the become a building site. explore the rich and fascinating history of the Downs. How to get there: Avon Gorge and Downs Wildlife Project’s great man from his fellow engineers. By bus: 8, 9, 586 and 587; by train: the site: www.avongorge.org.uk or e-mail nearest station is Clifton Down Station, [email protected]; for the Walk on up the hill following the tarmac path that curves left and then 15 minutes walk away. Friends of the Downs and Avon Gorge The Downs email: [email protected]. right below the bridge’s abutment. Very carefully cross Suspension Bridge Road by the speed restriction signs and take the steep tarmac Committee View of the Windmill & Camp at Clifton…from my window at Mrs Rossignols…Septr. 12th 1789"; pen, ink and wash drawing by Samuel Hieronymous Grimm (BCMAG Ma 3701) path winding up Observatory Hill, stopping very soon at the first bench.
Walk on up the hill always keeping to the path at the edge of the gorge. The exact viewpoint of 1888, however, some plants were Samuel Hieronymous One contemporary guide implied that You are very close to The new road, which is so prominent in 2A Grimm’s drawing is a few rediscovered in the Avon Gorge 2B Grimm’s viewpoint was just quarrying was yet another exciting Continue past the Observatory and take a seat at the first bench 20 3B Francis Danby’s fenceless the watercolour, is depicted very shortly feet above you and you will be passing and a tale of pioneering conservation 15 metres to your left. He evidently spectacle for visitors and suggested that metres after you have enjoyed the information panel ‘Having a wild viewpoint. His watercolour allows us to before completion in 1822. The Old the spot shortly. The drawing’s inscription emerged. delighted in the two intrepid quarrymen the explosions and "the sound of time’. You have four ‘chapters’ here; do also wander and marvel at the sense something of the excitement and Hotwell House has still to be demolished is testimony to the fame that the Avon Isambard Kingdom Brunel had been on the right who appear to be sending crashing rocks running with thundering spectacular landscape around you. vision of the engineers who believed that so that the road could pass over its Gorge and the Downs have enjoyed warned by Mrs Glennie, wife of his rocks hurtling down the cliff towards the peel through the vale...re-echoing on they could span this vast space. It also foundations. The road continued along since the early sixteenth century for their principal engineer, of the destruction he old limekiln at the base of St Vincent’s every side of the surrounding cliffs... depicts the Hotwells Spa. In the centre the river and up what is now called wealth of rare wild flowers. was about to cause. Brunel then ordered Rocks. They may have been searching for make it most awfully sublime You have climbed into both the Old and the New Hotwell Bridge Valley Road to the Downs and The ‘autumnal Hiacinths’, which the artist his workmen to remove turf containing Bristol Diamonds, for which St Vincent’s and grand." 3A one of three ancient House stand side by side above the Clifton, providing much easier access by mentions, are now better known as bulbs of autumn squill to a safer and, Rocks had been camps at the highest points of the muddy banks of the Avon. The Old carriage at a gentler gradient than either autumn squill, Scilla autumnalis, and you evidently, almost inaccessible spot. celebrated since the Avon Gorge. These hill forts used the Hotwell House was built in 1696 and its Granby Hill or Park Street allowed. The can see it in the special flowerbed at the sixteenth century. steep cliffs for defence, adding massive successor was completed in 1822. Portway was not to be built for another Today, the Avon Gorge is classed as one Clifton end of the bridge, created in 2006 The broken geodes or ramparts and ditches. Seyer’s map, The rebuilding was part of a valiant and one hundred years. of the top three botanical sites in England to display several of the Avon Gorge’s nodules filled with clear illustrated here, makes it easier to ultimately unsuccessful attempt by the and its exposures of carboniferous rarest plants. It was long believed that this but relatively soft recognise the remains of these Merchant Venturers to revive its declining limestone are of great geological interest. scarce plant had been obliterated by the quartz crystals were fortifications. The ramparts at Stokeleigh fortunes. The spa had become detached building of the Clifton Suspension Bridge, much used by Thomas Camp in Leigh Woods (top left of plan), from its clientele now mostly lodged at which springs from the projecting point Goldney in his grotto at have recently been largely cleared of the top of the hill in Clifton’s elegant on which the diminutive figures stand. In Goldney House in trees and shrubs by the National Trust new terraces. Clifton in the 1740s. and are now mightily impressive. They were also one of You will find that the banks of Clifton the most popular Camp, through which you are about to souvenirs of a visit to walk, are shallower and that they have the Hotwell Spa. become largely hidden under scrub within the last hundred years (bottom Near the limekiln right of plan). Burwalls Camp (bottom elegant visitors to left of plan) was largely destroyed in the the Hotwell can be 1860s following the completion of the seen perambulating Iron Age hill forts above the Avon Gorge; lithograph Clifton Suspension Bridge whose from Memoirs...of Bristol and its Neighbourhood by beneath a parasol, approach road ran through it. Revd. Samuel Seyer, 1821 apparently oblivious of the danger they are in. These hill forts were occupied in the centuries around 200 BC, the pre- Roman Iron Age. Whether they were part of a unified defensive system or were the strongholds of separate tribal units remains uncertain. It would have been earlier still, perhaps in the Bronze Age (c.2000–c.800 BC), that extensive felling of the woodland on the Downs “Projection of the S. Part of St Vincents Rock...abounding in autumnal Hiacinths / Sept. 17th 1789”; pen,ink St Vincent’s Rocks looking upriver towards Hotwells and Clifton, c. 1821; detail of watercolour by Francis Geode of ‘Bristol Diamonds’ “Chasm of St Vincent’s Rock, below the windmill...Aug 13th 1789”; detail of took place allowing both grazing and and grey wash by Samuel Hieronymous Grimm (BCMAG Ma3707) Danby (Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection) 150mm across pen, ink and wash drawing by S H Grimm (BCMAG Ma3711) cultivation to develop. Ramparts of Clifton Hill Fort c.1910, postcard (BRO43207.935.323)
The Downs History Trails No 2 A little background history START at Sion Hill look-out point Clifton and Durdham Downs: how has such an extensive and dramatic landscape that is so close to the centre of a great city survived open and free from development Start at Sion Hill look-out point will not refuse riding behind a man… and for so long? above the Avon Gorge Hotel; take numbers of what they call double horses For many centuries the tenants or commoners of the two medieval manors of Clifton a seat looking up the hill. are constantly kept for that purpose.” and Henbury had the right to graze their animals here. But by the mid-nineteenth Three ‘double horses’ are depicted. Clifton Down century grazing was declining as the city expanded and development pushed in at This seemingly bleak view On the top of the hill is the defunct the edges of the common land. Mines and quarries also scarred the Downs as well as 1A was drawn in September windmill, which was to become the the Avon Gorge. 1789 from an upper window of a newly Observatory thirty years later. Below the built lodging house in Sion Row, only just In 1856 the Society of Merchant Venturers, owners of Clifton Down since the late tower is a ruined building, just possibly “... for ever hereafter open out of your sight around the rising bend seventeenth century, promised “to maintain the free and uninterrupted use of the the remains of St Vincent’s Chapel which of Sion Hill. Clifton was then expanding Downs.” The following year Bristol City Council purchased two small properties in William Worcester recorded in 1480 rapidly partly at the expense of the Stoke Bishop, together with one of the few remaining commoner's rights to graze and which was still extant in 1625. and unenclosed...” declining Hotwell spa, immediately below animals on Durdham Down. In the spring of 1858 the City of Bristol turned out Any remaining traces would have been you at the river’s edge. sheep stamped ‘CB’, keeping alive the medieval rights of pasturage and making swept away in the 1830s during the further development more difficult. In 1793 Shiercliff's Guide tells us that construction of the approach road to the "Some ladies also take great delight in Clifton Suspension Bridge which springs Then, in equal partnership, the council and the Merchant Venturers promoted Detail of I.K.Brunel’s approved ‘Egyptian’ design for the Clifton Suspension Bridge, 1831; watercolour by riding upon Durdham Down… and the from the point just to the left of the ruins. The Clifton and Durdham Downs (Bristol) Act, 1861. This act allowed the council to Samuel Jackson and Auguste Charles Pugin (BCMAG K4077) best lady attending the Hot-well, if she purchase Durdham Down. It preserved the Downs for us all ‘for ever hereafter’. And it does not chuse to ride a single horse, set up the method of management that continues today: the Downs Committee, We are at the southern The first competition for the bridge, made up equally of councillors and Merchant Venturers under the chairmanship of 1B extremity of the commons held in 1829, was a fiasco. In the second the lord mayor. of Clifton Down. When William Vick, competition Brunel had to overturn the a Bristol wine merchant, died in 1754 committee's initial decision against him there was hardly a house to be seen from and then, having won, to get agreement Where to start: The nearest toilets: this spot. Vick’s will left £1000 in the care on the style of architecture that was to At Sion Hill at the look-out point above Are by the Clifton Suspension Bridge, of the Merchant Venturers to grow by clothe the engineering solution. Elegant the Avon Gorge Hotel, but you can join see map. compound interest until sufficient for Egyptian gateways topped with sphinxes at any point on the map. the building of a stone bridge from were selected. The towers were to be The Avon from Clifton Down, watercolour by Francis Danby, c.1822 (private collection) Further information: Clifton Down to Leigh Down – a flight covered in cast-iron plaques illustrating of inexplicable fancy, for such a bridge every phase of the bridge’s history How far and how long: Go to www.bristol.gov.uk/page/downs was then beyond the wit of man. and construction. it is 2.5 km long and takes about to download other trail leaflets on trees, It is 150 years since The Clifton and Durdham Downs (Bristol) Act, 1861 But by the end of the century iron was 90 minutes. It is almost all on birds, lichen and other subjects. Brunel died in 1859 and the bridge was secured the Downs as a place of recreation for us all – forever. This trail and revolutionising engineering and the tarmac paths. For educational visits, events, guided finally completed in 1864 to a much small but growing village of Clifton had a second trail exploring Durdham Down celebrate this anniversary and tours, news and volunteering go to the altered design and as a memorial to the become a building site. explore the rich and fascinating history of the Downs. How to get there: Avon Gorge and Downs Wildlife Project’s great man from his fellow engineers. By bus: 8, 9, 586 and 587; by train: the site: www.avongorge.org.uk or e-mail nearest station is Clifton Down Station, [email protected]; for the Walk on up the hill following the tarmac path that curves left and then 15 minutes walk away. Friends of the Downs and Avon Gorge The Downs email: [email protected]. right below the bridge’s abutment. Very carefully cross Suspension Bridge Road by the speed restriction signs and take the steep tarmac Committee View of the Windmill & Camp at Clifton…from my window at Mrs Rossignols…Septr. 12th 1789"; pen, ink and wash drawing by Samuel Hieronymous Grimm (BCMAG Ma 3701) path winding up Observatory Hill, stopping very soon at the first bench.
Walk on up the hill always keeping to the path at the edge of the gorge. The exact viewpoint of 1888, however, some plants were Samuel Hieronymous One contemporary guide implied that You are very close to The new road, which is so prominent in 2A Grimm’s drawing is a few rediscovered in the Avon Gorge 2B Grimm’s viewpoint was just quarrying was yet another exciting Continue past the Observatory and take a seat at the first bench 20 3B Francis Danby’s fenceless the watercolour, is depicted very shortly feet above you and you will be passing and a tale of pioneering conservation 15 metres to your left. He evidently spectacle for visitors and suggested that metres after you have enjoyed the information panel ‘Having a wild viewpoint. His watercolour allows us to before completion in 1822. The Old the spot shortly. The drawing’s inscription emerged. delighted in the two intrepid quarrymen the explosions and "the sound of time’. You have four ‘chapters’ here; do also wander and marvel at the sense something of the excitement and Hotwell House has still to be demolished is testimony to the fame that the Avon Isambard Kingdom Brunel had been on the right who appear to be sending crashing rocks running with thundering spectacular landscape around you. vision of the engineers who believed that so that the road could pass over its Gorge and the Downs have enjoyed warned by Mrs Glennie, wife of his rocks hurtling down the cliff towards the peel through the vale...re-echoing on they could span this vast space. It also foundations. The road continued along since the early sixteenth century for their principal engineer, of the destruction he old limekiln at the base of St Vincent’s every side of the surrounding cliffs... depicts the Hotwells Spa. In the centre the river and up what is now called wealth of rare wild flowers. was about to cause. Brunel then ordered Rocks. They may have been searching for make it most awfully sublime You have climbed into both the Old and the New Hotwell Bridge Valley Road to the Downs and The ‘autumnal Hiacinths’, which the artist his workmen to remove turf containing Bristol Diamonds, for which St Vincent’s and grand." 3A one of three ancient House stand side by side above the Clifton, providing much easier access by mentions, are now better known as bulbs of autumn squill to a safer and, Rocks had been camps at the highest points of the muddy banks of the Avon. The Old carriage at a gentler gradient than either autumn squill, Scilla autumnalis, and you evidently, almost inaccessible spot. celebrated since the Avon Gorge. These hill forts used the Hotwell House was built in 1696 and its Granby Hill or Park Street allowed. The can see it in the special flowerbed at the sixteenth century. steep cliffs for defence, adding massive successor was completed in 1822. Portway was not to be built for another Today, the Avon Gorge is classed as one Clifton end of the bridge, created in 2006 The broken geodes or ramparts and ditches. Seyer’s map, The rebuilding was part of a valiant and one hundred years. of the top three botanical sites in England to display several of the Avon Gorge’s nodules filled with clear illustrated here, makes it easier to ultimately unsuccessful attempt by the and its exposures of carboniferous rarest plants. It was long believed that this but relatively soft recognise the remains of these Merchant Venturers to revive its declining limestone are of great geological interest. scarce plant had been obliterated by the quartz crystals were fortifications. The ramparts at Stokeleigh fortunes. The spa had become detached building of the Clifton Suspension Bridge, much used by Thomas Camp in Leigh Woods (top left of plan), from its clientele now mostly lodged at which springs from the projecting point Goldney in his grotto at have recently been largely cleared of the top of the hill in Clifton’s elegant on which the diminutive figures stand. In Goldney House in trees and shrubs by the National Trust new terraces. Clifton in the 1740s. and are now mightily impressive. They were also one of You will find that the banks of Clifton the most popular Camp, through which you are about to souvenirs of a visit to walk, are shallower and that they have the Hotwell Spa. become largely hidden under scrub within the last hundred years (bottom Near the limekiln right of plan). Burwalls Camp (bottom elegant visitors to left of plan) was largely destroyed in the the Hotwell can be 1860s following the completion of the seen perambulating Iron Age hill forts above the Avon Gorge; lithograph Clifton Suspension Bridge whose beneath a parasol, from Memoirs...of Bristol and its Neighbourhood by approach road ran through it. Revd. Samuel Seyer, 1821 apparently oblivious of the danger they are in. These hill forts were occupied in the centuries around 200 BC, the pre- Roman Iron Age. Whether they were part of a unified defensive system or were the strongholds of separate tribal units remains uncertain. It would have been earlier still, perhaps in the Bronze Age (c.2000–c.800 BC), that extensive felling of the woodland on the Downs “Projection of the S. Part of St Vincents Rock...abounding in autumnal Hiacinths / Sept. 17th 1789”; pen,ink St Vincent’s Rocks looking upriver towards Hotwells and Clifton, c. 1821; detail of watercolour by Francis Geode of ‘Bristol Diamonds’ “Chasm of St Vincent’s Rock, below the windmill...Aug 13th 1789”; detail of took place allowing both grazing and and grey wash by Samuel Hieronymous Grimm (BCMAG Ma3707) Danby (Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection) 150mm across pen, ink and wash drawing by S H Grimm (BCMAG Ma3711) cultivation to develop. Ramparts of Clifton Hill Fort c.1910, postcard (BRO43207.935.323)
The Downs History Trails No 2 A little background history START at Sion Hill look-out point Clifton and Durdham Downs: how has such an extensive and dramatic landscape that is so close to the centre of a great city survived open and free from development Start at Sion Hill look-out point will not refuse riding behind a man… and for so long? above the Avon Gorge Hotel; take numbers of what they call double horses For many centuries the tenants or commoners of the two medieval manors of Clifton a seat looking up the hill. are constantly kept for that purpose.” and Henbury had the right to graze their animals here. But by the mid-nineteenth Three ‘double horses’ are depicted. Clifton Down century grazing was declining as the city expanded and development pushed in at This seemingly bleak view On the top of the hill is the defunct the edges of the common land. Mines and quarries also scarred the Downs as well as 1A was drawn in September windmill, which was to become the the Avon Gorge. 1789 from an upper window of a newly Observatory thirty years later. Below the built lodging house in Sion Row, only just In 1856 the Society of Merchant Venturers, owners of Clifton Down since the late tower is a ruined building, just possibly “... for ever hereafter open out of your sight around the rising bend seventeenth century, promised “to maintain the free and uninterrupted use of the the remains of St Vincent’s Chapel which of Sion Hill. Clifton was then expanding Downs.” The following year Bristol City Council purchased two small properties in William Worcester recorded in 1480 rapidly partly at the expense of the Stoke Bishop, together with one of the few remaining commoner's rights to graze and which was still extant in 1625. and unenclosed...” declining Hotwell spa, immediately below animals on Durdham Down. In the spring of 1858 the City of Bristol turned out Any remaining traces would have been you at the river’s edge. sheep stamped ‘CB’, keeping alive the medieval rights of pasturage and making swept away in the 1830s during the further development more difficult. In 1793 Shiercliff's Guide tells us that construction of the approach road to the "Some ladies also take great delight in Clifton Suspension Bridge which springs Then, in equal partnership, the council and the Merchant Venturers promoted Detail of I.K.Brunel’s approved ‘Egyptian’ design for the Clifton Suspension Bridge, 1831; watercolour by riding upon Durdham Down… and the from the point just to the left of the ruins. The Clifton and Durdham Downs (Bristol) Act, 1861. This act allowed the council to Samuel Jackson and Auguste Charles Pugin (BCMAG K4077) best lady attending the Hot-well, if she purchase Durdham Down. It preserved the Downs for us all ‘for ever hereafter’. And it does not chuse to ride a single horse, set up the method of management that continues today: the Downs Committee, We are at the southern The first competition for the bridge, made up equally of councillors and Merchant Venturers under the chairmanship of 1B extremity of the commons held in 1829, was a fiasco. In the second the lord mayor. of Clifton Down. When William Vick, competition Brunel had to overturn the a Bristol wine merchant, died in 1754 committee's initial decision against him there was hardly a house to be seen from and then, having won, to get agreement Where to start: The nearest toilets: this spot. Vick’s will left £1000 in the care on the style of architecture that was to At Sion Hill at the look-out point above Are by the Clifton Suspension Bridge, of the Merchant Venturers to grow by clothe the engineering solution. Elegant the Avon Gorge Hotel, but you can join see map. compound interest until sufficient for Egyptian gateways topped with sphinxes at any point on the map. the building of a stone bridge from were selected. The towers were to be The Avon from Clifton Down, watercolour by Francis Danby, c.1822 (private collection) Further information: Clifton Down to Leigh Down – a flight covered in cast-iron plaques illustrating of inexplicable fancy, for such a bridge every phase of the bridge’s history How far and how long: Go to www.bristol.gov.uk/page/downs was then beyond the wit of man. and construction. it is 2.5 km long and takes about to download other trail leaflets on trees, It is 150 years since The Clifton and Durdham Downs (Bristol) Act, 1861 But by the end of the century iron was 90 minutes. It is almost all on birds, lichen and other subjects. Brunel died in 1859 and the bridge was secured the Downs as a place of recreation for us all – forever. This trail and revolutionising engineering and the tarmac paths. For educational visits, events, guided finally completed in 1864 to a much small but growing village of Clifton had a second trail exploring Durdham Down celebrate this anniversary and tours, news and volunteering go to the altered design and as a memorial to the become a building site. explore the rich and fascinating history of the Downs. How to get there: Avon Gorge and Downs Wildlife Project’s great man from his fellow engineers. By bus: 8, 9, 586 and 587; by train: the site: www.avongorge.org.uk or e-mail nearest station is Clifton Down Station, [email protected]; for the Walk on up the hill following the tarmac path that curves left and then 15 minutes walk away. Friends of the Downs and Avon Gorge The Downs email: [email protected]. right below the bridge’s abutment. Very carefully cross Suspension Bridge Road by the speed restriction signs and take the steep tarmac Committee View of the Windmill & Camp at Clifton…from my window at Mrs Rossignols…Septr. 12th 1789"; pen, ink and wash drawing by Samuel Hieronymous Grimm (BCMAG Ma 3701) path winding up Observatory Hill, stopping very soon at the first bench.
Walk on up the hill always keeping to the path at the edge of the gorge. The exact viewpoint of 1888, however, some plants were Samuel Hieronymous One contemporary guide implied that You are very close to The new road, which is so prominent in 2A Grimm’s drawing is a few rediscovered in the Avon Gorge 2B Grimm’s viewpoint was just quarrying was yet another exciting Continue past the Observatory and take a seat at the first bench 20 3B Francis Danby’s fenceless the watercolour, is depicted very shortly feet above you and you will be passing and a tale of pioneering conservation 15 metres to your left. He evidently spectacle for visitors and suggested that metres after you have enjoyed the information panel ‘Having a wild viewpoint. His watercolour allows us to before completion in 1822. The Old the spot shortly. The drawing’s inscription emerged. delighted in the two intrepid quarrymen the explosions and "the sound of time’. You have four ‘chapters’ here; do also wander and marvel at the sense something of the excitement and Hotwell House has still to be demolished is testimony to the fame that the Avon Isambard Kingdom Brunel had been on the right who appear to be sending crashing rocks running with thundering spectacular landscape around you. vision of the engineers who believed that so that the road could pass over its Gorge and the Downs have enjoyed warned by Mrs Glennie, wife of his rocks hurtling down the cliff towards the peel through the vale...re-echoing on they could span this vast space. It also foundations. The road continued along since the early sixteenth century for their principal engineer, of the destruction he old limekiln at the base of St Vincent’s every side of the surrounding cliffs... depicts the Hotwells Spa. In the centre the river and up what is now called wealth of rare wild flowers. was about to cause. Brunel then ordered Rocks. They may have been searching for make it most awfully sublime You have climbed into both the Old and the New Hotwell Bridge Valley Road to the Downs and The ‘autumnal Hiacinths’, which the artist his workmen to remove turf containing Bristol Diamonds, for which St Vincent’s and grand." 3A one of three ancient House stand side by side above the Clifton, providing much easier access by mentions, are now better known as bulbs of autumn squill to a safer and, Rocks had been camps at the highest points of the muddy banks of the Avon. The Old carriage at a gentler gradient than either autumn squill, Scilla autumnalis, and you evidently, almost inaccessible spot. celebrated since the Avon Gorge. These hill forts used the Hotwell House was built in 1696 and its Granby Hill or Park Street allowed. The can see it in the special flowerbed at the sixteenth century. steep cliffs for defence, adding massive successor was completed in 1822. Portway was not to be built for another Today, the Avon Gorge is classed as one Clifton end of the bridge, created in 2006 The broken geodes or ramparts and ditches. Seyer’s map, The rebuilding was part of a valiant and one hundred years. of the top three botanical sites in England to display several of the Avon Gorge’s nodules filled with clear illustrated here, makes it easier to ultimately unsuccessful attempt by the and its exposures of carboniferous rarest plants. It was long believed that this but relatively soft recognise the remains of these Merchant Venturers to revive its declining limestone are of great geological interest. scarce plant had been obliterated by the quartz crystals were fortifications. The ramparts at Stokeleigh fortunes. The spa had become detached building of the Clifton Suspension Bridge, much used by Thomas Camp in Leigh Woods (top left of plan), from its clientele now mostly lodged at which springs from the projecting point Goldney in his grotto at have recently been largely cleared of the top of the hill in Clifton’s elegant on which the diminutive figures stand. In Goldney House in trees and shrubs by the National Trust new terraces. Clifton in the 1740s. and are now mightily impressive. They were also one of You will find that the banks of Clifton the most popular Camp, through which you are about to souvenirs of a visit to walk, are shallower and that they have the Hotwell Spa. become largely hidden under scrub within the last hundred years (bottom Near the limekiln right of plan). Burwalls Camp (bottom elegant visitors to left of plan) was largely destroyed in the the Hotwell can be 1860s following the completion of the seen perambulating Iron Age hill forts above the Avon Gorge; lithograph Clifton Suspension Bridge whose beneath a parasol, from Memoirs...of Bristol and its Neighbourhood by approach road ran through it. Revd. Samuel Seyer, 1821 apparently oblivious of the danger they are in. These hill forts were occupied in the centuries around 200 BC, the pre- Roman Iron Age. Whether they were part of a unified defensive system or were the strongholds of separate tribal units remains uncertain. It would have been earlier still, perhaps in the Bronze Age (c.2000–c.800 BC), that extensive felling of the woodland on the Downs “Projection of the S. Part of St Vincents Rock...abounding in autumnal Hiacinths / Sept. 17th 1789”; pen,ink St Vincent’s Rocks looking upriver towards Hotwells and Clifton, c. 1821; detail of watercolour by Francis Geode of ‘Bristol Diamonds’ “Chasm of St Vincent’s Rock, below the windmill...Aug 13th 1789”; detail of took place allowing both grazing and and grey wash by Samuel Hieronymous Grimm (BCMAG Ma3707) Danby (Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection) 150mm across pen, ink and wash drawing by S H Grimm (BCMAG Ma3711) cultivation to develop. Ramparts of Clifton Hill Fort c.1910, postcard (BRO43207.935.323) Trail 2 - v1_Layout 1 03/11/2011 10:22 Page 2
N O R N T W H P O C D O Great T The title of the painting is In the foreground of West’s painting; N E Quarry O Bristol Zoo R P Fairyland T D the artist’s own and it was there are some sheep and some bushes O F 3D LI 1836 proudly made, for this was William West’s but no trees. Quarry boats rest on the R C T D C W A O O very own viewpoint – one that he had, mud beneath Black Rocks and a paddle L R A L E Y E I himself, created. The Observatory had steamer belches its way down the river G R E H 4a,b T started as a corn windmill, erected with towards a square-rigged merchantman D R U
O G
OA A the permission of the Merchant Venturers coming up on the tide. Sea Walls reflects R
D
L C I E Drinking O in 1766. It may subsequently have the sun and in the far distance there is a C A D E A fountain C LL Clifton College 4 N become a snuff mill until 1777, when, glimpse of the Bristol Channel and the E E M N 1872 G O W over-driven in a gale, the pivots caught Welsh hills. For at least the last half R E
P O
E Mansion
H fire and it was burnt out. The tower century this spectacular view has been D N D F
T A House IE FTO I C D
became a picturesque ruin until 1828 denied to us. This winter, 2011/12, some O L L C A
R A D O L S C when the Merchant Venturers granted judicious lopping and felling should make N R
Merchants O Y
D Y L L William West, a professional artist, a five- it available once again. E Hall A N A Redgrave LE
L O V I G year lease to turn it into an observatory. L R G C Theatre R E A E
D E C
R L C V R P L S
E E C D I O R F O
E A W FI T
D G O
T I
D D N L CLIFTON I A View from the Giant’s Cave, 1837; watercolour by Edmund Gustavus Müller (BCMAG M993) O The Clifton turnpike seen from the Triangle looking down river, 1816; watercolour by Lt. Col. R R C L P A William Booth (BCMAG K191) B IV L C A R I PE F R
T K O In 1837 after two years’ house a large revolving telescope. Lt. Col. William Booth’s revolutionising the method and standards C
N A C AMP ROA R T excavation a 200-ft tunnel A successor to the original camera N D IF 3C viewpoint must have of road building began here. Essentially, D CL 4A R D Y
was opened running from beneath the obscura that West installed on top of the i N been very close to yours. The Colonel ‘Macadamisation’ involved ten inches of v O Christ Church e W G Y T Milestone r H K Observatory to the Giant’s Cave, a natural tower remains today and on a sunny day E R 1844-85 YV would not have misled us – you really small stones, very well compressed, laid E N P PA V A R “Bristol 2” O R cavity in the cliff face of St Vincent’s it can still delight us all. M N could once see the river from here. In his on well-drained subsoil with a camber to v E TO o N LIF OA AD C G Rocks. Today, if you stand back n E RAN In 1929 there were complaints careful drawing it can be glimpsed just to drain off rainwater. A very much smarter 3a,b,c,d D V
within the cave, you will find D the left of the toll house. tollhouse with Doric columns at its Monument OA L about slot machines at the 6 G R Observatory A A that the view of Nightingale corners was erected here in 1823 1767 ILL E AN Observatory. William The charge of 2d for a horse and cart Hill M R Valley and Leigh Woods on immediately after the building of Bridge OA West’s descendants were Observatory C was very considerably more than a car’s T D the Somerset side of the Valley Road. It was about this time that H Obelisk LI D finally evicted in 1943, 5a,b A E O equivalent toll for crossing the Clifton Giants F R wc O 1768 gorge has hardly changed at R M ER the avenue itself was first planted. E T IM long after the now Cave G O T Suspension Bridge, today. No wonder D Drinking A R BRI S all. For this we are indebted 2a,b ST MO I L D N decrepit building had been that the gates were to be repeatedly O fountain L N The Arcade
to George Alfred Wills, who 29 N LA 1 L 1866 RT D requisitioned by the Home Guard. The Clifton 3 IL O broken down by protesters in the years B P P TH O presented much of Leigh Woods to the H L V W Merchant Venturers sold the property in Suspension N immediately following the erection of this O E National Trust in 1909. I N Bridge S S L 1977 with restrictive clauses concerning “From the Summit of the Observatory, Clifton”, 1834; detail of an oil painting by William West (BCMAG K8) I P M turnpike in 1727. The origin of the term O D EL L R N N FI L A In 1834 a new twenty-one year lease had the maintenance of access to the camera T D ‘turnpike’ can clearly be seen – the centre ES L E L W L C ST MA C ER
H allowed William West, who had earlier obscura and the Giant’s Cave. A E LA T M post revolved in a very similar manner to W E
E O P R Walk on along the path and descend through the hill fort’s ramparts to N ST R rebuilt the windmill tower, to extend the T E modern versions at football grounds. NIA A Clifton Library G W O I R E building substantially. He added a circular the Promenade avenue. Continue to the far end of the avenue, cross over 1a,b TO N E C In 1815 John Loudon McAdam was N CALED VI T room complete with a rotating dome to L S NT C very carefully by the bus stop and take a seat on the bench near the L ES SCE S appointed surveyor to the Bristol C E T N R R Avon Gorge RI C N S point of the Triangle close to the gothic fountain. O S P K E Turnpike Trust and his work of W E R D L Hotel I O R I L The new tollhouse on Clifton Down, 1823, lithograph A O Y A H G S D N L N A K A R Y O M S H O Y S I R H E N
L
L G
The postcard below Follow the pavement to your right along the grandest sequence of Rowbotham’s drawing It was Dyer who was later to complete Eastwards – just one more stop. First retrace your steps towards those two 4B reminds us that the semi-detached houses in England. After the first four gloriously various 5B was sketched from Christ Church’s outstanding tower and Georgian semi-detached houses and at the corner carefully cross the road to the fountain behind us was first erected near houses turn right past the Mansion House and cross the road above the Observatory Hill in 1830. The two brand spire that overlooks us. large central green. Zigzag down the tarmac paths and take a seat at the bench the site of the second turnpike house new semi-detached houses on the left point of the Triangle opposite the Merchant Venturers’ Hall, rejoining The terrace to the right of centre is Harley before the obelisk. which had been demolished in 1867. had been completed just a year or two the avenue’s broad path. At the top of the avenue bear left this time Place, one of several fine terraces of the The elegant landau has just come up the earlier. You can see them almost straight 1780s marking that first phase of the gentle incline of Bridge Valley Road, built around the hill until you see the playground and the bench beside it. ahead. They are the first and comprehensive in 1822 and vital to Clifton’s subsequent earliest of that remarkable development of Georgian development. The fountain was moved to sequence of detached and Clifton. Opposite is a its new site in 1988 after becoming a semi-detached mansions curving copse of trees. hazard to traffic at this alarmingly busy Sheep, May Blossom and snow on the Triangle, to be built over the next 25 April 1908, postcard (BRO43207.9.22.13 Almost certainly this junction. It is still in working order thirty years which you represents the temporary (October 2011). followed from the top of downs on the Sunday afternoon and Bridge Valley Road. Behind appropriation of the Downs Alderman Thomas Proctor’s fountain was evening... but to meet any extra demand, these houses were ancient quarries by the new residents who were erected to commemorate the “liberal gift my man takes out a number of half-pint or mines. The field name, Litfield, derives landscaping the land before their elegant of certain rights over Clifton Down made mugs.” In 1872, when the fountain was from lead field. To their right there is a new homes as if it was at the centre of an to the citizens of Bristol by the Society of completed, Proctor was living in the only gap awaiting Litfield House, the mansion urban square. Today, the problems and Merchant Venturers” under the Downs detached house overlooking the Triangle that so unusually bears the name of the conflicts of maintaining the Downs Act of 1861. More important, originally, – all the others are very grand semi- architect, Charles Dyer, and the date, somewhere between down land, park was its function as a drinking fountain. detached mansions. In 1874 he presented 1830, on its grand Greek portico. land and municipal park continue. Alderman Proctor, himself, stated that it it to the city for use as the mayor’s provided sufficient water for the Mansion House. You can see its white
“thousands who avail themselves of the conservatory from here. Manilla Hall, Clifton; engraving after a drawing by S.C.Jones, c.1835 (BCMAG K4594)
“Clifton Downs.” c.1910; postcard (Gordon Milward) The obelisk and the and empire. The obelisk was erected to 6 sarcophagus before you honour his friend William Pitt, Earl of The postcard does not In 1909 the manager of the Clifton were originally in the rear garden of the Chatham, architect of that empire and 5A depict the more famous Down Hotel, now the Victorian block Manilla Hall, the subject of this engraving the planner of the victorious campaigns and steeper rock slide which we passed of apartments at the end of Gloucester whose viewpoint was almost identical in which Draper triumphed. to yours. In 1883, soon after the house on the way up to the Observatory but a Place, complained that the “continual In 1766 the Merchant Venturers, owners was demolished and replaced by Manilla gentler slide that is now largely hidden to bleating” of sheep was annoying his of Clifton Down, resolved that “In an Road, these monuments were the right of the playground. The only guests. Within a decade the rights of the attempt to preserve the Clifton Down re-erected here. mature trees that can be seen in the Clifton Down commoners had lapsed and to prevent nuisances the Hall gladly postcard are part of a formal avenue – through lack of use and in 1925 grazing Manilla Hall had been built by General accepted the offer of Sir William Draper highly destructive from the archaeologists’ ceased altogether on the Downs. Sir William Draper with the £5000 prize to act as Conservator of Clifton Down.” point of view – that once led up through The absence of sheep and the advent of money he received from the East India Sir William was a fellow of King’s College, the ramparts to the hill fort. These may mechanised mowing, has led to the mass Company for his capture in 1762 of the Cambridge, but also an outstanding have been planted soon after the Downs of self-sown sycamore and ash trees that Spanish city of Manila in the Philippines. sportsman. He was chairman of the Act of 1861 or perhaps they dated from surround you; and to ivy, brambles and He erected the sarcophagus in memory committee that laid the foundations of about 1850 when the short-lived Clifton nettles. Better the bleating? of the officers and men of the regiment the modern rules of cricket and he Improvement Society erected a hundred Sheet 10 from the panorama of Clifton from Observatory Hill by T.L.Rowbotham, 1830; pen, ink and wash he had himself formed. Do read the would certainly have played cricket on (BCMAG Mb6428.10) Proctor’s Fountain and the Downs at the top of Bridge Valley Road, 1911; postcard (BRO43207.9.35.68) seats, planted trees and laid out paths. inscriptions – a moving history of India the Downs – in his day near Sea Walls. Written by Francis Greenacre; designed and produced by Naomi Winter, Bristol Design BD1787 BD1787 Design Bristol Winter, Naomi by produced and designed Greenacre; Francis by Written
N O R N T W H P O C D O Great T The title of the painting is In the foreground of West’s painting; N E Quarry O Bristol Zoo R P Fairyland T D the artist’s own and it was there are some sheep and some bushes O F 3D LI 1836 proudly made, for this was William West’s but no trees. Quarry boats rest on the R C T D
W C A O O very own viewpoint – one that he had, mud beneath Black Rocks and a paddle L R A L E Y E I himself, created. The Observatory had steamer belches its way down the river G R E H 4a,b T started as a corn windmill, erected with towards a square-rigged merchantman D R U
O G
OA A the permission of the Merchant Venturers coming up on the tide. Sea Walls reflects R
D
L C I E Drinking O in 1766. It may subsequently have the sun and in the far distance there is a C A D E A fountain C LL Clifton College 4 N become a snuff mill until 1777, when, glimpse of the Bristol Channel and the E E M N 1872 G O W
over-driven in a gale, the pivots caught Welsh hills. For at least the last half R E P O
E Mansion
H fire and it was burnt out. The tower century this spectacular view has been D N D F
T A House IE FTO I C D
became a picturesque ruin until 1828 denied to us. This winter, 2011/12, some O L L C A
R A D O
L C S when the Merchant Venturers granted judicious lopping and felling should make N R
Merchants O Y
D Y L L William West, a professional artist, a five- it available once again. E Hall A N A Redgrave LE L O V I G year lease to turn it into an observatory. L R G C Theatre R E A E
D E C
R L C V R P L S
E E C D I O R F O
E A W
FI T G O D
T I
D D N L CLIFTON I A View from the Giant’s Cave, 1837; watercolour by Edmund Gustavus Müller (BCMAG M993) O The Clifton turnpike seen from the Triangle looking down river, 1816; watercolour by Lt. Col. R R C L P A William Booth (BCMAG K191) B IV L C A R I PE F R
T K O In 1837 after two years’ house a large revolving telescope. Lt. Col. William Booth’s revolutionising the method and standards C
N A C AMP ROA R T excavation a 200-ft tunnel A successor to the original camera N D IF 3C viewpoint must have of road building began here. Essentially, D CL 4A R D Y
was opened running from beneath the obscura that West installed on top of the i N been very close to yours. The Colonel ‘Macadamisation’ involved ten inches of v O Christ Church e W G Y T Milestone r H K Observatory to the Giant’s Cave, a natural tower remains today and on a sunny day E R 1844-85 YV would not have misled us – you really small stones, very well compressed, laid E N P A V A R “Bristol 2” P O R cavity in the cliff face of St Vincent’s it can still delight us all. M N could once see the river from here. In his on well-drained subsoil with a camber to v E TO o NA LIF OA D C G Rocks. Today, if you stand back n E RAN In 1929 there were complaints careful drawing it can be glimpsed just to drain off rainwater. A very much smarter 3a,b,c,d D V within the cave, you will find D the left of the toll house. tollhouse with Doric columns at its Monument OA L about slot machines at the 6 G R Observatory A A that the view of Nightingale corners was erected here in 1823 1767 ILL E AN Observatory. William The charge of 2d for a horse and cart Hill M R Valley and Leigh Woods on immediately after the building of Bridge OA West’s descendants were Observatory C was very considerably more than a car’s T D the Somerset side of the Valley Road. It was about this time that H Obelisk LI D finally evicted in 1943, 5a,b A E O equivalent toll for crossing the Clifton Giants F R wc O 1768 gorge has hardly changed at R M ER the avenue itself was first planted. E T IM long after the now Cave O T Suspension Bridge, today. No wonder D G Drinking A R BRI S all. For this we are indebted 2a,b ST MO I L D N decrepit building had been that the gates were to be repeatedly O fountain L N The Arcade
to George Alfred Wills, who 29 N LA 1 L 1866 RT D requisitioned by the Home Guard. The Clifton 3 IL O broken down by protesters in the years B P P TH O presented much of Leigh Woods to the H L V W Merchant Venturers sold the property in Suspension N immediately following the erection of this O E National Trust in 1909. I N Bridge S S L 1977 with restrictive clauses concerning “From the Summit of the Observatory, Clifton”, 1834; detail of an oil painting by William West (BCMAG K8) I P M turnpike in 1727. The origin of the term O D EL L R N N FI L A In 1834 a new twenty-one year lease had the maintenance of access to the camera T D ‘turnpike’ can clearly be seen – the centre ES L
E L W L C ST MA C ER
H A allowed William West, who had earlier obscura and the Giant’s Cave. E LA T M post revolved in a very similar manner to W E E O P R Walk on along the path and descend through the hill fort’s ramparts to N ST R rebuilt the windmill tower, to extend the T E modern versions at football grounds. NIA A Clifton Library G W O I R E building substantially. He added a circular the Promenade avenue. Continue to the far end of the avenue, cross over 1a,b TO N E C In 1815 John Loudon McAdam was N CALED VI T room complete with a rotating dome to L S NT C very carefully by the bus stop and take a seat on the bench near the L ES SCE S appointed surveyor to the Bristol C E T N R R Avon Gorge RI C N S point of the Triangle close to the gothic fountain. O S P K E Turnpike Trust and his work of W E R D L Hotel I O R I L The new tollhouse on Clifton Down, 1823, lithograph A O Y A H G S D N L N A K A R Y O M S H O Y S I R H E N
L
L G
The postcard below Follow the pavement to your right along the grandest sequence of Rowbotham’s drawing It was Dyer who was later to complete Eastwards – just one more stop. First retrace your steps towards those two 4B reminds us that the semi-detached houses in England. After the first four gloriously various 5B was sketched from Christ Church’s outstanding tower and Georgian semi-detached houses and at the corner carefully cross the road to the fountain behind us was first erected near houses turn right past the Mansion House and cross the road above the Observatory Hill in 1830. The two brand spire that overlooks us. large central green. Zigzag down the tarmac paths and take a seat at the bench the site of the second turnpike house new semi-detached houses on the left point of the Triangle opposite the Merchant Venturers’ Hall, rejoining The terrace to the right of centre is Harley before the obelisk. which had been demolished in 1867. had been completed just a year or two the avenue’s broad path. At the top of the avenue bear left this time Place, one of several fine terraces of the The elegant landau has just come up the earlier. You can see them almost straight 1780s marking that first phase of the gentle incline of Bridge Valley Road, built around the hill until you see the playground and the bench beside it. ahead. They are the first and comprehensive in 1822 and vital to Clifton’s subsequent earliest of that remarkable development of Georgian development. The fountain was moved to sequence of detached and Clifton. Opposite is a its new site in 1988 after becoming a semi-detached mansions curving copse of trees. hazard to traffic at this alarmingly busy Sheep, May Blossom and snow on the Triangle, to be built over the next 25 April 1908, postcard (BRO43207.9.22.13 Almost certainly this junction. It is still in working order thirty years which you represents the temporary (October 2011). followed from the top of downs on the Sunday afternoon and Bridge Valley Road. Behind appropriation of the Downs Alderman Thomas Proctor’s fountain was evening... but to meet any extra demand, these houses were ancient quarries by the new residents who were erected to commemorate the “liberal gift my man takes out a number of half-pint or mines. The field name, Litfield, derives landscaping the land before their elegant of certain rights over Clifton Down made mugs.” In 1872, when the fountain was from lead field. To their right there is a new homes as if it was at the centre of an to the citizens of Bristol by the Society of completed, Proctor was living in the only gap awaiting Litfield House, the mansion urban square. Today, the problems and Merchant Venturers” under the Downs detached house overlooking the Triangle that so unusually bears the name of the conflicts of maintaining the Downs Act of 1861. More important, originally, – all the others are very grand semi- architect, Charles Dyer, and the date, somewhere between down land, park was its function as a drinking fountain. detached mansions. In 1874 he presented 1830, on its grand Greek portico. land and municipal park continue. Alderman Proctor, himself, stated that it it to the city for use as the mayor’s provided sufficient water for the Mansion House. You can see its white
“thousands who avail themselves of the conservatory from here. Manilla Hall, Clifton; engraving after a drawing by S.C.Jones, c.1835 (BCMAG K4594)
“Clifton Downs.” c.1910; postcard (Gordon Milward) The obelisk and the and empire. The obelisk was erected to 6 sarcophagus before you honour his friend William Pitt, Earl of The postcard does not In 1909 the manager of the Clifton were originally in the rear garden of the Chatham, architect of that empire and 5A depict the more famous Down Hotel, now the Victorian block Manilla Hall, the subject of this engraving the planner of the victorious campaigns and steeper rock slide which we passed of apartments at the end of Gloucester whose viewpoint was almost identical in which Draper triumphed. to yours. In 1883, soon after the house on the way up to the Observatory but a Place, complained that the “continual In 1766 the Merchant Venturers, owners was demolished and replaced by Manilla gentler slide that is now largely hidden to bleating” of sheep was annoying his of Clifton Down, resolved that “In an Road, these monuments were the right of the playground. The only guests. Within a decade the rights of the attempt to preserve the Clifton Down re-erected here. mature trees that can be seen in the Clifton Down commoners had lapsed and to prevent nuisances the Hall gladly postcard are part of a formal avenue – through lack of use and in 1925 grazing Manilla Hall had been built by General accepted the offer of Sir William Draper highly destructive from the archaeologists’ ceased altogether on the Downs. Sir William Draper with the £5000 prize to act as Conservator of Clifton Down.” point of view – that once led up through The absence of sheep and the advent of money he received from the East India Sir William was a fellow of King’s College, the ramparts to the hill fort. These may mechanised mowing, has led to the mass Company for his capture in 1762 of the Cambridge, but also an outstanding have been planted soon after the Downs of self-sown sycamore and ash trees that Spanish city of Manila in the Philippines. sportsman. He was chairman of the Act of 1861 or perhaps they dated from surround you; and to ivy, brambles and He erected the sarcophagus in memory committee that laid the foundations of about 1850 when the short-lived Clifton nettles. Better the bleating? of the officers and men of the regiment the modern rules of cricket and he Improvement Society erected a hundred Sheet 10 from the panorama of Clifton from Observatory Hill by T.L.Rowbotham, 1830; pen, ink and wash he had himself formed. Do read the would certainly have played cricket on (BCMAG Mb6428.10) Proctor’s Fountain and the Downs at the top of Bridge Valley Road, 1911; postcard (BRO43207.9.35.68) seats, planted trees and laid out paths. inscriptions – a moving history of India the Downs – in his day near Sea Walls. Written by Francis Greenacre; designed and produced by Naomi Winter, Bristol Design BD1787 BD1787 Design Bristol Winter, Naomi by produced and designed Greenacre; Francis by Written
The Downs History Trails No 2 A little background history START at Sion Hill look-out point Clifton and Durdham Downs: how has such an extensive and dramatic landscape that is so close to the centre of a great city survived open and free from development Start at Sion Hill look-out point will not refuse riding behind a man… and for so long? above the Avon Gorge Hotel; take numbers of what they call double horses For many centuries the tenants or commoners of the two medieval manors of Clifton a seat looking up the hill. are constantly kept for that purpose.” and Henbury had the right to graze their animals here. But by the mid-nineteenth Three ‘double horses’ are depicted. Clifton Down century grazing was declining as the city expanded and development pushed in at This seemingly bleak view On the top of the hill is the defunct the edges of the common land. Mines and quarries also scarred the Downs as well as 1A was drawn in September windmill, which was to become the the Avon Gorge. 1789 from an upper window of a newly Observatory thirty years later. Below the built lodging house in Sion Row, only just In 1856 the Society of Merchant Venturers, owners of Clifton Down since the late tower is a ruined building, just possibly “... for ever hereafter open out of your sight around the rising bend seventeenth century, promised “to maintain the free and uninterrupted use of the the remains of St Vincent’s Chapel which of Sion Hill. Clifton was then expanding Downs.” The following year Bristol City Council purchased two small properties in William Worcester recorded in 1480 rapidly partly at the expense of the Stoke Bishop, together with one of the few remaining commoner's rights to graze and which was still extant in 1625. and unenclosed...” declining Hotwell spa, immediately below animals on Durdham Down. In the spring of 1858 the City of Bristol turned out Any remaining traces would have been you at the river’s edge. sheep stamped ‘CB’, keeping alive the medieval rights of pasturage and making swept away in the 1830s during the further development more difficult. In 1793 Shiercliff's Guide tells us that construction of the approach road to the "Some ladies also take great delight in Clifton Suspension Bridge which springs Then, in equal partnership, the council and the Merchant Venturers promoted Detail of I.K.Brunel’s approved ‘Egyptian’ design for the Clifton Suspension Bridge, 1831; watercolour by riding upon Durdham Down… and the from the point just to the left of the ruins. The Clifton and Durdham Downs (Bristol) Act, 1861. This act allowed the council to Samuel Jackson and Auguste Charles Pugin (BCMAG K4077) best lady attending the Hot-well, if she purchase Durdham Down. It preserved the Downs for us all ‘for ever hereafter’. And it does not chuse to ride a single horse, set up the method of management that continues today: the Downs Committee, We are at the southern The first competition for the bridge, made up equally of councillors and Merchant Venturers under the chairmanship of 1B extremity of the commons held in 1829, was a fiasco. In the second the lord mayor. of Clifton Down. When William Vick, competition Brunel had to overturn the a Bristol wine merchant, died in 1754 committee's initial decision against him there was hardly a house to be seen from and then, having won, to get agreement Where to start: The nearest toilets: this spot. Vick’s will left £1000 in the care on the style of architecture that was to At Sion Hill at the look-out point above Are by the Clifton Suspension Bridge, of the Merchant Venturers to grow by clothe the engineering solution. Elegant the Avon Gorge Hotel, but you can join see map. compound interest until sufficient for Egyptian gateways topped with sphinxes at any point on the map. the building of a stone bridge from were selected. The towers were to be The Avon from Clifton Down, watercolour by Francis Danby, c.1822 (private collection) Further information: Clifton Down to Leigh Down – a flight covered in cast-iron plaques illustrating of inexplicable fancy, for such a bridge every phase of the bridge’s history How far and how long: Go to www.bristol.gov.uk/page/downs was then beyond the wit of man. and construction. it is 2.5 km long and takes about to download other trail leaflets on trees, It is 150 years since The Clifton and Durdham Downs (Bristol) Act, 1861 But by the end of the century iron was 90 minutes. It is almost all on birds, lichen and other subjects. Brunel died in 1859 and the bridge was secured the Downs as a place of recreation for us all – forever. This trail and revolutionising engineering and the tarmac paths. For educational visits, events, guided finally completed in 1864 to a much small but growing village of Clifton had a second trail exploring Durdham Down celebrate this anniversary and tours, news and volunteering go to the altered design and as a memorial to the become a building site. explore the rich and fascinating history of the Downs. How to get there: Avon Gorge and Downs Wildlife Project’s great man from his fellow engineers. By bus: 8, 9, 586 and 587; by train: the site: www.avongorge.org.uk or e-mail nearest station is Clifton Down Station, [email protected]; for the Walk on up the hill following the tarmac path that curves left and then 15 minutes walk away. Friends of the Downs and Avon Gorge The Downs email: [email protected]. right below the bridge’s abutment. Very carefully cross Suspension Bridge Road by the speed restriction signs and take the steep tarmac Committee View of the Windmill & Camp at Clifton…from my window at Mrs Rossignols…Septr. 12th 1789"; pen, ink and wash drawing by Samuel Hieronymous Grimm (BCMAG Ma 3701) path winding up Observatory Hill, stopping very soon at the first bench.
Walk on up the hill always keeping to the path at the edge of the gorge. The exact viewpoint of 1888, however, some plants were Samuel Hieronymous One contemporary guide implied that You are very close to The new road, which is so prominent in 2A Grimm’s drawing is a few rediscovered in the Avon Gorge 2B Grimm’s viewpoint was just quarrying was yet another exciting Continue past the Observatory and take a seat at the first bench 20 3B Francis Danby’s fenceless the watercolour, is depicted very shortly feet above you and you will be passing and a tale of pioneering conservation 15 metres to your left. He evidently spectacle for visitors and suggested that metres after you have enjoyed the information panel ‘Having a wild viewpoint. His watercolour allows us to before completion in 1822. The Old the spot shortly. The drawing’s inscription emerged. delighted in the two intrepid quarrymen the explosions and "the sound of time’. You have four ‘chapters’ here; do also wander and marvel at the sense something of the excitement and Hotwell House has still to be demolished is testimony to the fame that the Avon Isambard Kingdom Brunel had been on the right who appear to be sending crashing rocks running with thundering spectacular landscape around you. vision of the engineers who believed that so that the road could pass over its Gorge and the Downs have enjoyed warned by Mrs Glennie, wife of his rocks hurtling down the cliff towards the peel through the vale...re-echoing on they could span this vast space. It also foundations. The road continued along since the early sixteenth century for their principal engineer, of the destruction he old limekiln at the base of St Vincent’s every side of the surrounding cliffs... depicts the Hotwells Spa. In the centre the river and up what is now called wealth of rare wild flowers. was about to cause. Brunel then ordered Rocks. They may have been searching for make it most awfully sublime You have climbed into both the Old and the New Hotwell Bridge Valley Road to the Downs and The ‘autumnal Hiacinths’, which the artist his workmen to remove turf containing Bristol Diamonds, for which St Vincent’s and grand." 3A one of three ancient House stand side by side above the Clifton, providing much easier access by mentions, are now better known as bulbs of autumn squill to a safer and, Rocks had been camps at the highest points of the muddy banks of the Avon. The Old carriage at a gentler gradient than either autumn squill, Scilla autumnalis, and you evidently, almost inaccessible spot. celebrated since the Avon Gorge. These hill forts used the Hotwell House was built in 1696 and its Granby Hill or Park Street allowed. The can see it in the special flowerbed at the sixteenth century. steep cliffs for defence, adding massive successor was completed in 1822. Portway was not to be built for another Today, the Avon Gorge is classed as one Clifton end of the bridge, created in 2006 The broken geodes or ramparts and ditches. Seyer’s map, The rebuilding was part of a valiant and one hundred years. of the top three botanical sites in England to display several of the Avon Gorge’s nodules filled with clear illustrated here, makes it easier to ultimately unsuccessful attempt by the and its exposures of carboniferous rarest plants. It was long believed that this but relatively soft recognise the remains of these Merchant Venturers to revive its declining limestone are of great geological interest. scarce plant had been obliterated by the quartz crystals were fortifications. The ramparts at Stokeleigh fortunes. The spa had become detached building of the Clifton Suspension Bridge, much used by Thomas Camp in Leigh Woods (top left of plan), from its clientele now mostly lodged at which springs from the projecting point Goldney in his grotto at have recently been largely cleared of the top of the hill in Clifton’s elegant on which the diminutive figures stand. In Goldney House in trees and shrubs by the National Trust new terraces. Clifton in the 1740s. and are now mightily impressive. They were also one of You will find that the banks of Clifton the most popular Camp, through which you are about to souvenirs of a visit to walk, are shallower and that they have the Hotwell Spa. become largely hidden under scrub within the last hundred years (bottom Near the limekiln right of plan). Burwalls Camp (bottom elegant visitors to left of plan) was largely destroyed in the the Hotwell can be 1860s following the completion of the seen perambulating Iron Age hill forts above the Avon Gorge; lithograph Clifton Suspension Bridge whose beneath a parasol, from Memoirs...of Bristol and its Neighbourhood by approach road ran through it. Revd. Samuel Seyer, 1821 apparently oblivious of the danger they are in. These hill forts were occupied in the centuries around 200 BC, the pre- Roman Iron Age. Whether they were part of a unified defensive system or were the strongholds of separate tribal units remains uncertain. It would have been earlier still, perhaps in the Bronze Age (c.2000–c.800 BC), that extensive felling of the woodland on the Downs “Projection of the S. Part of St Vincents Rock...abounding in autumnal Hiacinths / Sept. 17th 1789”; pen,ink St Vincent’s Rocks looking upriver towards Hotwells and Clifton, c. 1821; detail of watercolour by Francis Geode of ‘Bristol Diamonds’ “Chasm of St Vincent’s Rock, below the windmill...Aug 13th 1789”; detail of took place allowing both grazing and and grey wash by Samuel Hieronymous Grimm (BCMAG Ma3707) Danby (Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection) 150mm across pen, ink and wash drawing by S H Grimm (BCMAG Ma3711) cultivation to develop. Ramparts of Clifton Hill Fort c.1910, postcard (BRO43207.935.323)
N O R N T W H P O C D O Great T The title of the painting is In the foreground of West’s painting; N E Quarry O Bristol Zoo R P Fairyland T D the artist’s own and it was there are some sheep and some bushes O F 3D LI 1836 proudly made, for this was William West’s but no trees. Quarry boats rest on the R C T D
W C A O O very own viewpoint – one that he had, mud beneath Black Rocks and a paddle L R A L E Y E I himself, created. The Observatory had steamer belches its way down the river G R E H 4a,b T started as a corn windmill, erected with towards a square-rigged merchantman D R U
O G
OA A the permission of the Merchant Venturers coming up on the tide. Sea Walls reflects R
D
L C I E Drinking O in 1766. It may subsequently have the sun and in the far distance there is a C A D E A fountain C LL Clifton College 4 N become a snuff mill until 1777, when, glimpse of the Bristol Channel and the E E M N 1872 G O W
over-driven in a gale, the pivots caught Welsh hills. For at least the last half R E P O
E Mansion
H fire and it was burnt out. The tower century this spectacular view has been D N D F
T A House IE FTO I C D
became a picturesque ruin until 1828 denied to us. This winter, 2011/12, some O L L C A
R A D O
L C S when the Merchant Venturers granted judicious lopping and felling should make N R
Merchants O Y
D Y L L William West, a professional artist, a five- it available once again. E Hall A N A Redgrave LE L O V I G year lease to turn it into an observatory. L R G C Theatre R E A E
D E C
R L C V R P L S
E E C D I O R F O
E A W
FI T G O D
T I
D D N L CLIFTON I A View from the Giant’s Cave, 1837; watercolour by Edmund Gustavus Müller (BCMAG M993) O The Clifton turnpike seen from the Triangle looking down river, 1816; watercolour by Lt. Col. R R C L P A William Booth (BCMAG K191) B IV L C A R I PE F R
T K O In 1837 after two years’ house a large revolving telescope. Lt. Col. William Booth’s revolutionising the method and standards C
N A C AMP ROA R T excavation a 200-ft tunnel A successor to the original camera N D IF 3C viewpoint must have of road building began here. Essentially, D CL 4A R D Y
was opened running from beneath the obscura that West installed on top of the i N been very close to yours. The Colonel ‘Macadamisation’ involved ten inches of v O Christ Church e W G Y T Milestone r H K Observatory to the Giant’s Cave, a natural tower remains today and on a sunny day E R 1844-85 YV would not have misled us – you really small stones, very well compressed, laid E N P A V A R “Bristol 2” P O R cavity in the cliff face of St Vincent’s it can still delight us all. M N could once see the river from here. In his on well-drained subsoil with a camber to v E TO o NA LIF OA D C G Rocks. Today, if you stand back n E RAN In 1929 there were complaints careful drawing it can be glimpsed just to drain off rainwater. A very much smarter 3a,b,c,d D V within the cave, you will find D the left of the toll house. tollhouse with Doric columns at its Monument OA L about slot machines at the 6 G R Observatory A A that the view of Nightingale corners was erected here in 1823 1767 ILL E AN Observatory. William The charge of 2d for a horse and cart Hill M R Valley and Leigh Woods on immediately after the building of Bridge OA West’s descendants were Observatory C was very considerably more than a car’s T D the Somerset side of the Valley Road. It was about this time that H Obelisk LI D finally evicted in 1943, 5a,b A E O equivalent toll for crossing the Clifton Giants F R wc O 1768 gorge has hardly changed at R M ER the avenue itself was first planted. E T IM long after the now Cave O T Suspension Bridge, today. No wonder D G Drinking A R BRI S all. For this we are indebted 2a,b ST MO I L D N decrepit building had been that the gates were to be repeatedly O fountain L N The Arcade
to George Alfred Wills, who 29 N LA 1 L 1866 RT D requisitioned by the Home Guard. The Clifton 3 IL O broken down by protesters in the years B P P TH O presented much of Leigh Woods to the H L V W Merchant Venturers sold the property in Suspension N immediately following the erection of this O E National Trust in 1909. I N Bridge S S L 1977 with restrictive clauses concerning “From the Summit of the Observatory, Clifton”, 1834; detail of an oil painting by William West (BCMAG K8) I P M turnpike in 1727. The origin of the term O D EL L R N N FI L A In 1834 a new twenty-one year lease had the maintenance of access to the camera T D ‘turnpike’ can clearly be seen – the centre ES L
E L W L C ST MA C ER
H A allowed William West, who had earlier obscura and the Giant’s Cave. E LA T M post revolved in a very similar manner to W E E O P R Walk on along the path and descend through the hill fort’s ramparts to N ST R rebuilt the windmill tower, to extend the T E modern versions at football grounds. NIA A Clifton Library G W O I R E building substantially. He added a circular the Promenade avenue. Continue to the far end of the avenue, cross over 1a,b TO N E C In 1815 John Loudon McAdam was N CALED VI T room complete with a rotating dome to L S NT C very carefully by the bus stop and take a seat on the bench near the L ES SCE S appointed surveyor to the Bristol C E T N R R Avon Gorge RI C N S point of the Triangle close to the gothic fountain. O S P K E Turnpike Trust and his work of W E R D L Hotel I O R I L The new tollhouse on Clifton Down, 1823, lithograph A O Y A H G S D N L N A K A R Y O M S H O Y S I R H E N
L
L G
The postcard below Follow the pavement to your right along the grandest sequence of Rowbotham’s drawing It was Dyer who was later to complete Eastwards – just one more stop. First retrace your steps towards those two 4B reminds us that the semi-detached houses in England. After the first four gloriously various 5B was sketched from Christ Church’s outstanding tower and Georgian semi-detached houses and at the corner carefully cross the road to the fountain behind us was first erected near houses turn right past the Mansion House and cross the road above the Observatory Hill in 1830. The two brand spire that overlooks us. large central green. Zigzag down the tarmac paths and take a seat at the bench the site of the second turnpike house new semi-detached houses on the left point of the Triangle opposite the Merchant Venturers’ Hall, rejoining The terrace to the right of centre is Harley before the obelisk. which had been demolished in 1867. had been completed just a year or two the avenue’s broad path. At the top of the avenue bear left this time Place, one of several fine terraces of the The elegant landau has just come up the earlier. You can see them almost straight 1780s marking that first phase of the gentle incline of Bridge Valley Road, built around the hill until you see the playground and the bench beside it. ahead. They are the first and comprehensive in 1822 and vital to Clifton’s subsequent earliest of that remarkable development of Georgian development. The fountain was moved to sequence of detached and Clifton. Opposite is a its new site in 1988 after becoming a semi-detached mansions curving copse of trees. hazard to traffic at this alarmingly busy Sheep, May Blossom and snow on the Triangle, to be built over the next 25 April 1908, postcard (BRO43207.9.22.13 Almost certainly this junction. It is still in working order thirty years which you represents the temporary (October 2011). followed from the top of downs on the Sunday afternoon and Bridge Valley Road. Behind appropriation of the Downs Alderman Thomas Proctor’s fountain was evening... but to meet any extra demand, these houses were ancient quarries by the new residents who were erected to commemorate the “liberal gift my man takes out a number of half-pint or mines. The field name, Litfield, derives landscaping the land before their elegant of certain rights over Clifton Down made mugs.” In 1872, when the fountain was from lead field. To their right there is a new homes as if it was at the centre of an to the citizens of Bristol by the Society of completed, Proctor was living in the only gap awaiting Litfield House, the mansion urban square. Today, the problems and Merchant Venturers” under the Downs detached house overlooking the Triangle that so unusually bears the name of the conflicts of maintaining the Downs Act of 1861. More important, originally, – all the others are very grand semi- architect, Charles Dyer, and the date, somewhere between down land, park was its function as a drinking fountain. detached mansions. In 1874 he presented 1830, on its grand Greek portico. land and municipal park continue. Alderman Proctor, himself, stated that it it to the city for use as the mayor’s provided sufficient water for the Mansion House. You can see its white
“thousands who avail themselves of the conservatory from here. Manilla Hall, Clifton; engraving after a drawing by S.C.Jones, c.1835 (BCMAG K4594)
“Clifton Downs.” c.1910; postcard (Gordon Milward) The obelisk and the and empire. The obelisk was erected to 6 sarcophagus before you honour his friend William Pitt, Earl of The postcard does not In 1909 the manager of the Clifton were originally in the rear garden of the Chatham, architect of that empire and 5A depict the more famous Down Hotel, now the Victorian block Manilla Hall, the subject of this engraving the planner of the victorious campaigns and steeper rock slide which we passed of apartments at the end of Gloucester whose viewpoint was almost identical in which Draper triumphed. to yours. In 1883, soon after the house on the way up to the Observatory but a Place, complained that the “continual In 1766 the Merchant Venturers, owners was demolished and replaced by Manilla gentler slide that is now largely hidden to bleating” of sheep was annoying his of Clifton Down, resolved that “In an Road, these monuments were the right of the playground. The only guests. Within a decade the rights of the attempt to preserve the Clifton Down re-erected here. mature trees that can be seen in the Clifton Down commoners had lapsed and to prevent nuisances the Hall gladly postcard are part of a formal avenue – through lack of use and in 1925 grazing Manilla Hall had been built by General accepted the offer of Sir William Draper highly destructive from the archaeologists’ ceased altogether on the Downs. Sir William Draper with the £5000 prize to act as Conservator of Clifton Down.” point of view – that once led up through The absence of sheep and the advent of money he received from the East India Sir William was a fellow of King’s College, the ramparts to the hill fort. These may mechanised mowing, has led to the mass Company for his capture in 1762 of the Cambridge, but also an outstanding have been planted soon after the Downs of self-sown sycamore and ash trees that Spanish city of Manila in the Philippines. sportsman. He was chairman of the Act of 1861 or perhaps they dated from surround you; and to ivy, brambles and He erected the sarcophagus in memory committee that laid the foundations of about 1850 when the short-lived Clifton nettles. Better the bleating? of the officers and men of the regiment the modern rules of cricket and he Improvement Society erected a hundred Sheet 10 from the panorama of Clifton from Observatory Hill by T.L.Rowbotham, 1830; pen, ink and wash he had himself formed. Do read the would certainly have played cricket on (BCMAG Mb6428.10) Proctor’s Fountain and the Downs at the top of Bridge Valley Road, 1911; postcard (BRO43207.9.35.68) seats, planted trees and laid out paths. inscriptions – a moving history of India the Downs – in his day near Sea Walls. Written by Francis Greenacre; designed and produced by Naomi Winter, Bristol Design BD1787 BD1787 Design Bristol Winter, Naomi by produced and designed Greenacre; Francis by Written
N O R N T W H P O C D O Great T The title of the painting is In the foreground of West’s painting; N E Quarry O Bristol Zoo R P Fairyland T D the artist’s own and it was there are some sheep and some bushes O F 3D LI 1836 proudly made, for this was William West’s but no trees. Quarry boats rest on the R C T D
W C A O O very own viewpoint – one that he had, mud beneath Black Rocks and a paddle L R A L E Y E I himself, created. The Observatory had steamer belches its way down the river G R E H 4a,b T started as a corn windmill, erected with towards a square-rigged merchantman D R U
O G
OA A the permission of the Merchant Venturers coming up on the tide. Sea Walls reflects R
D
L C I E Drinking O in 1766. It may subsequently have the sun and in the far distance there is a C A D E A fountain C LL Clifton College 4 N become a snuff mill until 1777, when, glimpse of the Bristol Channel and the E E M N 1872 G O W
over-driven in a gale, the pivots caught Welsh hills. For at least the last half R E P O
E Mansion
H fire and it was burnt out. The tower century this spectacular view has been D N D F
T A House IE FTO I C D
became a picturesque ruin until 1828 denied to us. This winter, 2011/12, some O L L C A
R A D O
L C S when the Merchant Venturers granted judicious lopping and felling should make N R
Merchants O Y
D Y L L William West, a professional artist, a five- it available once again. E Hall A N A Redgrave LE L O V I G year lease to turn it into an observatory. L R G C Theatre R E A E
D E C
R L C V R P L S
E E C D I O R F O
E A W
FI T G O D
T I
D D N L CLIFTON I A View from the Giant’s Cave, 1837; watercolour by Edmund Gustavus Müller (BCMAG M993) O The Clifton turnpike seen from the Triangle looking down river, 1816; watercolour by Lt. Col. R R C L P A William Booth (BCMAG K191) B IV L C A R I PE F R
T K O In 1837 after two years’ house a large revolving telescope. Lt. Col. William Booth’s revolutionising the method and standards C
N A C AMP ROA R T excavation a 200-ft tunnel A successor to the original camera N D IF 3C viewpoint must have of road building began here. Essentially, D CL 4A R D Y
was opened running from beneath the obscura that West installed on top of the i N been very close to yours. The Colonel ‘Macadamisation’ involved ten inches of v O Christ Church e W G Y T Milestone r H K V Observatory to the Giant’s Cave, a natural tower remains today and on a sunny day E R 1844-85 Y would not have misled us – you really small stones, very well compressed, laid E N P A V A R “Bristol 2” P O R cavity in the cliff face of St Vincent’s it can still delight us all. M N could once see the river from here. In his on well-drained subsoil with a camber to v E TO o NA LIF OA D C G Rocks. Today, if you stand back n E RAN In 1929 there were complaints careful drawing it can be glimpsed just to drain off rainwater. A very much smarter 3a,b,c,d D V within the cave, you will find D the left of the toll house. tollhouse with Doric columns at its Monument OA L about slot machines at the 6 G R Observatory A A that the view of Nightingale corners was erected here in 1823 1767 ILL E AN Observatory. William The charge of 2d for a horse and cart Hill M R Valley and Leigh Woods on immediately after the building of Bridge OA West’s descendants were Observatory C was very considerably more than a car’s T D the Somerset side of the Valley Road. It was about this time that H Obelisk LI D finally evicted in 1943, 5a,b A E O equivalent toll for crossing the Clifton Giants F R wc O 1768 gorge has hardly changed at R M ER the avenue itself was first planted. E T IM long after the now Cave O T Suspension Bridge, today. No wonder D G Drinking A R BRI S all. For this we are indebted 2a,b ST MO I L D N decrepit building had been that the gates were to be repeatedly O fountain L N The Arcade
to George Alfred Wills, who 29 N LA 1 L 1866 RT D requisitioned by the Home Guard. The Clifton 3 IL O broken down by protesters in the years B P P TH O presented much of Leigh Woods to the H L V W Merchant Venturers sold the property in Suspension N immediately following the erection of this O E National Trust in 1909. I N Bridge S S L 1977 with restrictive clauses concerning “From the Summit of the Observatory, Clifton”, 1834; detail of an oil painting by William West (BCMAG K8) I P M turnpike in 1727. The origin of the term O D EL L R N N FI L A In 1834 a new twenty-one year lease had the maintenance of access to the camera T D ‘turnpike’ can clearly be seen – the centre ES L
E L W L C ST MA C ER
H A allowed William West, who had earlier obscura and the Giant’s Cave. E LA T M post revolved in a very similar manner to W E E O P R Walk on along the path and descend through the hill fort’s ramparts to N ST R rebuilt the windmill tower, to extend the T E modern versions at football grounds. NIA A Clifton Library G W O I R E building substantially. He added a circular the Promenade avenue. Continue to the far end of the avenue, cross over 1a,b TO N E C In 1815 John Loudon McAdam was N CALED VI T room complete with a rotating dome to L S NT C very carefully by the bus stop and take a seat on the bench near the L ES SCE S appointed surveyor to the Bristol C E T N R R Avon Gorge RI C N S point of the Triangle close to the gothic fountain. O S P K E Turnpike Trust and his work of W E R D L Hotel I O R I L The new tollhouse on Clifton Down, 1823, lithograph A O Y A H G S D N L N A K A R Y O M S H O Y S I R H E N
L
L G
The postcard below Follow the pavement to your right along the grandest sequence of Rowbotham’s drawing It was Dyer who was later to complete Eastwards – just one more stop. First retrace your steps towards those two 4B reminds us that the semi-detached houses in England. After the first four gloriously various 5B was sketched from Christ Church’s outstanding tower and Georgian semi-detached houses and at the corner carefully cross the road to the fountain behind us was first erected near houses turn right past the Mansion House and cross the road above the Observatory Hill in 1830. The two brand spire that overlooks us. large central green. Zigzag down the tarmac paths and take a seat at the bench the site of the second turnpike house new semi-detached houses on the left point of the Triangle opposite the Merchant Venturers’ Hall, rejoining The terrace to the right of centre is Harley before the obelisk. which had been demolished in 1867. had been completed just a year or two the avenue’s broad path. At the top of the avenue bear left this time Place, one of several fine terraces of the The elegant landau has just come up the earlier. You can see them almost straight 1780s marking that first phase of the gentle incline of Bridge Valley Road, built around the hill until you see the playground and the bench beside it. ahead. They are the first and comprehensive in 1822 and vital to Clifton’s subsequent earliest of that remarkable development of Georgian development. The fountain was moved to sequence of detached and Clifton. Opposite is a its new site in 1988 after becoming a semi-detached mansions curving copse of trees. hazard to traffic at this alarmingly busy Sheep, May Blossom and snow on the Triangle, to be built over the next 25 April 1908, postcard (BRO43207.9.22.13 Almost certainly this junction. It is still in working order thirty years which you represents the temporary (October 2011). followed from the top of downs on the Sunday afternoon and Bridge Valley Road. Behind appropriation of the Downs Alderman Thomas Proctor’s fountain was evening... but to meet any extra demand, these houses were ancient quarries by the new residents who were erected to commemorate the “liberal gift my man takes out a number of half-pint or mines. The field name, Litfield, derives landscaping the land before their elegant of certain rights over Clifton Down made mugs.” In 1872, when the fountain was from lead field. To their right there is a new homes as if it was at the centre of an to the citizens of Bristol by the Society of completed, Proctor was living in the only gap awaiting Litfield House, the mansion urban square. Today, the problems and Merchant Venturers” under the Downs detached house overlooking the Triangle that so unusually bears the name of the conflicts of maintaining the Downs Act of 1861. More important, originally, – all the others are very grand semi- architect, Charles Dyer, and the date, somewhere between down land, park was its function as a drinking fountain. detached mansions. In 1874 he presented 1830, on its grand Greek portico. land and municipal park continue. Alderman Proctor, himself, stated that it it to the city for use as the mayor’s provided sufficient water for the Mansion House. You can see its white
“thousands who avail themselves of the conservatory from here. Manilla Hall, Clifton; engraving after a drawing by S.C.Jones, c.1835 (BCMAG K4594)
“Clifton Downs.” c.1910; postcard (Gordon Milward) The obelisk and the and empire. The obelisk was erected to 6 sarcophagus before you honour his friend William Pitt, Earl of The postcard does not In 1909 the manager of the Clifton were originally in the rear garden of the Chatham, architect of that empire and 5A depict the more famous Down Hotel, now the Victorian block Manilla Hall, the subject of this engraving the planner of the victorious campaigns and steeper rock slide which we passed of apartments at the end of Gloucester whose viewpoint was almost identical in which Draper triumphed. to yours. In 1883, soon after the house on the way up to the Observatory but a Place, complained that the “continual In 1766 the Merchant Venturers, owners was demolished and replaced by Manilla gentler slide that is now largely hidden to bleating” of sheep was annoying his of Clifton Down, resolved that “In an Road, these monuments were the right of the playground. The only guests. Within a decade the rights of the attempt to preserve the Clifton Down re-erected here. mature trees that can be seen in the Clifton Down commoners had lapsed and to prevent nuisances the Hall gladly postcard are part of a formal avenue – through lack of use and in 1925 grazing Manilla Hall had been built by General accepted the offer of Sir William Draper highly destructive from the archaeologists’ ceased altogether on the Downs. Sir William Draper with the £5000 prize to act as Conservator of Clifton Down.” point of view – that once led up through The absence of sheep and the advent of money he received from the East India Sir William was a fellow of King’s College, the ramparts to the hill fort. These may mechanised mowing, has led to the mass Company for his capture in 1762 of the Cambridge, but also an outstanding have been planted soon after the Downs of self-sown sycamore and ash trees that Spanish city of Manila in the Philippines. sportsman. He was chairman of the Act of 1861 or perhaps they dated from surround you; and to ivy, brambles and He erected the sarcophagus in memory committee that laid the foundations of about 1850 when the short-lived Clifton nettles. Better the bleating? of the officers and men of the regiment the modern rules of cricket and he Improvement Society erected a hundred Sheet 10 from the panorama of Clifton from Observatory Hill by T.L.Rowbotham, 1830; pen, ink and wash he had himself formed. Do read the would certainly have played cricket on (BCMAG Mb6428.10) Proctor’s Fountain and the Downs at the top of Bridge Valley Road, 1911; postcard (BRO43207.9.35.68) seats, planted trees and laid out paths. inscriptions – a moving history of India the Downs – in his day near Sea Walls. Written by Francis Greenacre; designed and produced by Naomi Winter, Bristol Design BD1787 BD1787 Design Bristol Winter, Naomi by produced and designed Greenacre; Francis by Written