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The Downs History Trails No 1 A little background history Continue along the joggers’ path (or the tarmac path which is also a The postcard’s viewpoint The Downs shepherd was to complain How did such a large and dramatic landscape that is so close to the centre of a cycle route) running parallel to Stoke Road. Go past the two benches B2 was probably between that the Clifton Cricket Club cut the grass great city remain open and free from development for so long? close together to the third bench facing north (B1 and B2 on the map). you and the Seven Sisters – and drove away the sheep, but ultimately the three forlorn pines you it was the refusal of the Downs For many centuries the tenants or commoners of the two adjoining medieval can see in the distance to Committee to permit the manors of Clifton and had the right to graze their animals on Clifton the north-west. They building of a permanent Durdham Down Down and Durdham Down. But by the mid-nineteenth century grazing was mark the site of one of pavilion, forbidden under declining as the city expanded and development pushed in at the edges of the the vast quarries on the the terms of the Downs Act, common land. Mines and quarries also scarred the Downs. Downs that were filled that led to the club’s move to “... for ever hereafter open In 1856 the Society of Merchant Venturers, owners of , promised “to in around 1870. Henbury in 1930. maintain the free and uninterrupted use of the Downs.” The following year On the far left of the postcard Sheep also got in the way of golf City Council purchased two small properties in , together with one of is the marquee of the Clifton Cricket Club balls and there were reports of injuries in and unenclosed...” the few remaining commoners’ rights to graze animals on Durdham Down. In the beside Saville Road and there is a 1906. had set up a nine- spring of 1858 the City of Bristol turned out sheep stamped ‘CB’, keeping alive the considerable crowd nearby. It was here in hole course in the 1890s on either side of medieval rights of pasturage. It is 150 years since The Clifton and Durdham Downs (Bristol) Act, 1861 1870 that Dr W.G.Grace played in Ladies Mile, but there were complaints of Gloucestershire’s earliest first-class match near misses and the use of the course was secured the Downs as a place of recreation for us all – forever. This trail and Then, in equal partnership, the council and the Merchant Venturers promoted against Surrey. restricted to odd hours, necessitating a second trail exploring the Promenade and Observatory Hill celebrate this The Clifton and Durdham Downs (Bristol) Act, 1861. This act allowed the council to purchase Durdham Down. It preserved the Downs for us all ‘for ever hereafter’. notices hammered into trees. anniversary and explore the rich and fascinating history of the Downs. And it set up the method of management that continues today: the Downs Committee, made up equally of councillors and Merchant Venturers under the Where to start How far and how long chairmanship of the lord mayor. At the café on Stoke Road by the Water It is 3.6km long and takes about Sheep sheltering off Stoke Road, Ladies Mile in the distance, c.1910; postcard by Fred Little (BRO3207.9.35.17) Tower in the centre of the Downs, but 90 minutes. It is all on the flat; some START at the café on Stoke Road you can join at any point on the map. paths can be muddy and the grass can A hundred years ago you the growth of scrub on many of the be wet. Loos and don’ts As you leave the café turn sharp estates. In a charter of 883 AD, the site B1 would have been almost inaccessible slopes along the The nearest toilets are by the Water Further information right along the worn joggers’ path of the three stones at your feet is called surrounded by sheep – over fifty sheep . can be seen in this postcard of about Tower (disabled and baby-changing) and Go to www.bristol.gov.uk/page/ for a few yards to the clump of ‘Sweordes Stan’ (sword stone) and the The extent of grazing declined in 1910. It was the sheep that had ensured at Sea Walls, see map. Please do not park downs for further history and to site of a surviving parish boundary stone the nineteenth century and in 1925 three stones. the survival of the Downs. The tenants of on the grass; no barbecues. download other trail leaflets on trees, at the top of Walcombe Slade leading it ceased altogether on the Downs. down to the the two medieval manors of Clifton and birds, lichen and other subjects. For Mere stones: a line of these The University of Bristol, the only How to get there river is called Henbury could pasture their animals educational visits, events, guided tours, carved stones march across owner of commoner’s rights still By bus: 1, 8, 41, 42, 54, 55, 99, 586, and A ‘Eowcumb’, here, a right that had been carefully news and volunteering go to the Avon the Downs. They are parish boundary possessing sheep, maintains these 587 all run past the Downs. the valley of managed for centuries to avoid Gorge and Downs Wildlife Project’s site: markers and most date from around ancient rights by grazing sheep By train: the nearest station is Clifton the yew. over-grazing. www.avongorge.org.uk or e-mail 1800. Here, one is inscribed WP for periodically on the Downs. Down Station, 10 minutes walk away. [email protected]; for the Sheep, especially, maintained the Westbury Parish and there was once CP The trees on Ladies Mile in the distance Friends of the Downs and Avon Gorge open grassland characteristics of this for Clifton Parish on the opposite side. are Huntingdon Elms planted around email [email protected]. limestone down land. They controlled The parish boundary was also the 1880. Dutch Elm disease led to their Cricket and badminton on Durdham Down, 1911; postcard (BRO 43207.9.35.367) the growth of self-sown seedlings such boundary between the two medieval replacement in 1980 by the young as ash and sycamore and of other manors of Henbury and Clifton and thus Limes that you can see today. The Downs also between Durdham Down and invasive species and they prevented Committee Clifton Down. Earlier still the same Mere stones by Stoke Road 2011 boundary divided two Anglo-Saxon

Cross the busy Stoke Road behind you with care and head for the Continue south-west at right angles to the bench, crossing over the Continue south-west towards Sea Walls, the cliff edge, to the bench by On to Sea Walls itself and the spectacular views up the Avon Gorge to right hand of the two benches by the rather haphazard circle of young tarmac path and then passing through the avenue of trees to the bench the next tarmac path overlooking the Plateau. the Clifton Suspension Bridge and down river to the Bristol Channel ash trees. just beyond the three ash trees. and the Welsh hills. Take a seat to the left of the information panels. Monsieur Tetard would have One local reporter tried vainly to About ten metres before you watercolour. The outline of the quarry flown over our heads. match the occasion: “On he sped, over reached the bench you will can still be traced today for it was to be E C We can tell that this postcard rugged rocks and cliffs... to the have crossed the tapering end of a low filled in with good Avon mud – rich photograph is a composite image for Suspension Bridge. Here a picture was grass-covered bank running east-west alluvial soil that produces greener grass the crowd is milling about on the take- presented which will live long in the for 100m. Below this slight ridge is the than the paler and thinner down land off area, oblivious of the box kite above. memory of those who saw it – the Roman road which ran between Portus turf that surrounds it. The aeroplane was inserted later. But the wonderful bridge and the aeroplane as Abonae, the Roman port at Sea Mills, The filling in of the three substantial great excitement of the event is gems of modern science in a natural and Aqua Sulis, Bath. If you visualise the quarries on the Downs and many smaller conveyed; the deception is justified. setting of unrivalled beauty...” You may continuing line of the road you will see ones was an early priority of the new be reminded of Concorde’s final flight that it skirts Bristol to the north – In November 1910 Sir George White Downs Committee. Great improvements over the bridge and Observatory on understandably, for Bristol did not yet organised these spectacular flying to the Floating Harbour and its 26 November 2003. exist. The road may date from around displays on the Downs to draw attention approaches provided the huge quantities 50 AD. to his new company, The Bristol and Until 1847 the main cricket pitch on the of spoil required. A special tramway was Colonial Aeroplane Company, and its Downs was in front of us and it would Turning in the opposite direction and built in 1867 to bring the spoil up the Detail of a poster advertising the Clifton and Bristol Races on the Downs, May 1st & 2nd 1833 box kites built at to a have been here that Bristol’s earliest looking south-east towards Ladies Mile, face of the Avon Gorge with a steam (private collection) French design. recorded match was played in 1752 there was once the enormous quarry winding-engine at the top on the edge of between a Bristol and a London XI. that is so dramatically recorded in the the Downs. The race course probably Football was established on the circled our viewpoint. Downs in the 1880s soon after the D Sea Walls, c.1910; postcard (Gordon Millward) But despite the reputation of the fine coming of the trams to the bottom of turf of the Downs, serious horse racing Blackboy Hill. The Downs League was would have been complicated by the formalised in 1905 and it now has over The wall at Sea Walls was Proctor in 1869, was financed by private thinness of the soil above the limestone fifty clubs in four leagues, all of which F originally built by John Wallis subscription in the 1870s. Its stark white rock. However, it was probably the play on the thirty-two pitches on the in 1746 for the safety of visitors to the surface shows that it had a crushed stone growth of Clifton and Redland that Downs – an unrivalled statistic and, on a fashionable spa when riding on (macadamised) surface, not yet tarred. engineered the end of the races. Saturday afternoon in the winter, a most the Downs. It was capped with blocks of Today, you may regret the noise from the The residents of Redland had colourful sight. iridescent black slag from Bristol’s brass Portway opened in 1922. But imagine complained of the "very great evils" industries. Further to your left, you will instead the echoing explosions of the resulting from both horse racing and see that the original capping blocks have quarrymen, the warning canon shots boxing as early as 1792 and the last often been reused. from the larger merchant vessels races were held in 1838. A guide book of 1793 noted that for negotiating the bends, the bellowed Wrestling, cockfighting and ‘foot Hotwells visitors: “The usual morning orders to the straining towboat men, running’ are also all recorded as taking ride is round Wallis’s wall on Durdham or, a century on, the roar of paddle place on the Downs in the earlier Downs, where horses and carriages are steamers and the chugging of tugs, eighteenth century. By the early to be seen as in Hyde-park”. There was and finally by the 1860s the whistling twentieth century there was organised then no road – carriages drove straight and rumbling from the trains on both rugby, lacrosse, hockey and even mixed Pembroke Hockey Club, 1913-14; postcard M. Tetard in Flight on Durdham Downs, 1910; postcard (BRO 43207.9.35.49) across the down land turf. The building sides of the Avon Gorge. It was seldom, Quarry to the west of the junction of Ladies Mile and Stoke Road; watercolour by William Arnee Frank, hockey, as we see here, as well as the (BRO43207.37.10.2) c.1862 (BCMAG K6317) of Circular Road, proposed by Alderman if ever, quiet. most popular sport of all, football. Trail 1 - v3 _Layout 1 03/11/2011 10:42 Page 2

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W A Z SNEYDYESN D PARKRPAD K U ES D RD E DurdhamDurdham LLodgeodgdgge H Please look at the information panels to your right. Then walk east, 1 2 SE A Retrace your steps through the gate. Continue along the path to the L B B T W (Old(Oldd Halt)H llt) M B up river, along Sea Walls and continue as the path turns north-east O Peregrine Watch point – your next chance of a view across the gorge. U O E E P D Z A U EA E R along the edge of the Gully. 20 yards before the road bends sharply to R NUN H LLE Z R Soon after rounding the bend, you will cross from Durdham to Clifton OAD NLENNL S Y E O W A T K D VEV L O O “Sweordes“Sweordes StanStan””des RRD E R the right, turn right just after the litter bin and go through the goat gate. E RD A LY D L K Down and to your left and right, you may spot the mere stones marking B E (883 AD)AD) O The EV E I U N D H V R A O T Y S W O Glen the boundary. Note, also, the discreet fencing that steers the joggers OOO W D H O A D G E R D L E LA D C away from bee orchids and other rarer plants. L Z . StarttStar EA R R L WWaaterater TToTowerower O O C K A A K D CafeCaffee N Hospitalal O L L L IL Sheepeep WCWC H ttrtroughoughugh D

ZE EA E KL DurdhamDururdham OC R DoDownwn D 1 BakersBak Road 1862 ADA RaceR e coursecac coursee keeers R O ClifCliftonftton 2 R B Ro L (1718-1838)8-1838)) oad 186 L A y DDoownwn CK 2 1862 E B RER O T Y WCCW Circular RoadRCir oadcular NTN H H (1875-77) dar ry I I sh E D GHG L ish CEC A H L F ParishParish boundboundary O S 5 K R T W AD E RO TheT e V H A I R T LA DumpsDuDumummmpsps R CU LG E IR E L C G B A

BBlaBlack RRockockk R D D WWaallis’sallis’s WWaWallall E A I QuarryQuQuarrua ryy PP RO K E (1746) U L L R S RA A Overlooking the Gully, 1913; postcard (BRO43207.37.10.2) R P R Formerormer roadrF totooad O O Riv W N e 4 O A r StokeokSt e Bishop shop h D A T v (pr(pree 1746) 6) ) G The Avon from Clifton Down, 1829; oil painting by James Baker Pyne (BCMAG K585) o IN The postcard view looks and ivy and the young growth of trees n L WalcombealcW ombe Slade QuarryyQuarr L G along the side of the Gully and shrubs that we want to control so “Eow“Eow Cumb” E James Baker Pyne’s painting This artistic licence was unwittingly P QuarryQuarr (filled)(filled)y W towards the rocky promontory on which that they do not shade out the O D FieldFieldd systemsystem hangs in Bristol’s Museum anticipating the work of the Planting and

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you are now standing. Only the concrete exceptionally rare plants of the Avon T O W HURL and Art Gallery. Today, the artist’s Thinning Sub-Committee of the Downs QuarQQuarryu rrrryy R E

bases of the popular benches visible in Gorge. Some clearance preceded the A Line of RomanR D roadroadoman ROAD E R C viewpoint is obscured by trees and dense Committee, which, forty years later in the Y R L R the photograph survive before the goats’ arrival and their job is now to I D Y A J SurvivingSurvivingL sectionsection of RomanRoman roadroadoman E L LE undergrowth. You can come closest to it at 1870s, pursued a program of M E S QuarrQuarryryy iinfill I S impenetrable wall of scrub along control re-growth. U F P 3 ParishParish boundaryboundary the far right of the Peregrine Watch point, beautification. Many alien shrubs and ttrramwayammway C S N A S which you walked. R E I T (1867-80)67 ) I just before the trees begin. trees, including Austrian Pines were Below you, in the middle of the valley, is a OW Walk routerW outealk D J

oodsWeigh LLeigh WoodsoodsWeigh C D D A A If you are very lucky you may spot one of tower. It is one of two ventilation shafts A O O planted to the annoyance of most modern 4 L 1 St Johns School (1851) R H Pyne has captured the soft, warm light of 6 O the six goats that were released into this for the mile-long train tunnel beneath the R S N ecologists. In recent years some felling and 7 CLIFTONUriah Thomas MemorialO FountainFountainB (1904) a gentle summer's evening. To improve 1 2 F O S clearance has been undertaken to prevent newly fenced area of the Gully in June Downs. This branch line opened to goods 4 R A on the site of the poundU D forf straystr y animalsanimalsaor N the composition, he invented a group of A E R THT UCHESS RD the shading out of the gorge’s many very 2011. They are wild goats descended traffic in 1877 and linked main line E O H P B ivy-clad pines, for in 1829 there were no 3&4 VentilationtilaenV tion towerstow forfor railwayrrers aailwor y tunnel (1877)A from animals brought from northern services with the earlier Bristol Port and N I N E E rare plants and to retrieve some of the N M D W such trees – nor trees of any kind – along H O A 5 Milestone “To“T Too Bristol 2” India to France in the eighteenth century. Pier Railway, which ran from its former B spectacular views. The surviving later O R V M D E R the cliff edges to frame his view and to T I R nineteenth-century pine trees, whether Contrary to belief, goats are highly terminus in the Avon Gorge below the N H NUENNU O L O W E UUE E link foreground, distance and sky. O C K S A selective feeders, preferring brambles Clifton Suspension Bridge, to . T O E E R D native or alien species, are now regarded GrGreateeat IF L Bristol T R ROAD C E R O S as part of the history of the Downs. QuaQQuarryarrryy ZZoooo O T A IN S R A D A O D S A L L

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Please look at the Peregrine Watch information panel before heading Continue north-east towards the Turn sharp right and walk thirty Stop at the highest point by the bench backing onto The Dumps. A passionate plea for a There were both rickshaw and pony rides (north-east) across the grass at right angles to the road. Cross Ladies water tower to the middle of the metres to the joggers’ path and L ‘Peoples’ Park’ was made in available. In 1973 an elderly lady recalled Mile carefully to the open area, where zoo visitors are permitted to park precision-planted circle of five then continue north-east again. 1871. It declared: “You will say we have being pulled round the Downs “by a at certain times of year, to the bench on the far left side. There is a young ash trees. Soon you should be able to see the Clifton and Durdham Downs, but these smiling, fleet-footed Chinese boy”. are mainly for rich people who can afford But the donkey stand was the source of small hawthorn behind it. railway tunnel’s other ventilation to live in that neighbourhood: it would repeated complaints for over fifty years – You are standing in the middle tower below to your right. Stop take us an hour’s walking, after the hard mostly on behalf of the donkeys. Both of a roughly rectangular field of J briefly at the tarmac path. toil of the day is over, to get to these donkey boys and braying donkeys were Iron Age or Roman date (c.300 BC – beautiful spots, and then another to finally banished in 1927. 400 AD). You crossed the field’s This tarmac path follows the line of a get home...”. boundary – a low bank of turf-covered Today, the problem of balancing the road laid across the Downs by William lime-stone rubble – just a few yards And then the trams came. There were demands of local residents and the Baker in 1862. Essentially, the road was back. You will cross another similar horse-drawn trams to the bottom of residents of Bristol and beyond – of for the convenience of the bank in a moment. Your Blackboy Hill by 1875, then electric trams sharing and preserving this remarkable residents of . position is marked ‘J’ on to the top, as we see here, by 1900. amenity, remains. The Downs are also The Downs Committee, the map on which the balanced, precariously perhaps, between some of whose A ‘speakers’ corner’ developed that lasted uneven black lines the open down land that they once were members lived in this into the 1960s. There were open-air identify other ancient and the municipal urban park that they new and leafy suburb, religious and political meetings. In 1908 field boundaries. should not become. The better we unwisely contributed Annie Kenny organised a suffragettes’ rally understand their past, the better we will On the map notice to the cost. addressed by Christobel Pankhurst that is The Jubilee Fair, 1935; postcard (BRO 43207.22.12.29) manage their future. also the filled-in quarry The public rightly and said to have attracted 10,000 people. to your right along whose lip vehemently objected The fascist Oswold Moseley spoke here in you are about to walk. It was below this and the road was re-turfed at the In 1935 the sounds of the made Bristol an independent county the late 1930s. quarry near the top of Pembroke Road, committee’s entire expense. In 1881 the K steam carousel’s fairground and city. Queen Elizabeth II’s visit was May Trees on the Downs, c.1910; postcard (BRO43207.9.35.339) once called Gallows Acre Lane, that a footpath was laid. organ would have easily reached you preceded by a catastrophic downpour. gibbet stood. It was sometimes Continue north-east keeping the here, for this traditional fair celebrating The organising company went bankrupt, The flowering of the hawthorn the 1930s. But with no sheep to maintain occupied by those who had committed the twenty-fifth year of George V’s unable to pay the reinstatement fees of pitted ground of The Dumps to I trees in May was once one of the level browsing line that the postcard robberies on the Downs and was last reign took place nearby opposite £1500 per acre of damaged turf. the most popular features of the Downs. illustrates so well, ivy, ash, elder and used in 1783 to hang Shenkin Protheroe your right. the reservoir. Barrage balloons, anti-aircraft guns and Numerous postcards illustrate this and sycamore could grow below the for the murder of a drover. Stories The Bath and West of forty-one stone cairns to deter enemy for many years signs were erected in hawthorn and a dense ivy-laden clump quickly spread that he descended from Lead, iron, manganese and calamine Agricultural Society, today known as the aircraft from landing were set up on the April prohibiting the picking of could form. The mowers are then the gibbet at midnight every night and were all mined on the Downs in the Royal Bath and West Show, first held a Downs at the outbreak of World War II. May blossom. It is the tree that unable to penetrate it and the stalked through Clifton. Such was the seventeenth and eighteenth century, show on the Downs in 1863. The There was a tank repair depot near Sea is most commonly mentioned autumn winds sometimes blow alarm that his body was cut down but only this area known as the Dumps substantial profit that it made in 1874 Walls and part of the Downs became a as a boundary marker in it over. A single tree becomes and buried. remains as a reminder of this industry. resulted in the massive drinking fountain military vehicle park, which was greatly Anglo-Saxon charters and it is an ever-expanding copse, Earlier still it was probably near here that on Stoke Road by the water tower. extended after Clifton College became ideally suited to down land. It rich in wildlife and a vital food two Mendip miners were “stifled by the headquarters of the U.S First Army. belongs here, although almost all source, but the hawthorn, favourite smoake” while digging “for tynne and The biggest event of all was in 1973 those that we see were probably planted of the winter visitors such as the Fieldfare lead” in 1574. when 450,000 people visited ‘Bristol after 1861. and Redwing, is lost. As you walk on you 600’ celebrating the 1373 charter that will see every stage of the process with Hawthorns have declined sharply in the exception of the first – the single recent years. Sheep and the scythe were One final stop: continue north-east in the direction of the wooden bus shelter, hawthorn with browsing line. Tram terminus on the Downs at the junction with Stoke Road, c.1905; postcard (BRO43207.9.35.133) succeeded by mechanised mowing in stopping well short of it at the bench by the path. BD1787 Design Bristol Winter, Naomi by produced and designed Greenacre; Francis by Written