THIS WEBSITE WAS FIRST CREATED OCT 2001 BY PAUL TOWNSEND LOCAL HISTORIAN AND TOUR GUIDE
Copyright 2008 'www.gertlushonline.co.uk'. All Rights Reserved
Memories of the old seaport City of Bristol England - This website contains stories and archive photographs which present a survey of life in Bristol and its districts over the past 100 years. This website recalls houses and public buildings, shops, factories, schools and pubs that have vanished or been changed almost beyond all recognition. The Photographs show changing types of transport and fashion, and the developing character of streets and districts as they took on the form that is familiar today.
Bristol, like other large cities in Britain, has greatly changed over the years. Old buildings have been pulled down for modernisation, and roads have been widened. Athough some areas are completely unrecognisable, some features still remain, and are a focal point, especially for younger Bristolians who don't remember the 1950s, let alone the pre-war days.
Bristol between the years c.1900-2006 is brought to life with striking visual impact in these photograph albums. Buildings, people, fashions, customs, families, children, shops, warehouses, factories, streets now long forgotten or barely remembered, flattened by concrete or bulldozed out of sight are now collated in a readily accessible reference source.
This will be most valuable for social, regional and urban historians, geographers and all those with an interest in the past as seen through photographic evidence.
Please feel free to add your own comments to each photograph and Album Guestbook or Website Forum. Warning this site is huge so why not bookmark for another visit.
No part of this site may be published, broadcast, copied or otherwise reproduced or distributed.
The Changing Face of Bristol & its People -
Two photographs depicting the same view, one taken a period of time after the other, give us an instantaneous impression of ' then ' and 'now '. Some comparisons show old views that are instantly recognisable, where the natural passage of time and technology has made only slight changes.
Other views illustrate major change and it can be difficult to comprehend that an area has altered so much. Unless you have lived through a change and can remember what was there before, there is often no reason to question what building was replaced or how the area functioned in the past.
Wednesday 10th July 1968 — Disaster Day. A date that lives vividly in the memories of those who experienced the Great Flood of ‘68. Heavy rain had been falling for most of the day and by mid-evening, accompanied by thunder and lightning had reached torrential proportions in Bristol and North Somerset. It was in fact, the worst rainstorm to hit the area in over half a century with more than five inches of rain falling in several districts in less than 24 hrs.
To view this story in full click on links
The city's changing look has been chronicled, from the destruction of the wartime blitzes and sweeping clearances to make way for great new roads to the rise of the swish 1950s department stores, towering 1960s office blocks and glittering glass palaces of the 1980s.
Chilling moments too, of course. Grim murders to be reported and the doubts that crept over Bristol when the last person was hanged at Horfield prison.
The depression of the 30s, the War Years, the post-war rebuilding era, the You've Never Had It So Good 1950s, Swinging sixies, unsure 70s and Margaret Thatcher era of the 1980s.
Its all here in photograph and story
Warning this site is vast
I have created a huge amount of information on this website
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It took just one night for the history of centuries to vanish in flames and rubble. Sunday, 24th November 1940 was the night that the war came to Bristol, and when that terrible night was over, little remained of some of Bristol's favourite buildings and streets. 'The City of Churches had in one night become the city of ruins.'
Please feel free to add your own comments to the Guestbook or Forum
Please feel free to add your own comments to the Guestbook or Forum
Memories of Bristol over the past 100 years including 3000 photographs on-line
This non commercial 'hobby' site, has been evolving and expanding on line since 2001 and is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only.
The Changing Face of Bristol England & its People
Bristol’s Lost Pubs is a record of Bristol’s pubs and publicans from the mid-eighteenth century up until the middle of the twentieth century, the information on these pages has been gleaned from trade directories and census returns.
The Bristol & Avon Family History Society was formed in 1975 to encourage the study of family history and genealogy in Bristol and what was then the County of Avon. It aimed to provide contacts between members, and to assist one another with problems encountered during research work.
