image above: The premises of S. Veals & Son at No.3 Tower Hill. (c.1930) shop, demolished in the 'fifties road building programme - later moved to Old Market.
3 S. Veals & Son. - Gunsmiths, Cutlers
This company was established in 1846 at these premises as a gunsmiths and cutlers. The premises survived the blitz and, after the war, Samuel Veals (fourth generation of the family) would have nothing to do with guns; on the suggestion of the MP Ernest Bevin, who was a friend of his father, they then sold fishing tackle. The cutler business moved to Easton (but closed in 1970), the Tower Hill shop concentrating on fishing tackle. Following redevelopment of the area, the company moved to Old Market Street in 1976 (where it still trades today) and the premises at Tower Hill were demolished in 1978.
A gunsmith in the city was Samuel Veals, who began his gun-making and gunsmith’s business in Tower Hill in 1846. The family stayed there for 130 years, until the business moved, because of redevelopment, to its present home in Old Market.
The early business was a cutler’s as well, and in the basement of the Tower Hill shop (where once, during a building project, a stone tomb, a Bristol farthing and an 18th century sundial were found) there was knife-grinding and sharpening equipment. When the Victorian owners of the new villas in Redland and Cotham needed their spacious lawns cared for, they bought lawn-mowers, and then took them to Veals to be repaired and sharpened; thus a new kind of business grew up.
Until the Second World War, Veals sold guns and lawn-mowers and repaired both, as well as sharpening scissors and cut-throat razors. But when a member of the fourth generation of the family, Sev Veals, came back from the war, he announced that he never wanted to see another gun in his life, and his father’s friend, MP Ernie Bevin suggested that Veals should start stocking fishing-tackle instead. They started with a few cartons and from this grew into the largest fishing-tackle firm in the region.
The lawn-mower side of the business went to Easton, but closed in 1970, and the guns disappeared after the last war. Five generations of the Veals family have now worked in the firm.
Image Left: The Veals brothers shared the popular passion for bicycling. in the early 1900s.
As well as socialising, a major interest for Victorian men was sport, and in particular, shooting. Between 1782 and 1850, there were some 50 gunsmiths and gun-sellers trading in Bristol, but only one of them has survived, George Gibbs of Perry Road. The firm was founded, probably in 1830, by James and George Gibbs, in Redciff Street, then moved to Thomas Street, Corn Street and Clare Street later in the century.
Many of Bristol’s gun firms dealt in the export market to the colonies, and George Gibbs supplied rifles for big game hunting in the 1860s; they were famous for designing the Farquaharson Metford .505 big game rifle which was exported all over the world, even as far as Russia and Japan, as well as Africa
and India. This enonnously successful rifle elicited the following testimonial, one to make today’s conservationists blench.
“On the 5th of this month while on safari, I was called at 5.30 a.m. as a native informed me that elephant were raiding his intame garden, so I rushed out, picked up the .505, and in half an hour came to a herd of seven elephants in the long grass just clear of the village. I got up to within 12 yards of them and dropped two, the rest made off and I followed, and owing to there being natives around, did not go far, and in a few minutes I came up to them again and dropped four more; only one was left and he returned to the first two, and I shot him at 6—7 yards. I think this is the finest christening any rifle ever had. Seven elephant before breakfast!”
This heartless account was written in Kenya in the 1920s. Not surprisingly, George Gibbs, son of the founder, was a crack shot who represented England and who once scored 57 consecutive bullseyes in front of King Edward VII in 1909. His father and uncle had both joined the Bristol Rifle Volunteers when they were re-formed in 1859 (Bristol’s 1798 Volunteers were the first in the country), and a craze for rifle drill and shooting-ranges resulted; when the Drill Hall was built at the top of Park Street in 1861, there were 1,000 members in 10 companies, and the firm of George Gibbs had the contract to supply them, since he was an expert designer and manufacturer of guns and maker of ammunition.
His son George became Colonel of one of the Volunteer Corps, and he would, as a birthday treat, let his little daughter head the parade on a big horse. The Colonel, a keen sportsman, started the Clifton Beagles, and was a friend of W.G. Grace. He once became the talk of the town for shooting down an effigy of a parliamentary candidate, hung by pranksters from the Suspension Bridge.
4 Blakes Medical Stores Ltd. - Surgical Goods Dealers
This company also had premises at St Nicholas Street in the 1930s. The Tower Hill premises survived the war, with the business continuing to trade here into the 1960s. See Photo Album for Blakes Catalogue
5 A.G. Payne. - Sewing Machine Dealer/Repairer
The building survived the war and other businesses traded here into the 1950s.
6-7 A.R. Martin. - Draper
These premises survived the war, with other businesses trading from here into the 1950s.
8 Prince of Wales. - Public House
Landlady: Mrs L.A. Francis Brewery: H. & G. Simmonds (formerly Rogers Ales, whose brewery was only a few yards away in Jacob Street). - Bristol's first beirkeller was set up in this pub in the 1930s, as a large number of its customers were of German, Austrian and Hungarian origin (a few months earlier a beirkeller had opened in Soho, the first in Britain). Simmonds Brewery supplied various foreign beers. Postwar, the bierkeller theme was copied for many successful years at one of the bars in the Hawthorns Hotel, Clifton. The building survived the war and the pub continued trading into the mid-1970s when the area was redeveloped.
Churchyard of St Philip and St Jacob's Church
Central Health Clinic
(See Below)
12 K.B.W. Lundie. - Fruiterer
11 Mrs L. Grant. - Milliner
10 A.T. Poeton & Son (Tower Plating Works) Electroplaters
This company was established in 1899. These premises survived the war and the company traded here until approximately 1963 when they moved to Whitehouse Street, Bedminster. They then moved to Gloucester, where they still trade today.
9 Mrs C. Rogers. - Newsagent
British Home Stores
This was an alternative entrance to the premises, the main frontage being in Castle Street. This building was erected in 1934 and on the upper floor of the building which existed prior to this was the 'Palais de Dance' (or Astoria Dance Hall), where many Bristol people met their future spouse!
Central Health Clinic
The clinic was a new purpose-built building which opened on 9 July 1937 under the control of the City of Bristol Department of Health. It formed an essential part of the replacement of several unsatisfactory premises in Bristol, this becoming the main clinic with several smaller health centres serving the outlying areas of the city (in 1937 health centres had been built in Bedminster, Speedwell and on The Portway. Southmead was in the course of construction and another was planned for Brislington).
This site was chosen as it was easily accessible from most parts of the city, especially by public transport (tram and bus). It was an island site covering 1,940 square yards and cost £56,300 to build. While the main entrance was in Passage Street, it was usually referred to as the Tower Hill clinic. The ground and first floors covered most of the site, the second floor only the part fronting Marybush Lane and the third floor was the caretaker's flat.
Services provided by the clinic included: - Maternity and child welfare Treatment of minor ailments - Dental treatment - Specialist services (i.e. eye; ear, nose and throat; rheumatic; heart conditions; orthopaedic and artificial pneumothorax) - Chest problems - Artificial sunlight treatment - X-ray department - Dispensary - Office facilities for outdoor nursing staff and medical officers.
There were seven different entrances at ground floor level, each with a name above the door (e.g. School Children, Women Patients, Dispensary) - these names still exist today.
The premises survived the war and in the early 1950s the building on the opposite side of Marybush Lane was obtained (previously occupied by F.H. Lloyd as dining rooms) and used as a staff canteen. The main building still exists today, basically as it was when built in 1937, the building on the opposite side of Marybush Lane now belonging to the headquarters of Avon Ambulance Service.
The City of Bristol Department of Health was responsible for the clinic's services until the re-organisation of the National Health Service in 1974, and by the mid-1980s relocation of the services was considered with the intention of eventual closure. However, this did not occur and today the clinic still provides many of the services it did in 1937 — the welfare of ladies and children, family planning, a library providing health promotion literature and offices.
