Fact 91: The Grey Friars and the Black Death
Today the solitary reminder of the brave Grey Friars who nursed Bristol through its worst calamity is a fancy logo on an ugly office building. It is a poor memorial to men who sacrificed themselves for Bristol. The Greyfriars building on Lewin’s Mead stands on the site of an ancient friary which was the home of monks who did all they could when the Black Death brought its ghastly toll to Bristol in 1348.
The few-sufficient Friars had a friary surrounded by a small holding of orchards, vegetable gardens and other food-producing areas outside the city wall in their quiet community stretching from Lewin’s Mead to the Kingsdown slopes. When the Black Death struck, they saw their clear mission to help the 10,000 folk of Bristol.
This plague, so called because of the dark splotches it caused on the skin of its victims, created havoc in Bristol, the first British city to be overwhelmed by a fatal illness which cut a scythe through Asia and Europe. Almost half the entire population of the crowded, insanitary little city that was olden-day Bristol died in the plague but the good Friars ignored all dangers to tend victims and give them a Christian burial. The churchyards could not cope with the thousands of bodies so plague burial grounds were dug. One, by Temple Church, off Victoria Street, covered half an acre.
Fact 92: The dark tale behind Bristol’s prettiest ceremony
Each year they troop down to the ancient crypt of St Nicholas Church, boarders at Bristol’s oldest girls’ school in their charming bonnets and capes and carrying lighted tapers. They are pupils from Red Maids School in Westbury-on-Trym enacting an annual ceremony which dates back hundreds of years... and which recalls the days when Bristol was at its most violent. The ceremony is the highlight of Founder’s Day in honour of the merchant John Whitson, Mayor and Member of Parliament for Bristol and the man who left money in his will for a school for 40 local orphan girls who ‘should go and be apparelled in red cloth’ and be taught to read and sew.
But the ceremony doesn’t commemorate any conventional anniversary like Whitson’s death or the founding of the school. It marks his attempted murder on November 7th, 1626. Whitson, as a Bristol worthy, was called in to settle a dispute between two people and one of them, Christopher Callowhill, became so enraged that he rushed at Whitson and stabbed him in the face with a dagger.
Whitson survived this terrifying attack and lived another two years before dying after a fall from a horse. And it is the murder attempt, not his death, that the girls of Red Maids give thank for each year as they hold their beautiful candlelit service in costume each November.
Fact 93: America... the continent named after a Bristolian?
Did America gets its name from the Bristol merchant who paid the lion’s share of funding the successful transatlantic voyage by John Cabot in 1497? Yes, say proud Bristolians, and it is certainly true that the man who did the most to raise the financial wind to speed Cabot and the Matthew west was one Richard Ameryk, merchant and collector of customs dues in the city.
The name Ameryk is Welsh - Ap Meuric, or Son of Maurice - and Richard lived just outside the city at Lower Court, Long Ashton. His married daughter Joan Brook has a memorial brass at St Mary Redcliffe Church. Cabot, the story goes, raised the flags of England and St Mark when he made his historic landfall in the New World on Midsummer’s Day, 1497 . . . and he named the land after his chief benefactor.
There is another school of thought, that the name America comes from one Amerigo Vespucci, another transatlantic voyager and a boastful character who claimed he had beaten Cabot to the mainland and so had the right to name the new land after himself. A school of thought that patriotic Bristolians will dismiss as fanciful nonsense, of course.
Fact 94: The pub with the most rules
The Coronation Tap in Clifton is famous throughout the land as Britain’s premier cider house. Back in the 1960s it was as well known for its list of rules as it was for its cider. And that was all down to Mine Host with the Most Rules m Bristol.
The late ‘Dick’ Bradstock ruled the Tap with a rod of iron, insisting that cider’s poor image as a troublemakers’ tipple could be improved in a well-disciplined house. And discipline is what he imposed with his Six Nos.
NO use of the word ‘Scrumpy’. Any would-be drinker demanding scrumpy would be instantly shown the door. The correct request was for ‘dry’ or ‘rough’, ‘medium’ or ‘sweet’, depending on your taste.
NO large drinks for women. The request for a pint for a woman meant a walk. . . to another pub. Strictly halves for ladies.
NO moving furniture. If a stool was moved from an empty table to a crowded one, Mr Bradstock shot out from behind the bar to bellow
‘OUT!’
NO signs of affection. Even married couples took care to ensure that they did not so much as hold each other’s hands in Mr Bradstock’s sight.
NO spirits. Ask for a whisky and soda and you risked the wrath of the landlord. Cider and beer only!
NO scruffy hair/clothes. When wearing mock uniforms ~ when Sgt Pepper came into style, it most definitely was NOT a fashion Mr Bradstock approved.
But he held few grudges, allowed prodigals to return after their misdemeanours and the Coronation Tap flourished.. . despite those NOs.
Fact 95: America the beautiful. . . thanks to William Penn
The bad news of Bristol’s links with the New World are well known. Slavery, exploitation and greed are by-words for the trade Bristol skilfully exploited in the heyday of early colonialism. The good news gets less of a show - particularly how Bristol’s William Penn invented the American garden.
Today English and European gardens rule the most, but there’s a rapidly growing interest in America’s classic gardens. . and for that you can thank the tree and flower-loving Mr Penn. William was son of Admiral Sir William Penn, a leading figure m the Civil War who helped restore Charles II to the throne. William, by contrast, was a peaceful creature and when his father died, the King, who owed the Penns a fortune, traded land for cash. . . 47,000 acres of American land. William and his Quaker community sailed over to America to make their own new colony, Pennsylvania.
William was so keen on gardens that on founding Pennsylvania in 1682 he declared, ‘Let every house be placed in the middle of its plot so there may be ground on each side for gardens or orchards or fields.’ It was a revolutionary idea from a man brought up in overcrowded Bristol... and he didn’t stop there. A few years later came the edict, ‘Every owner of a house should plant one or more trees before the door that the town may be well shaded from the violence of the sun.’ The garden city had arrived. . . thanks to a Bristolian.
Fact 96: The trickiest five miles of all
It’s just live miles from Bristol City Docks to the Severn at Avonmouth but there wasn’t a sea captain of old who didn’t fear that journey. The twisting route to the estuary has one of the highest tides in the world. The brimful, beautiful Avon in its gorge setting rapidly becomes an ominous ships’ graveyard when the waters fall to reveal the mud-banked dangers below.
The most famous of the Avon’s countless victims was the Demerera, built in Bristol as a paddle steamer in 1851 and then only second to the s.s. Great Britain as the world’s largest ship. She was launched on September 27th and was towed by tug from the City Docks on November 10th to have her engines fitted in Glasgow.
The tide was ebbing fast and she had barely passed the then unfinished Clifton Suspension Bridge when she became well and truly stuck in the mud. The great ship blocked the busy entrance to Bristol docks as she swung across the river and huge crowds gathered to watch the frantic operation to get her safely afloat and so re-open the port.
They got her off in the end, but the Demerera was declared a loss by her underwriters. But the creator of Bristol’s biggest marine traffic jam won her place in history - she was re-fitted with sails, was re-named the British Empire and so became the world’s largest sailing vessel.
Fact 97: Clifton Rocks Railway
There’s an optimistic piece of graffiti on the rusty gates of the old Clifton Rocks Railway. It reads: Re-opening soon. Well, maybe, the cynics might say. But here, hidden by the cliff faces of the Avon Gorge, is one of late Victorian England’s most fascinating railways lines... and a fabulous tourist attraction in its day.
This 45 degree, four-car furnicular line was built to link Clifton with the important steamer, rail and tram connections below, on the site of the present Portway. It opened on March 11th, 1893 and was an instant success. On the opening day 6,220 people went up and down the line and in the first year the passenger figures reached 437,492.
The railway was a huge tourist attraction and on Bank Holidays it regularly carried more than 1,000 an hour. Its busiest day of all came on July 5th, 1913 when the Royal Show was staged on the Downs. That day it carried 14,300 people. There were lovely stations at each end to greet passengers as they rose or fell on a clever water balance system. . . the railcars’ tanks were filled at the upper station with enough water to raise the opposite cars below. The tanks were emptied below and the water pumped up to the top station and so on. Neat, efficient and energy saving.
But the opening of the Portway in the 1920s and the disruption of the tram, steamer and rail connections killed off the line’s trade and, in 1934, the railway was shut down. The vault of the tunnel remains virtually intact, a sleeping beauty of Victorian invention which could, perhaps, be revived. There have been attempts.
Fact 98: The flamboyant Priory
Take that famous walk up towards the Clifton Suspension Bridge past the Avon Gorge Hotel and you can’t fail to notice one of Bristol’s most flamboyant homes, St Vincent Priory in Sion Hill. With its soaring windows and extraordinary ornaments, it looks as if it must be the home of a larger-than-life character.. . and it certainly has been over the years.
The Gothic revival house was built in the early nineteenth century and legend has it that the site has some monastic background. One refers to a religious sanctuary in caves below today’s building. It was home to confidence trickster Tom Provis in the mid-nineteenth century. He had an unsuccessful claim to be the rightful heir to the great Ashton Court estate across the Avon and was transported to Australia for his pains.
In the 1960s the Priory was bought by colourful artist George Melhuish who, after letting the place to students for a few years, took over the place himseW opened itto the public and took great pride in announcing that his was the smallest private home open to the public in Britain. When George Meihuish died in 1985, he left the five-storey house to the Bristol City Art Gallery with the proviso that it opened to the public to display his paintings and furniture. Bristol reluctantly turned down his offer and the Priory was sold.
Fact 99: Brennus, Bristol’s legendary founder
Two seated statues flank lovely old St John’s Gate, the gateway into walled Bristol which Queen Elizabeth I rode through on her visit to the city. They were statues of legendary, far, far earlier rulers of this land, the brother-kings Brennus and Belinus, sons of King Malmutius and Queen Conwenna.
When the old king died, the kingdom was divided. Brennus inherited all the lands north of the Humber, Belinus everything to the south. Brennus was furious, declaring he’d been given a raw deal with his gift of all the roughest, most mountainous and least fertile lands while lucky Belinus had been awarded the best, richest parts of the kingdom. The argument became so bitter that the brothers raised armies and were about to fight when their mother stepped in and separated the two sides. A deal was struck and the two decided to share all the lands.
Brennus is the legendary character the fables say founded Bristol, or The Place Of The Bridge. It’s also said that the Romans later called the settlement at the junction of the Avon and the Frome - today’s Bristol -Caer Bren or the City of Brennus. Whatever the truth of the tale, there’s one historical howler you can spot if you take a look at their Bristol statues. The brothers supposedly lived centuries before Christ.. . but both carry crucifixes.
Fact 100: Bristol’s Rolling Stones
Mick and Keith, Brian and Bill and, of course, Charlie were already world-famous as the Rolling Stones, pop music’s favourite rebels, by the autumn of 1965. They’d just celebrated their biggest hit of all, ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ when word came through that a Bristol band were claiming that they, not Jagger, Richards, Jones, Wyman and Watts, were the original Rolling Stones.
And it was all too true. Bristol’s Rolling Stones were the three Stone brothers who’d formed their own skiffle band at the height of the Lonnie Donegan era and played gigs like the Bristol Press Ball in 1957. Skiffle came from American blues music which often featured light travelling heroes described as rolling stones, so it was a good title.
The washboard group had changed their name to the Stone Brothers to avoid confusion when Mick, Keith and co. sprang to fame after taking their name from bluesman Muddy Waters’ classic ‘Rolling Stone’, but the matter still rankled. ‘We have no desire for the Jagger Stones to change their name. We only want to establish that the Bristol Stones are entitled to the name and were the first Rolling Stones,’ the group announced.
Top rock promoter/agent Tito Bums, then representing Mick, Keith and the rest chortled, ‘This would make a wonderful film.’ The Bristol Stones even consulted lawyers, but the matter ended quietly and amicably. . . and almost no one remembers the original Rolling Stones.
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